Business: Soda Water Split

In Terre Haute, Ind. in the 1870s one Jacob Baur ran a drugstore. When he needed soda water for his fountain, he would put some marble dust in a bottle, add sulphuric acid, capture the escaping carbon dioxide gas and pass it under pressure through water. In spare moments Jacob Baur worked on a machine to make carbonated water commercially. Soon he perfected the "coke" method now in use everywhere.* Raising $75,000, Druggist Baur went to Chicago, started the predecessor of Liquid Carbonic Corp. on Illinois Street just north of the Chicago River...

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