Cummings & Mckinney / F. P. Cummings Bottler

I don't know much about this company yet; however, I can speculate that the Cummings & McKinney bottle is from 1892-93 due to the fact that the glass company that made the bottle only lasted that long. F. P. Cummings was a wholesale and retail druggist located on Centre Street and was the "Headquarters for Patent Medicines".(1) While Dr. William A. McKinney was a physician & Surgeon for the Southwest Virginia Improvement Company in Pocahontas, VA.(1) It appears that these two were partners in a bottling operation connected with Cummings' drug store. On the 1888 sanborn map there is a drug store located at 223 Centre street with a small building divided in half one side labeled Bottling Works and the other Pump House. This Drug store was also in existence in 1893, without the detached bottling works building; however, I feel that this building is the building that housed F. P. Cummings' Drug store. As for what he bottled, soda, beer, or a patent medicine, I don't know; however, Hutchinson bottles being what they are, whatever he was bottling absolutely had to be carbonated. In the July 14, 1899 edition of the Clinch Valley News it was reported that two doctors opened a drug store in Pocahontas by the name of Central Drug Co. and were to open in the Zimmerman Building recently vacated by F. P. Cummings.(2)

The 223 Centre Street location of F. P. Cummings' drug store with the bottling works being located around the corner in 1898.

Cummings & McKinney "Hutchinson" bottle which according to information on the glassmaker places the date around 1892-93.

F. P. Cummings Bottler "Tombstone slug plate" Hutchinson bottle

Ad for F. P. Cummings' "Wholesale & Retail Drug Store"

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