Green Cove Resident Remembers Times Past
by
J.M Fairbanks
Times have changed since the days that James
Hart of Green Cove, Va. helped his Dad in a soda pop factory and a bottle of pop was 5c.
Mr. Hart remembers his Dad's soda pop factory
well. They are memories of a lifetime ago, but are good memories.
It was back in 1929, when life was different
from today, a bit slower perhaps, that his Dad, R.H. Hart, bought the pop factory from J.A. Blevins.
"I don't know why he took the notion to get
in that type of business", said Hart.
"My brothers & I helped him. We made the
soda, capped it, and delivered it all around Virginia, including Lodi, Taylors Valley, and the mountain area."
The process of making soda "pop" was a bit
different from today:
"We would mix up a gallon of syrup in a big
old 5 gallon stone jar for however many cases of pop we were going to make," recalls Mr. Hart.
"We would mix the coloring, flavoring and sugar
in also."
The simple process continues by running water
through a carburetor, cranking it by hand part time, and pulling it with a carburetor the rest of the time. The mix then went
into the capping machine and into the bottles.
"The machine capped the bottles one at a time,"
explained Hart.
The soda bottles were light green with the
name of the soda on the cap.
"We delivered the pop from place to place for
50c a case, and picked up the old bottles. It's hard to imagine that we now pay 50c a can for soda," commented Hart.
Hart reminiscing, recalled that sugar was only $3 - $5 per hundred
pounds at that time.
Strawberry, peach, and cherry pop were in the
biggest demand. "There weren't all the different kinds that they have now," said Hart. "People were happy with what they had."
The factory ran two days a week, depending
on how many empties had to be washed and refilled, and operated until 1936 when the Hart's home burned and the pop factory
was built on to and used as family lodging.
"We never named the pop factory," said Hart.
"We just ran it. We still have the old machinery we used and have 1,000 bottles or so."
"I think soda was as good back then at 5c a
bottle as it is today," said Hart................
