Compiling all RC Bottling Plant locations onto a Map

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canti128

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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
 
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iggyworf

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That's awesome! Good luck. We have some great threads on here for RC cola. Hopefully they can help you. I have some RC cola bottles.
 

canti128

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@HouTxSoda- Thank you for your contribution! I've noted that on the map

@Sunrunner- I'm sorry, I don't quite know what you mean. I've already got tons of locations for Chero Cola...
 

canti128

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That's awesome! Good luck. We have some great threads on here for RC cola. Hopefully they can help you. I have some RC cola bottles.

Thanks! Its kind of an ambitious project, but admittedly I like tedious researching. Reminds me of my old college days, lol.

I'm still pretty new around here... how would I get to these RC Cola threads without having to go through the "search" function and wade through all the mentionings of RC Cola?

Also would your RC Bottles happen to have a city/town on the back?
 

SODABOB

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canti128

Welcome to the forum! :welcome:

Would it be possible to provide us with an alphabetized (by state and city) list of the bottlers you already know of? That would save time and be a lot easier than clicking on the numerous entries on your well formatted map.

Thanks

Sodabob
 

iggyworf

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(Thanks! Its kind of an ambitious project, but admittedly I like tedious researching. Reminds me of my old college days, lol.

I'm still pretty new around here... how would I get to these RC Cola threads without having to go through the "search" function and wade through all the mentionings of RC Cola?

Also would your RC Bottles happen to have a city/town on the back?)

You could try and look at my profile and then my posts but that would limit you to that. Just my posts.

Some of mine do have the city /town on the back. Currently stored away in crates but I believe I have some from Michigan cities.
 

CreekWalker

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Google books has many back issues of the bottlers gazette. It has been a great resource.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

canti128

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You could try and look at my profile and then my posts but that would limit you to that. Just my posts.

Some of mine do have the city /town on the back. Currently stored away in crates but I believe I have some from Michigan cities.

Lol, well it was only after I posted a response to you that I figured out the Search function and saw you had posted a lot on those 'gold mines of information' RC Cola posts... So what I'm getting at is it seems I asked the right person! I'll definitely have to search through your posts later.

canti128

Welcome to the forum! :welcome:

Would it be possible to provide us with an alphabetized (by state and city) list of the bottlers you already know of? That would save time and be a lot easier than clicking on the numerous entries on your well formatted map.

Thanks

Sodabob

Thanks! Good to be here :flag:

Ask and you shall receive! RC Bottling list. I didn't have a chance to alphabetize the list and they're pretty much in the order of when I added them on the map. Speaking of, whenever you can find those bottles, I'll be happy to add them to the list (if they haven't been already).

Google books has many back issues of the bottlers gazette. It has been a great resource.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've noticed that, but I've only been able to get scant issues, usually 5 years apart from eachother. Whats its official name? I've only been able to find other issues through the 'recommended reading' side bar.

I'm still trying to figure out how to search through the issues I do have... I mean, it took me a while to realize that each issue is a whole year. There I was, reading through the issue, only to see the first page and say "Damn! Another January issue? Where's February through December?" lol. Point is, I'm getting the hang of the formatting of them and (if lucky) most the issues I've found can be searched using the ctrl+f method, if not I'll have to do it the "old fashioned way" (actually reading it).
 

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