Once the home of Dorn’s Venetian Ginger Ale, the so aptly named Soda Plant has had a history reaching back nearly a century. A streetcar was set on fire 4 blocks away from the Soda Plant in 1929 to usher in, ‘a new age of mass transit’. A gleaming white bus was christened with a bottle of Dorn’s Venetian Ginger Ale, seeing as prohibition had banned champagne.
(On the afternoon of August 4, 1929, more than 5000 people gathered in Burlington City Hall Park to celebrate the dawn of a new era in mass transit. At about 5 p.m., a streetcar pulled up to the corner of Main and St. Paul streets. Someone played taps on a bugle. Then two men set the car on fire.)
“We must have more quiet, rapid transportation, more modern conveniences.”
