SODAPOPBOB
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Most of the Vernor histories I've read lead me to believe that James Vernor had a full-fledged soda fountain at his 235 Woodward Avenue drug store and that it had a counter-top and stools and was your typical 1800s style of soda fountain. Now, I'm not saying this is a myth, but I am saying I cannot find any published documents between 1866 and 1896 to support it. Even the 1884 newspaper article I posted that says "J. S. Vernor sold 1,500 glasses of ginger ale" is a little vague. The reason I say this is because its easy to assume the 1,500 glasses of ginger ale were served from a counter-type soda fountain, and I would agree with this myself if it wasn't for my steadfast opinion that assumptions don't necessarily confirm the existence of such a fountain. Before continuing, let's consider those 1,500 glasses of ginger ale for a moment. There are 720 minutes in 12 hours, which means if the Vernor drug store was open for 12 hours on that particular day, they would have had to serve a glass of ginger ale about every 30 seconds in order to serve 1,500 glasses in 12 hours. Even if Vernor's was open for 24 hours on that particular day, that's still about one glass of ginger ale every minute around the clock. For those who might be thinking that James Vernor had numerous employees serving the ginger ale, that too is an assumption that would need to be verified in order to set the record straight!
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