A Dealer in Non-Intoxicating Beverages: Mr. F.W. Langlois of Barre

By Sydney Washburn, 2025 Geiger Fellow

It’s easy to imagine picking up any big-name soda brand in grocery stores or gas stations now, but nestled in Barre, Vermont, one local soda manufacturer named F.W. Langlois used to supply the area with high quality soda water in the early 20th century. Granite City Bottling Works produced, bottled, and shipped each bottle themselves. 

A self-proclaimed “dealer in non-intoxicating beverages,” Langlois enjoyed a long career in soda manufacturing before opening Granite City Bottling Works in Barre in 1907. A five-man team manufactured the soda water in a space of just 30x70 feet,[1] producing everything from Birch Beer to Ginger Ale to common soda waters like Root Beer and Orangecrush.[2] But beyond producing and distributing drinks to the wider Vermont community, it was a company that provided a range of services throughout its tenure.  

Over the past several months as a Geiger Fellow for the Vermont Historical Society, I have been working with the Barre History Collection (BHC). The collection originally belonged to the Barre Historical Society in the Aldrich Public Library before being transferred into VHS’s care in 2014. 

One item caught my eye: an unassuming wooden crate, which stands out as an interesting example of Barre’s local industry. I had never heard about such a company operating in Barre around the turn of the century, and I decided to search for more answers about the crate, the company, and its proprietor, F. W. Langlois.

This shipping crate provides valuable information about city’s industry in the early 20th century. It held twenty-four bottles, and has the words “GRANITE CITY BOTTLING WORKS / REGISTERED BARRE VT” printed both inside and outside. It was made for Granite City Bottling Works in 1921 by a company out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. 

The Granite City Bottling Works utilized a number of new technologies and innovations during its time in business: Langlois ran ads to showcase the company’s trucks, bottling machinery, and their state-of-the-art refrigeration system. The company prided itself on appealing to the fashionable community: its advertisements prominently featured women in fine clothing and surrounded by expensive looking items. 

Langlois was also serious about getting both his crates and bottles returned: between July 1914 and 1919, he placed multiple notices in the city’s papers about his trademarked bottles and crates. 

Barre embraced Prohibition early, with the last bottle of liquor sold in June 1919, and the company continued to serve the Vermont community with innovative approaches to fun. In the following month, the city’s Fourth of July celebrations featured crates of Granite City soda water, a turnaround for Langlois, considering that in 1916, he applied for a liquor license and had a license to own and operate a pool table in the company’s building starting in 1907. Both the liquor and pool tables were regulated items because of concerns over morals and social delinquency.

Despite advertising their soda products in The Barre Daily Times, the company was constantly looking for additional sources of supplemental income: ads running between 1917 and 1922 in the paper’s “Talk of the Town” section offered up the use of their trucks for transporting furniture and to transport groups of 15-20 people for parties. The ads don’t provide information about the fees for their use, but the ads appear in local papers for an extended period of time. 

Rumors eventually spread that the company was shutting down in July 1922, but it remained in operation until Langlois went to Montpelier in 1924 for a discharge meeting, where Granite City Bottling Works was officially considered bankrupt.[3]

This well-used shipping crate was a central piece in the story of the Granite City Bottling Works as it served Barre for both libation and amusement during Prohibition, and shows a glimpse of the community as it moved into the modernity and convenience of the 20th century. While the company has been gone for more than a century, its memory lives on in the trademarked bottles and crate that VHS holds in its collection. 

1. “The Modern Bottling Plant,” Barre Daily Times, June 18, 1917, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ lccn/sn91066782/1917-06-18/ed-1/seq-8/
2. “One of the Joys of Outing,” Barre Daily Times, August 12, 1919, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91066782/1919-08-12/ed-1/seq-6/.
3. “Discharge Not Opposed,” Barre Daily Times, January 9, 1924, https://www.newspapers.com/image/660083118/?match=1&terms=F.W.%20Langlois.