NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 43, Issue 6
NW Mailing List
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Tue May 5 16:10:54 EDT 2009
I'm not a gambler, but I'm a romantic about the early RR-days being as rough as what we portray the Second Wild West . . . west of the Mississippi River as being. All those bored railroad, timber, coal and iron mining, etc. workers in the middle of nowhere as the railroads were expanding out those branchlines. Eventually, more of their families would either move closer to their provider's work assignment places or the workers would move up the ladder from being local day workers to regular RR employees and would want to stay with families and other support structures.
Prior to WW1, where did the railroaders have their families: the regular workers and the management-types. The Clifton Forge history folks noted that in the early C&O days they had 14 bars in the then city . . . now there is nill or one. Did the N&W operating officiers keep their families in Roanoke and Bluefield as much as they could? I would guess for the C&O it was Richmond and Huntington. Did the Christenburg area with two colleges (VT and a teachers college) draw a railroad management crowd also?
Al Kresse
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 43, Issue 4 (NW Mailing List)
2. Dr. Pepper's origins? (NW Mailing List)
3. Re: Dr. Pepper's origins? (NW Mailing List)
4. NS Office Train (NW Mailing List)
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 07:02:59 -0400
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 43, Issue 4
To: "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
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Gordon - you think those things weren't a gamble?
EdKing
----- Original Message -----
From: NW Mailing List
To: NW Mailing List
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 9:29 PM
Subject: Re: NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 43, Issue 4
I hate to be a spoil sport to the gamblers among us, but I suspect that the "slot machines" were penny-operated gum and candy dispensing machines.
Gordon Hamilton
----- Original Message -----
From: NW Mailing List
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 43, Issue 4
Did I see robbed "slot machines" mentioned as in gambling around the railroad?
Al Kresse
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Today's Topics:
1. N&W in 1909--Robbery (NW Mailing List)
2. N&W in 1909--Busy (NW Mailing List)
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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 20:23:16 -0400
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: N&W in 1909--Robbery
To: "3N&W Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
August 24, 1909
RICHLANDS AND CEDAR BLUFF STATIONS ROBBED
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Robbers Got a Dozen Bottles of Beer at Latter Place But Found No Money
The Norfolk and Western stations were entered Sunday night at both Richlands and Cedar Bluff, but in each instance the robbery was insignificant. At Cedar Bluff the robbers got a dozen bottles of beer. They went through the cash drawer but found no money.
Detectives have been put on the trail of the men who did the jobs, but so far no arrests have been made. It is believed that it is the same band which has been committing depredations of this kind through the coal fields for some time. Several stations have been broken into, and sundry weighing and slot machines around the stations have been robbed, but nothing of any consequence has been taken in any case. The local authorities have come to the conclusion that there is an organized band devoting its attention to railroad stations.
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[I wonder how the agent at Cedar Bluff make it through the next day without his liquid refreshment!]
Gordon Hamilton
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 20:35:08 -0400
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: N&W in 1909--Busy
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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
August 24, 1909
ALL OPERATIONS BUSY
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Saturday Biggest Payday in History of Pocahontas Field
Saturday was one of the biggest paydays in the history of the Pocahontas coalfield. August so far has been a big month at the various operations, and most of them are running full time with a full force of men. At several of the operations there is a shortage of men reported, and the operators are anxious to secure additional workers. Orders are piling up and the coal and coke business is rapidly getting to its old high water mark.
It would be difficult to estimate the amount of pay roll for the entire field, but it is known that $200,000 was sent out on the early train to the field Saturday morning, and it is probable that the entire amount was double this sum.
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Gordon Hamilton
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 05:00:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Dr. Pepper's origins?
To: N&W Railway <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Message-ID: <261812.67723.qm at web34302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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I don't mean to be slightly off-topic here but I thought the common myth was that Dr. Pepper was "invented" along the N&W at, in, or near Rural Retreat, VA. I know this was at least an early formula but if anyone can fill in the missing parts of this tale and how it made business for the N&W, I think it would be interesting.
Thanks.
Bob Cohen
Dr. Pepper artifact may reveal soft drink's origin
DALLAS ? Poking through antiques stores while traveling through the Texas Panhandle, Bill Waters stumbled across a tattered old ledger book filled with formulas.
He bought it for $200, suspecting he could resell it for five times that. Turns out, his inkling about the book's value was more spot on than he knew. The Tulsa, Okla., man eventually discovered the book came from the Waco, Texas, drugstore where Dr Pepper was invented and includes a recipe titled "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters."
"I began feeling like I had a national treasure," said Waters, 59.
Dr Pepper's manufacturer says the recipe is not the secret formula for the modern day soft drink, but the 8 1/2-by-15 1/2 inch book is expected to sell between $50,000 to $75,000 when it goes up for auction at Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries on May 13.
"It probably has specks of the original concoction on its pages," Waters said.
Waters discovered the book, its' yellowed pages stained brown on the edges, underneath a wooden medicine bottle crate in a Shamrock antiques store last summer. A couple months after buying it, he took a closer look as he prepared to sell it on eBay.
He noticed there were several sheets with letterheads hinting at its past, like a page from a prescription pad from a Waco store titled "W.B. Morrison & Co. Old Corner Drug Store." An Internet search revealed Dr Pepper, first served in 1885, was invented at the Old Corner Drug Store in Waco by a pharmacist named Charles Alderton. Wade Morrison was a store owner.
