By Heather Munro
The featured artifact from the Western Illinois Museum’s collections is a group of antique pop bottles bottled at Macomb Bottle Works and the Horn Bottling Plant, both local bottling companies. Produced during the late 19th and early 20th century, the bottles on display at the museum tell us a story about our past, they illustrate a by-gone era when carbonated beverages produced in the local area came in glass bottles.
The origin of drinking what we refer to as “soda pop” began long ago when people visited mineral springs and drank the mineral water there. This was considered beneficial to one’s health. Eventually, scientists figured out how to create imitation mineral water by adding minerals and carbonation so people did not have to travel to a mineral spring to get a healthy drink, they could purchase it anywhere.
In the 19th century in the United States mineral water drinks were sold at drug stores just like medicine. Pharmacists began adding flavorings to the water such as sarsaparilla, to make it more flavorful and marketable. More flavorings and additives soon followed, the most well-known being caffeine. Going to the drug store to get a drink to pep you up became very popular. The pharmacy counters evolved into a place with a counter with stools and elaborate dispensing systems, a place where a customer could sit and enjoy their healthy drink. Thus was the birth of the “drugstore soda fountain”.
Drugstore soda fountains became even more popular in the United States after 1919 when Prohibition began and all taverns, bars, and pubs stopped serving alcoholic beverages and many closed. The new place to go to get a “soft”drink (i.e. not hard liquor) was the drugstore soda fountain. Soon soda pop from the fountain began to be packaged in glass bottles and cardboard carry cartons so that folks could enjoy drinking their pop at home.
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In time this bottling company was sold to Frank J. Horn and was renamed The Horn Bottling Company. Some of the bottles on display are stamped “Pappy’s Soda” which refers to Frank J. Horn, whose nickname was “Pappy”. Horn owned the bottling plant for a number of years and produced “Pappy’s Soda”, “Horn’s Best” soda and “Pure Pop”, all in a variety of flavors. The Horn Bottling Company also distributed Coca-Cola products.
In 1920 there were over 5,000 bottling plants in the United States. Local bottling plants were successful because the major component to soft drinks is water. Water is heavy and expensive to ship so major producers such as Coca-Cola, shipped the soft drink syrup, or concentrate, to local bottlers to mix with local water and add carbonation and bottle locally to save on shipping costs. Local bottling plants would also often distribute their own products to appeal to the local specialized market, such as “Pappy’s Soda”.
“Pappy” Horn was well known in the Macomb community as an involved citizen and a member of numerous local civic organizations. The Horn name is still well known in Macomb today because of the Horn Field Campus owned by Western Illinois University (WIU). In 1965, Mr. Horn made available to purchase to WIU his 92-acre tract of wooded land located south of the Macomb High School, off Johnson Road. To honor Mr. Horn, WIU named the property the Frank J. Horn Field Campus. Since that time, WIU has maintained the property, which includes a brick lodge, cabins, climbing tower, and challenge course. The WIU Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Administration now manage and operates the facility. At Horn campus, numerous outdoor educational activities are offered throughout the year for WIU students as well as public events, such as the ever-popular Annual Corn Maze.
Once considered “quaint” and old-fashioned, glass bottles have gained a comeback lately as a “green” alternative to plastic soda bottles.