Dining Chicago

George J. Schmitt, left, and Otis Hinckley.

In the 19th century, most Chicagoans drank untreated water from Lake Michigan. Before the reversal of the Chicago River in 1900, raw sewage flowed into the lake and the water was frequently contaminated with the effluvia of slaughterhouses and factories. Water-borne diseases, such as typhoid, cholera and dysentery, were common.

If you could, you bought bottled spring water at the drug store instead.

George J. Schmitt had come to Chicago from Beardstown, Ill., to train as a pharmacist. He was working as an assistant at the Gale and Block Drug Store in the Palmer House hotel when he noted that many health-conscious consumers buying bottled water at the store.

“My grandfather reasoned that when he was selling prescriptions that drinking spring water was a healthy adjunct to the medicine people purchased and that was the beginning of the partnership,” says Schmitt’s grandson, also George J. Schmitt, who served as CEO of Hinckley & Schmitt from 1965 to 1996.

In 1888, Schmitt partnered with Otis Hinckley to start a home-delivery service for bottled water. Hinckley had been a route deliveryman for Wausau Spring Water, bringing water from Wisconsin to retailers in Chicago by horse and wagon. Hinckley & Schmitt Bottled Water Co. bought water from White Rock Spring in Waukesha, Wis., and delivered it directly to customers. The partners also pioneered water-cooler service for offices.

Early Hinckley & Schmitt truck.

As business increased, they began using railroad tank cars to bring the water to Chicago bottling it at first on Franklin Street, and then at 420 W. Ontario St., a large bottling plant they built in 1911. This remained corporate headquarters until 1968.

Hinckley & Schmitt were both bottlers and distributors. As time went on, they added additional spring waters and beverages to their line, selling Mountain Valley Spring water from Hot Springs, Ark., and even Budweiser Beer before Prohibition. The firm was also a distributor for White Rock brand water in the famous brown bottle with the label picturing the nymph Psyche on the rock.

“The White Rock Brand was synonymous with the speakeasies in Chicago during Prohibition,” says Schmitt.

White Rock advertisement

Hinckley & Schmitt continued to sell and distribute many beverages through World War II. Until the mid-1950s, it sold as many soft-drink items as bottled water.

The Hinckley and Schmitt families remained involved with the company until the mid-1990s. Otis Hinckley’s one child was a daughter, Ethylin, who never married. She served on the board of directors until 1968, when the Schmitts bought her out. George’s son Victor took over the company on his father’s death in 1931, but he died five years later. Nevertheless, his son George rose to head the firm during the 1960s. Corporate lawyer James A. Peterson held the reins from 1936 to 1965.

In 1981, H&S was sold to Anjou International Co., a French firm. The second George J. Schmitt continued to helm Anjou’s Chicago-based Hinckley & Schmitt Bottled Water Group until 1996, by which time it was the third-largest bottled water company in the U.S., boasting annual sales of more than $175 million, bottling and distributing water in 22 states and Canada. Japan’s Suntory International Corp. bought H&S in 1996, and in 2003 partnered with the French Groupe Danone to form DS Waters of America as an umbrella for H&S and other regional water brands. Kelso & Co., an investment fund, acquired DS Waters two years later, and it is now based in Atlanta, with more than 25 bottling facilities across the country.

In Chicago, Hinckley bottles at its plant at 6055 S. Harlem Ave. in the Clearing neighborhood.

Now branded Hinckley Springs, the company’s spring water originates in an artesian spring in Rock Springs, Wis. (about 50 miles northwest of Madison), before being bottled in Chicago and distributed throughout the Midwest.