Louisiana - Day 28 - Monroe & Coke

Lake D'Arbonne State Park, Farmerville
Friday, 28 February 2020

today's route

The drive to Monroe
I stopped once more at the Brookshire Market in Delhi, so as not to have to find a store in Monroe or Farmerville down the road.  That took me past a large new Delhi Community Hospital in the process of being built.

Going along Historic Route 80 again, I passed the Delhi Livestock Auction building and miles of cropfields and cows and multiple grain silos.

In Dunn I passed a plant labeled Trans Canada Pipeline - yes, it's all the way south to Louisiana.

In Holly Ridge I passed multiple rice silos - I know because they were labeled.  I also passed very large cotton fields.  So when I got to Rayville, which calls itself the White Gold Capital of the South, I wasn't sure just what product they were talking about.  And I still don't know.  Nothing online wants to tell me.  I know they've got both rice and cotton growing in this area, so take your pick.

In Rayville, I saw a billboard that said:
   YOU DIDN'T HAVE IT COMING
   THE ABUSE IS NOT YOUR FAULT
And it was sponsored by The Wellspring, which I've discovered offers services to victims of domestic violence in northeastern Louisiana.

Everything is context.  When I saw that sign, I figured it was for people with drug and alcohol problems, and I was surprised at how hard I was finding it to convince myself that substance abuse problems might not be someone's fault, though I know that's very often the case.  But now that I see it's aimed at people who are being physically or emotionally abused, I have no trouble at all understanding it.

In Rayville, I passed a sign telling me to turn left for the Tim McGraw Sports Complex.  A few miles and a cypress swamp later, I came to the town of Start - "Home of Country Great Tim McGraw" according to its sign.  Apparently, he was born there but his single mom moved down the road to Delhi for a while when he was growing up.  Still, when you have fewer than 1,000 residents, you want some claim to glory, and this is theirs.

A few miles later, I crossed the Bayou Lafourche (unlabeled, of course) and found myself in Ouachita Parish.  I'll tell you now what I learned later, which is that Ouachita is pronounced WASH-it-aw.  I saw several stands that advertised pecans for sale and concluded they're grown around here.  And after diligent research, I found at least one pecan farm in West Monroe, Monroe's twin city.

I passed a Woodman of the World Lodge.  And a sign saying I'm on the Heroes and Heritage Trail.  And another sign telling me to turn to go to the Chennault Military Museum - which would tend to confirm the "heroes" part. 

Claire Chennault's best known for forming the Flying Tigers; he's been variously described by British observers as: (1) a Southern Gentleman, a "Good Ol' Boy" who accepted "human foibles" as natural (he opened a brothel for his airmen on the grounds that they would go to one anyway and it was better they go to one where the women were regularly inspected for venereal diseases); and (2) "a very gallant airman with a limited brain."   Probably both accurate assessments.

In Monroe, I passed the University of Louisiana at Monroe, the sister campus to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

I was heading to the Biedenharn Museums by the Ouachita River.  Once I'd parked there, I figured I'd better walk the dogs before I went inside, which turned out to be a mistake.  It looked like there were plenty of sidewalks in the neighborhood, so down the street we went, only to discover the first cross street was blocked off by construction, and the second didn't have sidewalks along it, so on to the third.  By this time the walk had taken longer than I'd intended so we turned down the third street, even without sidewalks.

That was okay, but then we got down to Riverside Drive, which the museum fronts on, and I found the first block had a sidewalk but the second didn't.  I decided to cross the street, rather than dodge high hedges on our side of the street, but half-way across, one of the dogs wanted to stop and sniff something - only without warning and right in front of me, so I tripped and fell.  And suddenly the street that had seemed empty had a dozen cars coming from both directions.  Really.  A dozen.  And I was lying right in the middle of the street, unable to get up with any speed at all, with scraped knees yet again, making getting up even more painful than it might otherwise be.

Fortunately, the closest driver stopped while I tried to get my feet under me - but then I saw the car in the opposite lane that didn't seem to have seen me and the dogs (all these drivers were talking on their phones, by the way) and I was afraid at first would clunk into us, but then he stopped too, and cars started to pile up behind them.  But I limped off the road and tried not to look too pathetic, because every car was slowing to ask if I was all right and did I need help.  I'd expected irate drivers but instead got kindness.  Very nice of them.

