Original Site of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Dallas
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Original Site of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Dallas One of the first companies in the nation granted franchise rights for the distribution of Coca-Cola in bottles, the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Dallas produced the city's first bottle of Coca-Cola on this site on June 10, 1902. J.T. Lupton of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was the principal owner, with an initial investment of $5,000. Three employees handled the entire operation. They were: R.D. Twinam, company manager; Mr. Dixon, the bookkeeper; and Fred Welsh, who operated the bottling machine. The employees sold 37 cases on the first day of production and delivered them in a one-horse wagon. In the bottling process, glass Coca-Cola bottles were filled by using a hand-operated, foot-powered machine that held two bottles, one beneath the syrup and the other under the filling head for the carbonated water, where the bottles also were capped. Bottles were reused and had to be hand-washed by putting cleaning fluid and steel pellets, similar to gunshot, into the bottles and shaking them vigorously. By 1905, sales of Coca-Cola had increased such that the company moved the bottling plant to 1800 Wood Street. From its small beginnings here in Deep Ellum, the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Dallas, later renamed the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of North Texas, grew to more than 2,600 employees in 19 locations by its centennial in Dallas in 2002. (2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On this Deep Ellum site in June 1902, three employees produced Dallas's first bottled Coca-Cola using a hand-operated, foot-powered machine that filled two bottles at a time. They sold 37 cases the first day from a one-horse wagon, washing and reusing the heavy glass bottles by shaking them with cleaning fluid and steel shot. Within three years the operation had outgrown the block, the first step toward a company that employed thousands by its centennial.
Why it matters
The scene captures the hand-labor origins of a national mass-market brand, when a soft-drink empire still meant three people, a wagon, and a foot pedal.
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Related people
- · J.T. Lupton
Themes & tags
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