A cola brand of their own: a brief history of Kroger's Wescola.

Back in the early 1990’s I used to work for my local Kroger Grocery store as a bag boy. One of my duties was to go to the back and work the returned bottles. Yes we were still using returnable bottles in the early 90’s. Little did I know that this experience would come back to me later in life as a bottle collector. What was an annoying job now fascinates me. Of course the connection to Kroger would rear its head while some friends and I were digging in a dump a couple of years back. We happened upon several Wescola deco style bottles and our only clue to who produced them was the embossing on the bottom “Wesco Foods Cincinnati Ohio”. Figuring they have come in via train from there I didn’t think much of them; however, I got curious one day and looked up the company. It turns out that Wesco Foods was a branch of the Kroger Grocery Company, and that Wescola was Kroger’s attempt at creating their own cola brand.

Wescola was part of the Kroger Latonia Club line which would evolve into today’s Big K line of soft drinks. The majority of the Latonia Club line was actually paper label straight side bottles with very few surviving into modern day; however, Wescola for some reason was different. Kroger produced a specially designed embossed deco bottle for the brand. Deco bottles were a type of bottle that was popular during the 1920’s into the 1950’s and would either be embossed with some pattern or have its own unique shape. Wescola was the latter. The brand seems to have started being produced around 1937, which corresponds with the dates on the bottles themselves. The advertising of the time noted that it was their “new cola drink”. Unfortunately although the name shows up a lot from 1937 until the late 1940’s in their advertising, I’ve only found one actual ad that pictures the bottles themselves.

Early Latonia Club 24oz Lime Rickey paper label label.

8oz Wescola deco bottle dated 1937.

Wescola bottle cap from Detroit Michigan. Wesco Foods had three different branches which included Chicago, Detroit, and Cincinnati Ohio.

Big K Cola as it exists today, I wonder if this is the same formula as Wescola after all these years.

Fading signs that I have found in my research.

As I search for the locations of these long gone bottlers, I happen upon some ghosts from their vibrant past. These come in the form of painted wall signs and many of them can be interesting. Here are some that I have found so far and where I found them.

This is the wall of the Jones Vance Drug Company in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Just across the street from the Jones Vance building is this sign which was partially covered by another smaller building until a few years ago.

To give you a sense of age of this particular sign here is a photo showing the newly built building that helped preserve the bottom part of the sign, as you can tell from the cars this sign is quite early.

This is a sign just off of State Street in downtown Bristol, VA. I would love to see this one restored. It's huge!

Also in Bristol is this newer Enjoy Coke sign, even a sign this new is in danger of fading into history.

This sign is on a store in an area of Tazewell County Virginia known as Baptist Valley. You don't often see Upper 10 painted wall signs.

On the other side of the same building is this RC cola sign, you can even see the older sign ghosting through the present paint.

This is a store just outside the town of Tazewell, VA. Like the Baptist Valley sign there is ghosting from an earlier sign showing through the present sign.

It's one thing to find national brands such as Coke, Pepsi, or RC, but it is an entirely different thing to find a local brand painted on a wall. This is Rhythm Punch a grape soda produced only by the Sun Rise Bottling Company which was located in Tazewell, VA. This sign is on both sides of the building shown above.

Below that sign was this metal 7-up sign long since rusted into oblivion.

Now this is an interesting ghost sign indeed from Pocahontas, VA. For some reason there is a part of the building that is either missing or the sign extended out from the building. It was covered up by another building for a long time and that building is now gone revealing this.

As I was prowling around a road just outside of Princeton, WV, I ran upon this sign on the side of this long shuttered store. There wasn't really enough room to get off the road properly.

Very near the railroad depot in Princeton, WV is this sign. I wish I could read the rest of the sign, but very little remains aside from the obvious.

K. B. Co. embossed on the bottom, the bottles from the Keystone Bottling Company of West Virginia

The Keystone Bottling Company, whose principal office was located in Keystone, West Virginia, was incorporated on February 2, 1907. The stockholders of the company was C. S. Angel of North Fork W. VA, C. C. Hale of Keystone, VA, C. W. Elliot of North fork, W. VA, W. E. Stuart of Keystone, W. VA, and T. W. Zink of Keystone, W. VA. This company was comprised of a group of bottlers with branches in Keystone, W. VA, Welch, W. VA, Williamson, W. VA, North Fork, W. VA, and finally Bluefield, W. VA. The main product of this bottling group was Coca-Cola, and would add Nu-Grape in the middle 1920’s. This bottling group identified its bottles not by using a town name on them, except in certain cases, but by using the initials K. B. Co. which is usually located on the bottom of the bottles including their Coca-Cola Bottles. The company would be renamed the Northfork Coca-Cola Bottling Company by the late 1920’s, and would create a bottler in Rock, W. VA known as the Rock Mineral Springs Bottling Company.

Thanks to the good folks at Coca-Cola in Bluefield WV, I now have a photo of the C. W. Elliot Company of Northfork, WV. This building was also the corporate offices of the Keystone Bottling Company group.

1913 Coca-Cola Soda Water bottle from the Keystone Bottling Company.

1916 Coca-Cola bottle from the Keystone Bottling Company

1923 C. C. Soda Water from the Bluefield Bottling Company which was part of the Keystone Bottling Company

1924 C. C. Soda Water from the Flat Top Bottling Company of Welch, WVA which was part of the Keystone Bottling Company

November 16, 1915 patented hobble skirt Coca-Cola bottle from the Keystone Bottling Company

1927 deco bottle from the Bluefield Bottling Company

1930 Big Bottle from the C. W. Elliot Company of Northfork, WVA which was part of the now named Northfork Coca-Cola Bottling Company.

