Matagorda County History & Genealogy page
Palacios Beacon, Oct. 19, 1939
The Coca Cola Bottling Company in Bay City on Highway No. 35 was built in 1934 and serves the entire coast line area from Freeport through Palacios reaching inland from 30 to 50 miles.
Coca-Cola is placed daily in practically 350 different types of business places who contract with the Bay City plant because of their knowledge of the modern and immaculate plant, where absolute cleanliness and purity is assured because of the fact that every bottle of Coca Cola is bottled without the touch of human hands.
It is indeed quite a step and an interesting one to come from the early days of the bottling of Coca Cola to the present one.
Before modern machinery was built, and in the days of buggies Coca-Cola was bottled on foot power machines.
Today it is an entirely different story, the Coca-Cola bottles are sterilized in a boiling solution of caustic soda and remain for 35 minutes at a temperature of 140 degrees, which makes them absolutely clean. This operation is performed by large automatic machines, costing thousands of dollars.
The popularity of Coca-Cola is not due necessarily to the fact that it is a most palatable beverage but due largely to the fact that it is rich in food value.
An analysis of Coca-Cola shows it is made of pure products from nature.
Pure carbonated water, sugar, purest blends of flavoring and Phosphoric acid are all very important foods and are all embodied in a drink of Coca Cola.
Everything in Coca-Cola is good for any member of the family, as it contains nothing artificial.
A study of the making of Coca Cola shows us that only products from nature are used in its making, from nine sunny climes, which natural flavors are carefully blended.
A total of 22 laboratory tests make it as pure as sunlight.
Sold in 78 countries of the world, complying strictly with the pure food laws of each, which laws prohibit the manufacturing or bottling of any product that is habit forming.
A further study of the beverage that is synonymous with delicious, refreshing and invigorating qualities reveals that every bottle contains 74.6 calories (food values), more than in an egg which has 66 calories, almost as much as a slice of white bread which has 75, and an orange which has 87 calories.
Coca-Cola cannot credit the great consumer demand that has been created for it over the period of 50 years it has been served to people everywhere to mere luck or some phenomenal occurrence, but does credit it entirely to its merits as a delicious drink which contains the purest of ingredients and is rich in food value.
The Bay City plant is managed by H.L. Briscoe and operates under a franchise from the Coca-Cola Company, from whom they buy Coca-Cola syrup which they bottle according to definite specifications laid down by the Coca-Cola Company.
This company does not confine its bottling entirely to Coca-Cola as they also market six flavors of soda water bottled in their plant in which of course, only the best of ingredients are used.
Briscoe feels that the extensive business they have built in Bay City and its surrounding territory is largely due to service and courtesy to their dealers, a factor he believes in thoroughly and does at all times make every effort to apply to his business.