The date range shown is provided to give researchers a general sense of when the business was in operation but should not be taken as being definitive.  In many cases, liquor wholesalers reinvented themselves in the lead-up to Prohibition and may have survived to the present day as soft-drink sellers or grocers, for example, even though the date range shown cites an end date of 1918.

The City Listing database was compiled initially using copies of City Business directories, typically beginning wth the directory for 1870 and ending with the directory for 1918.  Actual directories consulted are shown below.  A business that listed in all these directories would thus provide us with a date range of 1870-1918, even though it may have been established many years earlier and continued through Prohibition. Additional data was added as it became available and the date ranges modified accordingly.

When a year that a business was established is known, even if that date may be unreliable (i.e. having come from old company billheads or other advertising), it is provided.  When a year that a business closed for good is known, that will be stated in the notes.