Ah, to take a swig on a hot summer day of Red Spot, Grapette or Gay-Ola, the improved cola. Those were the days.
Now those soft drinks, all products of small, local bottlers, are gone. Only Blenheim Ginger Ale, the product of Hamer, South Carolina, remains. But the story of the company that made bottles for locally produced soft drinks, as well as for Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Dr Pepper, is preserved.
The South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, South Carolina, began an exhibition of the history and bottles of Laurens Glass Works on April 6th of this year. Bill Baab, and his wife, Bea, visited the Museum in mid-April, where he met with Dr. Fritz Hamer, the chief curator of History at the Museum.
LBJ bottle display
During his visit, he was able to catch a picture of Dr. Hamer
and a former LGW employee, Paul Lynch, who had worked for the company 42 years.
The exhibit behind them features the bottle that Laurens made for use by Lyndon
B. Johnson at his famous ranch in Texas.
Reportedly there were only 2400 of these manufactured. When
John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson became President. The bottles, bearing
Johnson's seal as Vice-President, were most likely used at the ranch for
functions well into Johnson's term as President. After being used, they were
gradually thrown into the dump on the ranch. However, some of them survived and
made it to the collector marketplace. Examples of this bottle can be seen in the
exhibit.
The fire is out
Mrs. Paul "Tootsie" Lynch is pictured
"modeling" her t-shirt commemorating the closing of the LGW plant in
1996. The shirt carries the words, "Laurens Glass 1910" across the
top, and "Ball - Foster 1996" across the bottom, forming a circle
around the words "Crew 4" above the words, "The Fire Is Out In
The Furnace." Tootsie's t-shirt says it all.
The display behind Mrs. Lynch details the process that the raw materials went through to become a bottle, and so forth.
Have you seen this bottle?
Farther into the exhibit is a display showing a bottle that
Frank Deitrick filed for Laurens Glass Works on October 18th, 1926, that was
patented on January 25th of 1927. The bottle features three rows of squares with
the face of a dice inside each square - showing different numbers. As
interesting a design as this bottle is, it is not know whatever happened to it,
and for whom, if anyone, its design was intended.
The exhibit, which includes 150 soft drink bottles, is based on the collection of the Holcombe family. Dr. Fred Holcombe, a native of Pickens, practiced optometry in Clinton for more than 50 years. He died in 2000, before the final arrangements for the exhibition could be made. However, his son, Joe, continued his father's passion for this tangible history with the people in South Carolina.
The museum is located at 301 Gervais Street, beside the historic Gervais Street Bridge, and just a few blocks west of the State Capitol in downtown Columbia. The exhibition, which is divided into 8 sections, will continue until January 12th, 2003.
Photos by: Bill Baab, a member of The
Federation of Historic Bottle Collectors, Augusta, Georgia.
LBJ's Canada Dry bottle information by: Dr. Cecil Munsey,
Poway, California, from an unpublished History of the Canada Dry Company.