And we still had 2 blocks to go to get back to the museum, during which I had time to learn that my knees and hands and assorted other joints were sore and unhappy.  Back in the RV I found that in fact I hadn't broken any skin to speak of, mainly because my jeans protected my knees from the worst of the asphalt.  I was just sore.  But I was also still shaking so waited a bit and had some lunch before going into the museum.

Biedenharn's Coca-Cola Museum
The Biedenharn Museum is actually a collection of museums.  They have some spectacular gardens (I hear) and an outstanding collection of Bibles, as well as the family home which is a museum, and the Coke Museum.  The whole tour is an hour and a half, and I just didn't want to take the time to do all that, especially given my shaky condition, and the fact that the woman at the desk told me the Bible museum was in transition so some things weren't available to see today, and the fact that in late February few gardens are worth paying to see.  I'd really just come for the Bibles and the Coke museum anyway, so decided to give up on the former and stick with the latter.  Which turned out to be worth my time.

One of my biggest surprises was to learn that the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. is exactly that - a bottling company.  It does not own the formula to Coca-Cola.  That has always resided in Atlanta, GA, and is there still.  More on that shortly.

Coke was created in the 1800s by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton, who was not in good health.  He was a Civil War veteran and likely suffered from PTSD, in addition to other war-related wounds.  His profession gave him access to all kinds of herbs, one of which was the coca leaf.  Using that, he created a syrup of coca leaf and kola nut which, when mixed with soda water, helped ease his pain.  When he grew closer to death, he sold the formula to fellow Atlanta pharmacist Asa Candler.  Both men dispensed small doses of the beverage in their pharmacies to customers - mixing 1 part syrup to 5 parts soda per dose.

Candler decided to distribute the drink beyond the Atlanta region and put it in gallon jugs.  These were eventually shipped as far away as Vicksburg.

Ouachita Candy Co. &
Coca-Cola Bottling Co.

Herman and Henry Biedenharn lived in Vicksburg, where Herman had a shoe shop and was partners with Henry in the Ouachita Candy Company.  Herman's oldest son Joseph quit school at age 14 because by then he was working full-time in the candy company.  This company, which became the Biedenharn Candy Co., sold sweet drinks as well as candy.  One of those drinks was Coke. 

an early bottling device

In those days, drinks like this were sold only by the glass - one jerk of syrup to 5 jerks of soda (hence the name "soda jerk") plus a few cubes of ice.  In 1894, Joe was the first person to suggest bottling the beverage, since the syrup was already being bottled. 

Joe sent the first cases of Coke to Asa Candler, who said it tasted fine and didn't say don't put it ready-packaged in individual bottles with the candy company name on them.  So Joe kept on doing it.

Hutchinson seal

They used what was called a Hutchinson seal.  Each seal was shoved down into the bottle to open it, making a popping sound as it did so (hence "soda pop").  When the empty bottles were washed and refilled, the seal floated back up to the top where the bottler grabbed it and pulled it back into position to seal the bottle.  Knowing nothing about disease prevention, the bottling company was using ordinary Mississippi River water to wash the bottles.  Definitely a healthful beverage if people weren't getting sick from drinking out of these bottles.

Candler, the pharmacist, finally objected to several parts of this system.  First, he wanted the bottles to be sterilized 5 times between usages.  Next, he wanted a better seal - Crown tops, much like today's crimped-on bottle caps.  Finally, he wanted his product to be bottled in his own bottles instead of those with the candy company name on them. 

left to right: glass was the original serving; 1st bottle was the candy co.'s;
2nd bottle was too nondescript for Candler; 3rd bottle - his choice - was hard to ship;
4th bottle was what became THE bottle for decades; 5th bottle had first printed label &
first to use the name Coke; 6th is today's bottle;
the white urn in the background was used to dispense the original syrup

His first choice for a new bottle was certainly distinctive, but the bulbous shape didn't ship well; however, this bottle had the ribs on it, taken from a coca pod, now used on all Coke bottles.  The 4th bottle - in the middle of the photo above - was a modified bulb but still with the ribs, the shape used for many decades.

an early delivery truck

Joe turned out to be a marketing genius: it was he who developed a delivery network for his product and began buying and franchising local bottling plants to distribute the product in their localities.  The Monroe Bottling Company is one of the earliest, and Joe and his family moved here in 1913.

