Harbison Dairy Milk Bottle Water Tower

Not the best shot, taken with my phone. Will have to come back to reshoot.

Some history:

Harbisons Dairies built the water tower around 1914. There were two other bottles at the intersections of Kensington and Erie avenues and another at York Road and Ontario Street in Kensington. it was a water tank for the sprinkler systems.

Over time, the milk bottles became trademarks for the company. When the original milk bottle and the plant that it was attached to were sold to the Novick Brothers food company (for a mere $40,000 in 1951), an agreement was drawn up: The water tower was to remain and if the shape was not changed, the plant’s new owners were allowed to paint it any color but white. It took a while, but eventually the agreement was honored and the bottle was painted gray and black.

Today, Harbisons Dairies are no longer in business (the company was sold in 1966), and all that remains is the original bottle, rusted and in danger of meeting the same fate as the other two. The bottle, nominated to the Preservation Alliance’s Endangered Properties List in both 2003 and 2004 is said in the alliance’s newsletter to be “not as significant as many other sites.

Great article here. More information here.

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