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Lithia Ball Club (with bats arranged to spell Lithia), sponsored by the Lithia Water Bottling Company, Pueblo, 1913. Courtesy Jay Sanford. The consumption of the mineral water Lithia was popular between the late 1880s and World War I—including in Colorado. In 1906 Joseph Egan managed the Lithia Water Bottling Company at 120 East Eighth Street in Pueblo. In 1907 the company advertised Colorado Lithia Water (produced from the Colorado Lithia Well, 1,200 feet deep) as nature’s remedy, noting that Lithia water “received the highest award at the St. Louis World’s Fair.” By 1917, the Lithia Water Bottling Company was also selling soda waters including orangeade, grapeade and cherryade flavors. Lithia continued its operations into the 1920s, likely closing after a decline in sales as a result of the U.S. government’s investigation into the health and medicinal properties of Lithia water. A 1913 article in the Salida Mail noted that “Officials of the bureau of chemistry assert that it would take twenty-four barrels of the average brand of so-called Lithia water to produce a medicinal dose of lithium.”