Faded letters on the book's fraying brown cover say "Castles Formulas." John Castles was a partner of Morrison's for a time and was a druggist at that location as early as 1880, said Mary Beth Webster, collections manager at the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute in Waco.
As he gathered more information, Waters took a slower turn through the book's more than 360 pages, which are filled with formulas for everything from piano polish to a hair restorer to a cough syrup. He eventually spotted the "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters" formula.
"It took three or four days before I actually realized what I had there," Waters said.
The recipe written in cursive in the ledger book is hard to make out, but ingredients seem to include mandrake root, sweet flag root and syrup.
It isn't a recipe for a soft drink, says Greg Artkop, a spokesman for the Plano-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group. He said it's likely instead a recipe for a bitter digestive that bears the Dr Pepper name.
He said the recipe certainly bears no resemblance to any Dr Pepper recipes the company knows of. The drink's 23-flavor blend is a closely guarded secret, only known by three Dr Pepper employees, he said.
Michael Riley, chief cataloger and historian for Heritage Auction Galleries, said they think it's an early recipe for Dr Pepper.
"We just feel like it's the earliest version of it," he said.
He hasn't, however, tested that theory by trying to mix up a batch. Neither has Waters; he's thought about it but would need to find someone to decipher all the handwriting.
Jack McKinney, executive director of the Waco museum, surmised that Alderton might have been giving customers something for their stomachs and added some Dr Pepper syrup to make it taste better.
"I don't guess there's any definitive answer. It's got to be the only one of its kind," Riley said.
McKinney said the ledger book was bound to be popular with Dr Pepper collectors because it's from the time the drink was invented.
Riley said the book was probably started around 1880 and used through the 1890s. It's not known who wrote the Dr Pepper recipe in the book, but they don't think it was the handwriting of Alderton or Morrison. Some of the formulas have Alderton's name after them.
At first, Alderton's drink inspired by the smells in the drugstore was called "a Waco." "People would come in and say, 'Shoot me a Waco,'" Riley said.
Soon renamed Dr Pepper, the drink caught on and other stores in town began selling it. Eventually, Alderton got out of the Dr Pepper business and Morrison and a man named Robert Lazenby started a bottling company in 1891.
Flipping through the pages of the ledger book takes one back to a time when drugstores were neighborhood hubs, selling everything from health remedies to beauty products mixed up by the stores' chemists. And among the formulas being mixed up in drugstores were treats for the soda fountain. A two-page spread in Waters' book has recipes for "Soda Water Syrups," including pineapple, lemon and strawberry.
"There were very few national brands," Riley said. "Their lifeblood was all their formulas."
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 08:53:53 -0400
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: Dr. Pepper's origins?
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Message-ID: <D585A61B-4D97-4908-BB9A-CBCAB1129B41 at rev.net>
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That was the legend around Rural Retreat, however, according to the
Dr Pepper Museum website
" There are several stories surrounding the naming of Dr Pepper. The
most popular is that Wade Morrison worked for a man name Dr. Charles
Pepper in Rural Retreat, VA before he moved to Waco and became the
owner of The Old Corner Drug store where Dr Pepper was invented. The
story is that Morrison fell in love with Dr. Pepper's daughter, but
Dr. Pepper would not let them get married. To make his fortune he
moved west to Waco and named the new exciting drink after Dr. Pepper
to win the hand of his daughter. We do have census records that
indicate that this legend is probably not true. Dr. Pepper in Rural
Retreat, Virginia had a daughter who was eleven at the time of Wade
Morrison's employment. Mr. Morrison is not the person who invented Dr
Pepper but Dr. Charles Alderton, a pharmacist who worked for Mr.
Morrison at his Old Corner Drug Store. This is also documented and in
our archives. I hope this clarifies any confusion. "
I don't know that it ever generated business for the N&W, Rural
Retreat is not exactly a huge tourist draw.
The Roanoke Valley was, at least in the 1950s sold more Dr Pepper per
capita than any other metro area east of the Mississippi.
The only way to connect this back to the N&W would be supplies and
materials to manufacture the drink were probably brought in via rail
in those days. However, to my recollection, the bottling plant did
not have a rail siding, so it would have been trucked to the plant
itself.
Ken Miller
On May 5, 2009, at 8:00 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>
> I don't mean to be slightly off-topic here but I thought the common
> myth was that Dr. Pepper was "invented" along the N&W at, in, or
> near Rural Retreat, VA. I know this was at least an early formula
> but if anyone can fill in the missing parts of this tale and how it
> made business for the N&W, I think it would be interesting.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Bob Cohen
>
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 10:02:55 -0400
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: NS Office Train
To: <NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org>
Message-ID: <D6CC2BB58ABC4D4FB02B73B6287BE786 at NEWDELL>
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I sure wish I could keep ahead of what is traveling on the NS between Bulls
Gap to Bristol.
About 8AM the office train went through Jonesborough, TN headed east, all
clean and shiny. Two F units and four ( I think ). Headed for Roanoke I
expect. At 9:30 a second train with two passenger cars. So surprising I
missed the engine numbers and type.
I am upstairs and the camera was downstairs.
Pete Heimbach, Jonesborough, Tennessee.
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