He had 7 brothers, and they fanned out around the area to run bottling companies in Shreveport, San Antonio, Uvalde and other cities.  They each used Joe's delivery network system and used "Every Bottle Sterilized" as a sales slogan.  Coke's success wasn't just in the product but in Joe's franchising and delivery network systems.  The company still uses these systems today at their plants throughout the world.

Here's another thing that surprised me: those plastic bottles aren't shipped in their finished shape; instead they're shipped as those little tubes you see in front of each bottle.  Take up a lot less shipping space, don't they?  Each little tube is blown into its finished shape at the bottling company.  Logical but it never once entered my mind.

Meanwhile, the Biedenharns never possessed, let alone owned, the formula for Coke.  That stayed in Atlanta and has stayed a secret all these years because no one company makes the entire product.  Coke has different parts of its formula manufactured in different plants - one is made in Monroe, LA - and then sent back to Atlanta where the parts are combined.  That combination is then shipped to the bottling plants.  This method has ensured Coke's ability to retain its own flavor for so long.

The Coke museum isn't large but has lots of memorabilia, which will be meaningless to today's young people but bring waves of nostalgia to those of us with some miles on us.  For instance, I'd forgotten that the bottles used to have the names of the bottling plants imprinted on their bases until I saw a display of them.  Then it all came back to me - how we'd look at the bottoms (trying not to spill the Coke) to see where they'd come from.

Maybe I'm just sentimental, but I like the looks of the old vending machines better than those of today.

One of Joe's sons created what became Delta Air Lines out of some cropdusting planes.  He used them during the Depression to deliver mail for the US Postal Service to small communities along the Mississippi River Delta, hence the name Delta Air Lines, and managed to create and maintain jobs even during the Depression.  The Coca-Cola Bottling Co. too continued bottling its product to maintain jobs and its place in the marketplace.

As another by the way, cocaine hasn't been a part of the product since the early 1900s.  Back then it was a legal drug, but today caffeine is substituted for the coca properties.

Very interesting place.

Back on the road
The Ouachita River separates Monroe from West Monroe, and we crossed it a mile from the Biedenharn house.  On the Monroe side there's a high grass-covered berm; on the West Monroe side there's a wall: I saw a sign saying "Welcome to One Mile of Love."  That was followed by a mile of murals, completely distracting from the fact that this was a high wall they were on.  They were almost all stick figures and simple cartoon characters, in bright colors showing vignettes - farmers and families and soldiers and so forth.  The murals were followed by a long section painted to look like a fancy metal fence.  Then the road turned away from the river.  It was a very nice touch.

I passed a church with the sign in front saying: "He is Divine.  We are Debranches."  It took me a few miles to figure it out.

The Bayou D'Arbonne seemed to be on both sides of the road.  Some body of water was on both sides of the road and I'd gone over the bayou that actually had its name on it, which is why I'm guessing that's what I was still seeing.  But it was an awful lot of water.  Lots of water everywhere.

Then I passed the D'Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge, where the roads were 3' under water.  I don't know what was going on here, but I'll bet it's causing problems for some of the wildlife, and for the rangers who are supposed to protect them.

At the town of Cross Roads I saw a sign for Ole Southern Boys Mobile Welding.  With a name like that, I'd have hired them.

I passed a field with half a dozen or so Shetland ponies.

And then into the Lake D'Arbonne State Park, where they told me at the office, when I asked about deer, that yes they have deer.  One of the campground hosts feeds them every evening.  And I thought swell, I'll never be able to let the dogs out of the RV if deer are actually being encouraged to congregate near there.

But I talked to that host who said he does feed them around 4:00, and the deer stick around until they've eaten all the food, which takes about 15 minutes.  So I figured I could live with that.