1937 Big Bottle from the Welch Coca-Cola Bottling Company, former Flat Top Bottling Company, of Welch, WVA which is also part of the Northfork Coca-Cola Bottling group.

Dixie Beverages bottle from Northfork, WVA, which is most likely part of the company as well.

 And that's all of them I hope you enjoyed the bottles from the Keystone / Northfork Coca-Cola Bottling Company bottling group.

Bottles from Roanoke, VA

Roanoke had quite a few bottlers over the years, and several Roanoke based brands such as Lemon Kola, King Cola, 3-C Nectar, and Dixie-Ola. Unfortunately none of them survived to the modern day; however, the evidence of their existence still survives in the form of bottles and other go with items. Here are just a few of them.

The Roanoke Bottling & Cider Company would eventually become the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Roanoke, VA according to James C. Ayers' Pepsi=Cola book.

King Cola was a Roanoke based drink during the late teens. They were sued by Coca-Cola and lost.

3-C Nectar was created by the Columbia Chemical Corporation (get it?) in the early 1920's and within three years was out of business. The brand was bottled as far away as Philadelphia, PA and Coney Island, NY.

Dixie-Ola was created around 1928 by the Roanoke Extract & Bottling Company.

A cap from the company found in Mouth of Wilson, VA, it may be possible that they bottled the brand at some point or just purchased the company's bottle cap stock after they went out of business.

Two Orange Crush bottles from the 1930's.

Mid 1930's Dr. Swett's Root Beer from Roanoke, VA

A late 1930's Pop Kola marked "the property of L. L. Rice" who later owned Rice's Bottling Company; however, by this point his company was known as the Big Bill Bottling Company.

Grapette from Rice's Bottling Company of Roanoke, VA. Lawrence L. Rice would open up branch plants in Johnson City, Tennessee, and Jacksonville, Florida.

1940 Pop Kola bottle from Rice's Bottling Company of Roanoke, VA

A Clicquot Club Beverages bottle from the 1950's. I don't know much about the company that bottled this one.

A 1959 Pepsi Cola bottle from Roanoke, VA. Knowing that L. L. Rice owned the Johnson City, Tenn. Pepsi Cola bottling company, I wonder if he owned the company in Roanoke, VA as well.

Frankie's Beverages bottle from the Frankie's Bottling Company of Roanoke, VA. According to the information given me by one of the owner's relatives, this company is the same one that was bottling the Orange Crush bottles pictured above.

You don't see too many of these mid 60's with town names, but here is one from the Double Cola Bottling Company of Roanoke, VA.

Oak Lane Dairy opened in Roanoke, VA in 1935, which is about the right time period for this early ACL (Applied Color Label) Mission Orange drink bottle.

Still don't know the source of this 1941 Fruit Beverage Company bottle from Roanoke, VA; however, it could be associated with the Mission above or the Bireley's below. All three would have been non-carbonated fruit flavored drinks.

There is a photo of downtown Roanoke, VA out there with a billboard ad for Bireley's Orange Drink, and here is the bottle.

Bottles from Christiansburg, VA and Radford, VA

Radford, VA actually has a connection to my area in the personage of Isaac Greenspon who ran the Radford Ice Company which also bottled at one point. Greenspon would eventually become a partner in an ice plant in Pocahontas with the Kwass brothers, and after that enterprise dissolved, created the Isaac Greenspon Manufacturing Company in Bluefield, WV where he made candy and bottled soft drinks in the teens. The bottles shown are some that I found interesting, like most of these semi-locals tend to be, and are from the Cassco Bottling Works. This bottling company was a part of the Cassco Refrigerating Corporation, which was an Ice maker based in Harrisonburg, VA. They had several branches two of which had bottling operations, which Radford appears to be the first of, and the other was located in Waynesboro, VA.

A 7oz Cassco Beverages dated 1945. This one only lists Radford, VA as the bottler.

 

 

 

A 7oz Cassco Beverages bottle dated 1946. They changed the label design and obviously opened another bottling branch in Waynesboro, VA.

 

Christiansburg, VA is just a few miles away from Radford, VA, and as it turns out was much more successful as a bottling town, including the creation of their own Coca-Cola imitator, Banner Cola. The Christiansburg Banner Cola Corporation was incorporated on November 1, 1919, with J. W. Pepper listed as President, and P. L. Kenley as Vice President. This company appears to have lasted for several decades with bottles dating as late as the 1950's. It is possible that the Banner Cola Corporation started out as the Christiansburg Bottling Works, and after the creation of their new leader brand changed their name. The strangest bottle is the Cloverdale Soft Drink bottle from the Norment Bottling Company, Inc. of Roanoke and Christiansburg, VA which is dated 1964. I can find no information on this bottler which sounds like it had a main plant in Roanoke, VA and a branch in Christiansburg, or visa versa.

Very early Christiansburg Bottling Works bottle.

A 7oz Banner Cola Corporation straight side slug plate bottle

8oz Banner Cola Corporation deco bottle from the early 1930's

12oz Banner Brand Beverages dated 1939

7ox green Banner Brand Beverages bottle dated 1951

10oz Cloverdale Soft Drinks bottle from the Norment Bottling Company, Inc. of Roanoke and Christiansburg, VA dated 1964

1941 Banner Cola Corporation sales receipt dated August 14, 1941