Concrete, Kids, and Coca-Cola

Submitted by
Rebekah Sheats

An old map of the town of Monticello reveals the surprising fact that, among the multiple commercial establishments and residences in the growing community in 1909, only a single structure boasted a construction of concrete blocks. This small building, lying just north of the intersection of Dogwood and Cherry st., still stands today. It is located north of Gelling’s floral shop and across the street from what used to be the public library. Though currently vacant, back in the early 1900s it was home to the Coca-Cola Bottling Company.

When the building was originally constructed, it was built of top-of-the-line building materials. Inventor Harmon S. Palmer designed the first hollow concrete building block in the late 1800s. After years of experimentation, he patented the design around 1900, and full-scale manufacturing began. The little building on Cherry Street was the first in Monticello to employ these hollow concrete blocks in its construction. The blocks served as an excellent insurance against fire. (Because the bottling works employed a gasoline engine, fire was always a concern.)
The Coca-Cola company originally stored its gasoline in a three-gallon tank, but this was discovered to be insufficient for its purposes. Monticello’s enjoyment of the drink soon convinced the company owner to invest in a larger tank. By 1922, the bottling works had installed an underground tank with a capacity of 250 gallons.
Managed by C. P. Reichert, a local businessman, the Coca-Cola Bottling Company grew and prospered in the Monticello community. Its soft drink was sold in glass bottles which could be returned to the plant for a small refund. Reusing these bottles meant saving money for Reichert, but it also posed a challenge to sanitation and cleanliness. In 1925, Reichert installed a new bottle washing machine in the small building. The machine was “the very latest model” available. This addition to the bottling works made headline news in the local paper, which noted of the new machinery: “It washes the bottles thoroughly with both hot and cold water, leaving them perfectly clean and sanitary.”
Reichert was a man who believed that Coca-Cola would one day take the nation by storm. When he purchased his bottle washing machine, he ordered a model with a capacity much greater than his present needs. Time would prove that he had judged rightly in his estimation of the nation’s interest in the new soft drink. At the time, he was selling Coca-Cola for eighty cents a case.
Over the next few decades, the nationwide Coca-Cola Company engaged in advertising campaigns that spanned the nation. Ads for the “delicious and refreshing” drink began appearing in the Monticello News, assuring potential customers that “ice-cold Coca-Cola belongs on the job . . . Thirst asks nothing more.”

For younger audiences, the Coca-Cola company blended their advertising with useful tools and the unchanging wisdom of God’s Word. In Monticello in the 1930s, local schoolchildren received free pencils and writing tablets bearing the Coca-Cola emblem. Longtime resident John Finlayson stills recalls these gifts and the impression they made on him as a youngster: “Every year the Coca-Cola company gave each of us kids a little kit when we started school. And it had a ruler in it, and on the ruler was printed: ‘A good rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
The local Coca-Cola company also invested in the safety of the next generation by producing a set of school zone signs to be used at school crossings. These signs were made of cast iron and weighed over 800 pounds each. On one side was the image of a crossing guard holding a “SLOW! School zone” sign. On the back of the figure was the Coca-Cola emblem. The signs stood over five feet tall and were sure to catch the eye of passing drivers.
By 1930, the bottling plant in Monticello had changed hands. Lemuel McGee Keen, a native of Dublin, Georgia, purchased the company as well as the local ice plant. He operated both until his unexpected death in 1932, after which his son John took over.
Born in 1906, John B. Keen was the eldest son of Lemuel. Standing a full 6’ 4¾” tall, he was affectionately known by his nickname “Too Long” Keen. So popular was this nickname that many residents would be unable to recall his true name in later years.

After many years of operation at its original building on Cherry Street, the bottling plant was moved to a building located on the northwest corner of the courthouse circle, across the street from the opera house. The company continued to offer monetary incentive for returned bottles, and it was here that as a boy Jim Sledge carried any bottles he managed to find around town. In the early 1930s, he and his friend Boots Thomas hoped to make enough money off the returned bottles to cover the cost of a trip to South America. Jim Sledge remembers: “They paid us a penny or two for each bottle. By the time Boots and I had gathered about thirty bottles, we realized that this probably wasn’t going to pay for our trip.”
Despite their disillusionment, the boys still enjoyed the ice-cold beverage which became so popular that Monticello residents began to hold “Coca-Cola parties” devoted to the drink.
But what of the original Coca-Cola building that now stands vacant on Cherry Street? Businessman Scott McPherson has purchased the concrete block structure and plans to renovate it to possibly house a business establishment on the ground floor with living quarters above. Whatever its future use may be, it still stands as the oldest concrete block structure in the City of Monticello.