Glass Bottles Capture Center Stage at the Dr Pepper Museum

If you want to know how soft drinks got the nickname “soda pop”, the answer to that—and a lot more—is at the Dr Pepper Museum, which opened to the public in 1991 and since then has attracted over a million visitors.
 
Located in Waco, TX, the historic home of the nation’s oldest major soft drink, Dr Pepper, the museum holds one of the finest collections of soft drink memorabilia in the world, including the evolution of the glass bottle as a package for Dr Pepper and a host of other soft drinks.
 
The permanent collection includes an example of almost every glass bottle Dr Pepper has ever made—from the 1890s to present. And unlike Coke, which stuck with their logo and bottle shape to create an iconic brand, Dr Pepper is known for a different look and logo change nearly every decade.
 

“We have a huge glass bottle collection,” says Collections Manager Mary Beth Tait. “It’s close to 5,000 bottles.” They’re stored on wall-mounted shelves, like giant wine racks, with the bottom of the bottle facing out. Numbers on the bottle bottom correlate to an electronic store-house of information about each of the bottles.
 
So how did “soda pop” come in to being? Dr Pepper’s earliest glass bottles contained a clay/glass marble in them to hold the carbonation in place. When a consumer would jam the marble down to drink it, it let out a pop. “That’s how we got the name ‘soda pop’,” says Tait, “because it makes a popping noise when you break the carbonation seal by pressing the marble down.” The museum houses a lot of examples of early closure inventions before they settled on the crown seal—the old style bottle cap.

According to Tait, one of the most popular bottles is the “thief” bottle from the 1890s. On the bottle is an embossed warning to deter theft for filling with anything other than Dr Pepper. The bottles were the property of the bottling company as they were expensive to make and used for refilling. “You were to return the bottle and not have something like Coke put in them,” says Tait. Consumer returned glass bottles to metal racks outside the stores where they were purchased.
 
Earlier this year the museum received a collection from an individual donor of about 500 applied color label glass bottles from the 30s 40s and 50s that were obscure small town brands. “About 90% of donations are things we have, but this is entirely new and really added to the depth of collection,” says Tait. The permanent collection also includes carriers, closures and anything else connected with carbonated beverages.
 
If you’ve never had a reason to go to Waco, TX, you do now. Find out more about the museum And check out the “I’m a Pepper” collectors’ items.