Coca-Cola is an undisputed American icon of the twentieth century. The history of Coke began during the late 1800s as a fountain drink. Originally, the company produced and sold syrup to soda fountains to mix with seltzer water and sell to customers. By 1894 bottles of Coca-Cola were being produced, but in very small amounts. The pace of bottling grew rapidly between the turn of the twentieth-century and the 1920s thanks to improvements in bottling technology and the sale of franchises to regional entrepreneurs. By the early 1920s over 1,000 bottling operations existed throughout the country and sales outpaced the soda fountain variety.
The Rogers Coca-Cola Bottling Company was one such franchise in the nation-wide growth of the company. The plant was first located at 105 South Arkansas Street in 1912. In 1926 Frank Kinzel bought the Rogers plant and franchise. Under Kinzel, the plant added equipment including a new truck and 2 ˝ train cars of new bottles. Three trucks, five employees, and a warehouse in Berryville supported the plant’s operations by 1928.
Sanitary and mechanized
production of food products was highly
touted during this period. A 1928 newspaper
advertisement proclaimed that the product
was “bottled by experts – in a sanitary
plant, with automatic machinery, in
sterilized bottles – thus insuring: quality,
uniformity, and purity.” During this year,
the operation reported using 8,000 pounds of
pure cane sugar as well as being the only
bottling plant in Benton County to feature
fully automated machinery. A bottle cleaning
machine in the Rogers Coca-Cola Bottling
Company, probably taken during the 1950s, is
pictured at right.
The plant moved to 215 West Poplar Street in
the early 1930s. Walter Luffman and his son,
Fred, acquired the franchise in 1935 and
again expanded and improved the operation.
It eventually gained the reputation as a
model plant throughout the state of
Arkansas. The succeeding years brought more
expansion and in 1969 the plant incorporated
all of the building located at Poplar and
Third Streets. Operations continued at this
location during the late twentieth century.