RICHLANDS BEVERAGE CORPORATION

After the closing of the Clinch Valley Bottling Company several plans to install a new bottling plant were made public yet never materialized.(1) This was until December 5, 1924 when it was announced that a new bottling plant, under the ownership of two men from Norton, VA was being built.(1) The two men were J. F. Stuart and W. L. Harris who installed $20,000 of electrically operated bottling equipment.(1) According to the article if things went according to plan the plant would be operational by December 20th of the same year.(1) The Richlands Beverage Corporation was incorporated on February 2, 1925 (5), with C. P. Kline as President, and E. C. Huffer as Vice President, both of Norton, VA, and R. C. Smith, of Richlands, VA, as Secretary treasurer.

Unfortunately tragedy struck on the 3:30 am on the morning of May 12, 1925, when a fire, caused by arson, started at the lower corner of the bottling plant, and spread up the block towards Horton's first store location.(1) This fire helped mask the robbery of another business nearby. The reason that I bring this incident up is that the article gives the location of the bottling company as being on the corner of Front Street and Floyd Street, and actually fronting onto Floyd. The company suffered $20,500 worth of damage, and had let their insurance lapse in December of 1924(1); however, apparently they were able to recover. Richlands Beverage was in operation by July 1928 according to R. G. Dun (4), and still in operation as of 1930 according to R. L. Humbert.(3) They were also bottling Orange Howdy as of 1928.(1) The two bottles that I own from this company attest to the company's being in operation as early as 1925.

No matter what the bottles claim I don't think that Richlands Beverage was a Coca-Cola franchise, because the Soda Water bottle produced by Coca Cola Bottling company was ordered by bottlers that wanted to bottle flavored drinks, but weren't necessarily franchises of Coca Cola.(2) If you want to read more about these Soda Water bottles then follow this link Soda Water and Flavor bottles.

This empty lot used to be the location of the Richlands Beverage Corporation according to the Clinch Valley News. You will notice that there are two sets of steps seeming to go nowhere. According to the Sanborn maps the largest of three small buildings on this lot was right beside those steps so this may have been the location of the bottling company itself.

6oz Soda Water bottles, property of the Coca Cola bottling company the one on the left is dated 1925 and the other one is dated 1926

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