Summertime and the history is easy

August 2008

by Jerry McCoy

Last month I was working in my front yard when Nick Yonkos, my eight year old neighbor from one block over, stopped by while walking with his mother, little sister, and dog. Nick, who turns nine this month (Happy Birthday Nick!) told me that landscapers working in their back yard found an old Coca-Cola bottle. I immediately asked him, "Is it imprinted 'Silver Spring, MD' on the bottom?" Nick didn't know and off he went to retrieve the bottle.

Why would a Coca-Cola bottle have Silver Spring, MD marked on the bottom? For nearly three decades residents in the vicinity of downtown Silver Spring knew that when they reached for a bottle of the "Real Thing" it most likely came from their neighborhood Coca-Cola Bottling Works, located at 1110 East West Highway. Opened in 1942, the plant remained in operation until 1968 when it relocated to 1710 Elton Road where it remains today.

Silver Spring's Coca-Cola Bottling Works as it appeared in the early 1990s. Photo by Judy Reardon

Coca-Cola wasn't the only bottling plant located on this stretch of East West Highway. Four year later the Canada Dry Corp. opened their Streamline Moderne-styled plant at 1201 East West Highway. This section of East West Highway between Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road was zoned for light industry and became well known for its proliferation of new and used automobile dealerships. If you were in the market for an automobile half a century ago, East West Highway was where you went to buy your car.

Nick quickly returned with bottle in hand. Turning it upside down there indeed was "Silver Spring, MD" neatly imprinted on the bottom of the bottle. Appearing on the side of the bottle was "Pat'd 105529." A quick search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online database (patft.uspto.gov) revealed that this particular bottle design was submitted for application by inventor Eugene Kelly on March 24, 1937. Kelly's application read in part, "...a citizen of the U.S. and resident of Toronto, Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, has invented a new, original, and ornamental Design for a Bottle..."

Nick Yonkos holds the vintage Coca-Cola bottle found in his back yard. Photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

While the overall design of the glass Coke bottle has changed very little (the beverage is still available in bottles at limited retail outlets for you purists), the same cannot be said about 1110 East West Highway. Sometime during the early 1990s the windows on the building's first and second floors facing East West highway were bricked in and the entire structure painted white. Desecration continued when bas-relief concrete letters that read "Coca Cola Bottling Works 1942" that were set into a panel above the building's Art Deco-styled corner entrance were chiseled off and the panel covered with a layer of stucco.

In the late 1990s when National Tire and Battery (NTB) moved in the building's façade was given a "unifying" surface with the application of Dryvit (foam plastic insulation panels covered with a synthetic coating) and a center entrance was cut into the building. A couple of years ago the stucco that was applied over the chiseled letters flaked off after a hard rain and today one can just make out the ghost lettering, all that remains that indicates the building's original purpose.

Corner entrance of Silver Spring's 1942 Coca-Cola Bottling Works. Ghost letters are visible above. 2008 photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

Meanwhile, visitors to 1500 King Street in Alexandria, VA can experience that historic community's restored 1932 Coca-Cola Bottling Works. In operation until 1961, the structure underwent a $5 million restoration in 1985 and today the building houses offices and retail space. Architecturally similar to the Silver Spring plant with a prominent Art Deco-styled stepped-back brick entrance, this building contributes to the preserved architectural and social layers of history that make Alexandria a popular heritage tourism destination for residents and visitors alike.

With East West Highway's continued gentrification from industrial to residential, it is hoped that a creative developer may come along and restore the façade of the Coca-Cola Bottling Works to incorporate it into a new project development.

Alexandria, VA's restored 1932 Coca-Cola Bottling Works. 2004 photo by Jerry A. McCoy.

If you can share with the Silver Spring Historical Society any photographs/memorabilia of the Coca-Cola Bottling Works, please contact SSHS at P.O. Box 1160, Silver Spring, MD 20910-1160, email sshistory@yahoo.com, or call 301-537-1253. The society's Web site is www.sshistory.org. Current and future residents and historians will thank you!