Front Royal, VA Coca-Cola Bottling Works 501 E Main St.

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

Hello everybody, I wanted to start a thread about everything I know on the local bottling works here in our town of Front Royal, Virginia! It's an interesting tale of love, power. destruction and life. Then I will talk about the bottles and variants at the end, stay tuned.

 

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

There were already a few bottling works here in town as of July, 1921. Christo-Cola with their iconic onion bottle and Crystal Springs out of Luray bottling Orange Squeeze. Crystal Springs Bottling Co. was set up in the Old Virginia Orchard factory here in town, a now repurposed large building formally a canning operation. Working right next to them was another company trying to gain a foothold here the Hurwitz Creamery out of Charles Town, WVA, and their manager a man named Clarence H. Simpson.

 

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

A year later in August of 1922, in the back of the Updike Ford dealership on Main St. was a new brick building being erected for the Coca-Cola bottling plant and their young manager the son of C.H.Simpson, Samuel C. Simpson. It's estimated they opened there doors in late August of 1922. By November of 1922 he was married to his new lovely wife and the Front Royal Coca-Cola bottling plant was thriving.

 

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

On November, 24 1922 Front Royal's east end of Main St. was burned down in a horrible fire completely destroying the newly built brick building of the Coca-Cola bottling works. Luckily Mr. Samms of Stanton (proprietor of the Coca-Cola bottling works) was able to retrieve most of the equipment which we understand was in good condition. Work began as early as Dec. 8th 1922 rebuilding and by July 20th 1923 the soon to be manager a "live wire" Frank Coffman brought 3 truckloads of bottles up from Harrisonburg, VA as business was now booming.

 

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

The Front Royal Coca-Cola bottling plant bottled Coke between August, 1922 and November, 1929. Sometime in the mid 1920's it was purchased by the Central Bottling Company and was believed to been used for storage not bottling after 1929. In the 1960's it moved to another storage location on 525 E Main St. There are no known Coke or Soda Water bottles from Front Royal, VA earlier than 1924 and later than 1929. The original building still stands today at 501 East Main St.

 

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

There was also a mural painted in town, it's a common misconception that this was the bottling plant. It was not, it's just one of the talest buildings in town.

 

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

The bottles are very interesting, with 5 distinct colors and 2 bottle manufactures. The Graham Glass Co. Evansville plant out of Evansville, Indiana (EG24-EG29) and the Chattanooga Glass Company out of Tennessee in 1927 (Chatt '27). Both are clearly marked on the heel of every bottle. I have found other numbers on the heel that corelate to the 1-4 numbers I believe were the 5 bottle making machines the Evansville plant used.

EG24 - 1924
EG25 - 1925
EG26 - 1926
Chatt '27 - 1927
EG29 - 1929

 

[Helltown hobbleskirthound]

The 5 colors (patented dated 1915 bottles) are Olive in 1924, Blue in 1925, Green in 1926, Clear in 1927 and Blue/Green in 1929 for the Christmas Cokes (patented dated 1923 bottles). In the 3rd picture you can see the gradience of the color lined up according to date left to right. Bill Porter rates the 1915 patent bottles as SCARCE and the 1923 patent bottles (Christmas Cokes) as SCARCE +. The bottle caps are extremally hard to find as many of the rusted on filled bottles or while burred.