The business was first listed in the 1908 Brooklyn City Directory as Dingwell Brothers, waters, located at 1025 Greene Avenue. The business was listed in the Copartnership and Corporation Directory of the Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens 1913-1914 as Francis S and Henry C Dingwell, 1017 &1025 Greene Ave.
It looks like the Dingwells sold the business sometime in 1917. An article in the July 1917 1ssue of the “American Bottler” stated that Dingwell Brothers has been incorporated with a capital stock of $10,000 to manufacture soda and mineral water. Incorporators are Martha Rosenberg, Abraham Sussman and Max Sussman. Several months later on November 18, 1917 Henry Dingwell passed away.
Dingwell Brothers was one of many Brooklyn and Long Island Bottlers of Beverages that “patriotically contributed” advertising space in the June 27, 1918 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle”. The advertisement contained a plea from Uncle Sam to Brooklynites to sign a pledge card to purchase war savings stamps to fund the war effort.
By 1925 the business had moved to 62 Stanhope Street.
According to this advertisement in March of 1934, at the end of prohibition Dingwell began bottling beer as well as soda. “Wholesale distributors leading brands of bottled beer at brewery prices.”
It looks like the business remained active, at least into the mid – 1940’s. A 1945 classified ad by Dingwell in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was looking for Route Men for bottle, beer and soda runs. At that time, they were still located on Stanhope St.
Today, Greene Avenue in this area still exhibits old one-story buildings with garage type door openings that could have been used by the Dingwell facility.
The bottle I found is a machine made quart (28 oz) with the Greene Ave address. It dates no later than the mid-1920’s when the company moved to Stanhope Street.