Historical Society past president Catherine Mace presents “Nineteenth Century Bottling with the Monroes” at the Humboldt County Historical Society program meeting on Saturday, November 7 at 1:30 p.m. in the first-floor conference room of the Humboldt County Library, 1313 Third Street, Eureka. Admission is free and everyone is invited. The program will be followed by an election of Historical Society officers and directors, so members are particularly encouraged to attend and vote.
 
When the Monroe bottling business started in 1876, who would have thought it would spread to three towns and among four brothers in the next generation? Perhaps not even Monroe himself. Entrepreneur Alonzo Monroe had launched several businesses but various misfortunes had brought them to an end. But the bottling works, his final enterprise, would flourish until 1922.
 
In addition to producing the company’s signature Monroe Champagne Cider, from a secret recipe, and many other products, Monroe bottled Humboldt Artesian Mineral Water from a well on Humboldt Bay. Great value was put on the medicinal properties of such water during this era. The Monroe bottling business blossomed, bringing four Monroe brothers into bottling works in Eureka, Fortuna, and Ferndale. But why did only one brother end up with the secret Champagne Cider recipe?
 
Join Catherine Mace for a program about the Monroe bottling works—the products, the brothers, and the intriguing family back-story.      
 
For more information please contact the Humboldt County Historical Society at 445-4342, or visit www.humboldthistory.org <http://www.humboldthistory.org/>