athometoo
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Joined: 9/25/2008
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in 1880 san antonio had 4 bottling plants . hope it helps sam
SOFT-DRINK INDUSTRY. The Texas soft-drink industry dates from 1839, when Dr. Thomas Mitchell, an English physician living in Houston, operated an apothecary with a soda fountain from March until his death on October 1. Carbonated water had bubbled from springs in Europe since Roman times. During the eighteenth century, scientists experimented with "fixed air" and produced "aerated waters." Some of them used bicarbonate of soda in their experiments, and the term "soda water" became ensconced in the English language. By 1810 New York City had "soda fountains," where proprietors dispensed artificial "mineral waters" for therapeutic purposes. Flavored soda water, which developed with the rise of the ice industry, was available in apothecary shops, but bottled soda water was an expensive product. Sailing ships took ice from northeastern states to New Orleans in 1820 and later to Houston, and in 1838 a Houston newspaper noted that ice sold for 50 cents per pound. In 1850 Texas had none of the sixty-four bottling plants in the nation. The first notice of a soda-water manufacturer in Texas was issued in 1866, when the Houston City Directory listed J. J. C. Smith's establishment as a "mineral water manufactory." In the 1870 census, Galveston and Brownsville reported "manufacturers of mineral and soda water." Victoria and Austin had two ice-making machines. Texas had one of the four ice plants in the nation. In 1880 Texas had eleven bottling plants: four in San Antonio, two each in Galveston and Austin, and one each in Houston, Dallas, and Mexia. In 1890 Texas had forty-two soda-water plants, plus five unspecified bottlers and seven breweries (see BREWING INDUSTRY).
The 1890s saw major changes in the state's soft-drink industry. New plants appeared with the introduction of the Hutchinson bottle stopper, patented in 1879 and manufactured in Chicago. (In a Hutchinson stopper, a wire loop protruded from the bottle neck and was fastened to a rubber seal; when seated the seal blocked the escape of gas from the water in the drink.) Most plants served one or two counties, and occasionally they shipped by rail to neighboring communities. The bottler's largest investment was in bottles and cases. No deposit was charged and bottle stealing among bottlers was common, even when glass blowers embossed the name of the town on the bottles. In 1891 the Elliott Bottling Works of Paris called a convention to address the problem. Twenty-nine bottlers and suppliers, principally from East Texas, met in October in Dallas and formed the Texas State Bottlers Protective Association. They drafted a constitution and by-laws aimed at preventing "the unlawful use of registered bottles, boxes, siphons, etc." But policing was impossible.
By the 1890s two beverages had changed the character of the soft-drink
< Message edited by athometoo -- 4/29/2010 11:22:37 AM >
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Ever seen a round bottom Hutch? - 
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