A.J. Davis – McNabs Island Soda Pop and ‘Pure McNab’
44.6158° / -63.52773°
Glass and Ceramic A.J. Davis bottles
A.J. Davis was the joint owner of a very successful pork packing and distributing company in Halifax. He was a wealthy man, an entrepreneur, and owner of a popular dance hall on the Northwest Arm. In the early 1900s he was looking for a new venture and saw the past popularity of McNabs Island as a business opportunity. After the death of James Findlay in 1906, he bought the ailing Pleasure Grounds, determined to revitalise the recreation industry on the island.
As well as sprucing up the old merry-go-round and adding extra games of chance, A.J. installed a carbonated soda water beverage plant in the barn near the Findlay house. He made and sold soda-pop in exciting new flavours such as sarsaparilla, iron brew, lime rickey and cream-soda, served in glass bottles. The plant also produced ginger beer and A.J.Davis’s famous concoction - a soft or maybe not so soft beverage called ‘Pure McNabs’. “Pure McNabs” was sold in embossed ceramic bottles. By 1908 the bottling plant was in full production, supplying cold beverages to A.J.s dance hall as well as the Pleasure Grounds.
A.J. Davis and family on the veranda
However, none of his efforts stopped the decline in attendance at the Pleasure Grounds. He continued to manufacture soda pop on the island until about 1915. In 1919 the cottage storage area for the bottle plant burnt to the ground. Davis had the remains of the cottage pushed into the basement burying hundreds of empty glass and stone bottles. In later years the area became a Mecca for bottle collectors.
What is now known as the Davis - Conrad House was originally built by A.J. Davis as a summer residence for himself and his family.
Ref: B Edwards – 2007.