Hello everyone!
Recently I have been taking it upon myself to compile information on the Royal Crown Cola company which I hope to one day turn into a book. I've seen a few books all about Coca-cola and its history but none on my all-time favorite company, so I thought I might try to fix that. They say you should write what you want written, right?
Right.
So I've started by making a map, which shows all the locations of RC Cola bottling plants through the years 1905-2014. These locations are generalized to the towns in which they inhabit, as in most cases I couldn't find addresses for the bottling plants. Whenever I can find correct addresses an "*" will be included in the location name. You'll notice that there are separate layers for Chero Cola for the years 1915 and 1920, these are the only time-sensitive information I could find and it was found in the National Bottlers' Gazzette... if only I could get my hands on more issues! I've also included some Coca-cola locations to counter the notion that Royal Crown set up bottling locations between Coca-cola locations and big cities, but I have yet to find information directly supporting this.
Anyway, I was able to find the majority of these locations by finding bottles for sale on Ebay (when they used to label bottles with cities) and other compiled lists from this and other bottle forums. I've been able to catalog roughly 340 locations from all available brands produced by the Royal Crown Company over the years. I do know for a fact the total number of cities that bottled each brand (hopefully one day I'll map all of these): Chero Cola- 345, Nehi- 398, Royal Crown- 334, Par-T-Pak- 276, and Rums Dry- 6.
I started accumulating this information in the hopes that it would one day be fleshed out enough to show the ebb and flow of the company from its peak to its decline and to its 'plateau' years. However I sort of hit a brick wall and I think I found as much information as I can eek out from the internet and various sources, so this whole post is a request of information. In addition to bottling locations, I've been writing blurbs on all the 'short lived' RC brands (RC100, RC Draft, etc), doing an in-depth exploration of the company, compiling bottle photos, photos (gas station, sign, bottling locations, and misc), and of course Bottle Caps.
So in lieu of getting information from forums, I thought I'd ask for help and provide my information on forums to help future book-makers and information compilers (ie: Nerds like me). If you help with information (or items from your collection) I will be sure to give you credit (just PM me your actual name, please), though it may be a while before anything gets published. Also if anyone could direct me towards avenues of information which may help my en devours, I would be eternally grateful. I'm sure I'll be updating this post periodically based on any new information I may receive or to simply notify everyone what may have changed on the map.
Thanks for reading this wall of text and for your time, I look forward to one day seeing you all in the bookstore!
EDIT- Also if requested I could provide a 'print out' of all the locations for future reference
Recently I have been taking it upon myself to compile information on the Royal Crown Cola company which I hope to one day turn into a book. I've seen a few books all about Coca-cola and its history but none on my all-time favorite company, so I thought I might try to fix that. They say you should write what you want written, right?
Right.
So I've started by making a map, which shows all the locations of RC Cola bottling plants through the years 1905-2014. These locations are generalized to the towns in which they inhabit, as in most cases I couldn't find addresses for the bottling plants. Whenever I can find correct addresses an "*" will be included in the location name. You'll notice that there are separate layers for Chero Cola for the years 1915 and 1920, these are the only time-sensitive information I could find and it was found in the National Bottlers' Gazzette... if only I could get my hands on more issues! I've also included some Coca-cola locations to counter the notion that Royal Crown set up bottling locations between Coca-cola locations and big cities, but I have yet to find information directly supporting this.
Anyway, I was able to find the majority of these locations by finding bottles for sale on Ebay (when they used to label bottles with cities) and other compiled lists from this and other bottle forums. I've been able to catalog roughly 340 locations from all available brands produced by the Royal Crown Company over the years. I do know for a fact the total number of cities that bottled each brand (hopefully one day I'll map all of these): Chero Cola- 345, Nehi- 398, Royal Crown- 334, Par-T-Pak- 276, and Rums Dry- 6.
I started accumulating this information in the hopes that it would one day be fleshed out enough to show the ebb and flow of the company from its peak to its decline and to its 'plateau' years. However I sort of hit a brick wall and I think I found as much information as I can eek out from the internet and various sources, so this whole post is a request of information. In addition to bottling locations, I've been writing blurbs on all the 'short lived' RC brands (RC100, RC Draft, etc), doing an in-depth exploration of the company, compiling bottle photos, photos (gas station, sign, bottling locations, and misc), and of course Bottle Caps.
So in lieu of getting information from forums, I thought I'd ask for help and provide my information on forums to help future book-makers and information compilers (ie: Nerds like me). If you help with information (or items from your collection) I will be sure to give you credit (just PM me your actual name, please), though it may be a while before anything gets published. Also if anyone could direct me towards avenues of information which may help my en devours, I would be eternally grateful. I'm sure I'll be updating this post periodically based on any new information I may receive or to simply notify everyone what may have changed on the map.
Thanks for reading this wall of text and for your time, I look forward to one day seeing you all in the bookstore!
EDIT- Also if requested I could provide a 'print out' of all the locations for future reference
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