Dr Pepper Dismisses Dublin
Really sad news out of Centrail Texas. Dublin, Texas, is on the route to my mother’s house and their Dr Pepper bottling plant is a regular stop for the CatheyExpress on our way to and from Brownwood, Texas.
Been through the plant where they’ve bottled Dr. Pepper for ages, checked out what has to be one of the world’s most impressive collections of Dr Pepper memorabilia and enjoyed a hand-pumped Dr. Pepper from the old-time soda fountain. Will have a hard time stopping in from now on, but it does appear there are two sides to this story. Dublin Dr Pepper was always one of Pops Route 66 Cafe’s top sellers.
Here’s how the Associated Press reported it late last week.
By Associated Press
DUBLIN, Texas — Dublin didn’t invent Dr Pepper, but no other place has embraced the soft drink quite like it has.
A dozen or so signs and murals around town tout the virtues of the local version of the drink, Dublin Dr Pepper, which was first bottled in Dublin in 1891, six years after it debuted in Waco. And a giant Dublin Dr Pepper billboard greets the nearly 100,000 annual visitors to the central Texas town — most who come just to buy the drink, which is made with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup and is sweeter than typical Dr Pepper.
Under an agreement with Dr Pepper, the Dublin Dr Pepper bottler will end production of the drink that Jeff Kloster’s family has been bottling for more than a century. Because of a legal settlement that led to the demise of the Dublin Dr Pepper brand and logo, the town’s name is being cut out, covered up or painted over on the signs, and many residents feel the town’s identity is disappearing along with it.
“You see somebody cutting your name out of something like it never happened, and that’s just gut-wrenching,” said Pat Leatherwood, vice president of First National Bank of Dublin. “You walk in stores all over town, and some people are mad. Some are upset. It’s like someone has died.”
