REMEMBER WHEN FROM THE PAST--PAYSON COCA COLA BOTTLING PLANT

Remember When...
June 26, 2008
by Kenna Holm

THE PAYSON COCA-COLA BOTTLING PLANT

    Thanks to you readers for all the kind comments on last week’s story on Sherm Loveless. He was certainly everyone’s friend. A few called and said they were maybe some of those people who still owed Sherm and forgot to pay him. I didn’t mean to make anyone feel guilty but I guess some consciences were touched.   Anyway--thanks for the compliments.
    This week I thought about the old Coca Cola Plant that used to be in Payson. Maybe some didn’t know we had a bottling plant here in Payson at one time. It was at 63 South 300 West, across the street from Jack Provstgaard’s. That’s were I remember it first. Harry Webster was the manager and I think owner of the plant.

    I called Roger Jensen to pick his brain because I knew his dad, Karl, had worked for so many years at the plant and he gave me some fun history of it.
I didn’t realize they had so many workers at the plant but Roger told me of several. There was, Monte Taylor and his brother Dick, Glade Taylor, Paul Bigler, Irvin Reynolds and his son Darrell, Jack Walker, and Bernell Evans. Now there were probably others but that is a few workers Roger could remember.
    He said Paul Bigler was one who sold and delivered, Bernell Evans (Payson former Mayor) used to load trucks and he had a route he drove. Most of them worked in the plant bottling the products.

   In 1955 they moved a Quonset hut in from Orem.  It was a big Yellow building. They used to laugh and say You wonder where the yellow went-- (remember that old Pepsodent toothpaste advertisement --You wonder where the yellow went--when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent) well, they said--the yellow went to Payson. It was painted after a while.
    The Coca Cola Plant also produced Big Chief orange soda, cream soda and root beer along with Cokes. They were a nickel a bottle or if you bought a full case of 24 it was one dollar. (now you can’t buy one for much less that a dollar) The bottles were small, I think they were 6 or 8 oz. The bottles were different shapes and they had a worker sort the bottles into shapes and of course they were glass bottles, plastic bottles and cans were unheard of. There was a man who they called the soaker who would place the bottles upside down in a washer and the bottles would be washed and sterilized. They would then go on to be put on a belt and filled with the product and capped. Workers would pull 4 at a time, two in each hand, and place them in a box that was tilted and made it so the inspector could make sure there was nothing foreign in the bottle before it was placed in the shell, as the case was called then.
    The cases were stacked and workers would load the truck and then they were delivered all over Utah and Juab Counties..
    Roger said he remembered how they would use lots of sugar, water, coke syrup and caramel color for the Cokes and they would put dry ice in the tanks with a lid on for the carbonation in the drinks.
    The old plant on 300 west was sold to Arnold Kallbacka for his sign business and the plant was moved to 500 east and 100 North, just west of the Peteetneet.
Harry Webster was killed in a tragic car accident in 1963 and it left his widow, Arvella, who was a RN at the Payson Hospital, to run the business. She finally sold the plant and it ended the life of the Payson Coca Cola Plant.
    The building went on to house the Bedowin Boat Plant where they built boats and was owned by Stan Peck and now is an Auto Supply and repair store.
I’m sure there are lots of people who have memories of the old Coke Plant and it has been fun to look back and remember when....

FOOTNOTE:
 The following is quoted from “Peteetneet–A History of Payson, Utah” by
Madoline Cloward Dixon, p 131.

“The Eagle Bottling Works was established in1912 by Roe Manwill and a Mr. Messner.  It was located at 325 North Third East in a building constructed in the 1860's as the Curtis School House.  Twenty-four cases of soda pop could be filled every four minutes. Delivery was made to communities in Utah and Juab Counties.
The Payson Bottling Works was established in 1917 in the old Taylor school house, but shortly moved to 98 West Utah Avenue, then, about 1920, to a new building located at 63 South Third West by owners , L. Roy Barnett, and his brothers, Owen L. and George Barnett.
They sold to David C. Forsey and his brothers who operated the plant until 1938 when they sold to Southern Utah Coca-Cola company.  In 1951 Coca-Cola moved its offices from Richfield to Payson and Harry Webster purchased the plant.”