The Soda Fountain has a long link with Aull & Company. Aull was the
first
establishment in Auburn to have a Soda Fountain - at least one other was at
the "Dixie" soft drink and lunch room in 1920. See related article
associated to a Soda Fountain accident causing the death of a young Auburn
man in 1920.
Around the Soda Fountain was a busy place to be
in the years prior to the advent of the large supermarkets when Auburn was
bustling with business, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s. Many the youth
of the day worked part time, after school and at weekends, serving behind
this counter. One such person later went on to become the president of the
Bank of Auburn, namely Glenn Tinsley.
This is Grover Corum
{Auburn} standing behind the counter of a Soda
Fountain, performing the job of a "soda jerk.". This Soda Fountain, which he
refurbished (in 2007) with his grandson Adam Corum, came from the Aull & Co.
store. It is now set up in the old Hogan-McFadden barn at the Museum.
The history of the Soda Fountain goes back to the
1770s in Europe but it never took off like it did in the United States. Up
to the very late 1800s drinks and ice cream was cooled with ice which was
harvested in blocks from the lakes and rivers in the winter time and stored
until the summer.
In 1888, a second-generation pharmacist Jacob
Baur from Indiana founded the Company. Liquid Carbonic Acid
Manufacturing Company is what the Liquid Carbonic Company was originally
called. The company offered a way to all the fountain owners, to produce
carbonated water on their own. This is the main reason of the popularity of
the company. For the soda fountain owner, it seemed beneficial because it
reduced the cost of the operation and also increased the revenue. Carbonic
Acid Gas is the one on which the company’s whole great business was founded.
For some years, gas business was the whole business for this company and it
commercially produced the gas. The actual manufacturing of soda fountains by
the company came around 1900. The “Liquid Iceless” soda fountain is produced
by the company, which uses ammonia gas as a refrigerant. The company in 1909
produced a device called the ‘Liquid Diamond Carbonator’. It produced 20
gallons of carbonated water per day. The Company was concerned about the
sanitation and so decided to manufacture the fountains in ‘self defense’.
The company by around 1909 claimed to be the ‘world’s largest soda fountain
builders’. The company offered a variety of merchandise of soda fountain
like syrups, utensils and highest quality canned fruit. This made the
company world’s greatest purveyors of soda fountains and everything about
and present in the fountains.
The main office of the company is in Chicago Illinois. Atlanta, St. Louis,
Dallas, Cincinnati, New York, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Milwaukee have
branches of the company. Most of the fountain owners bought carbonated water
from this company, which made inroads for the company into the soda fountain
business. The other goods the company produced are Nut Confections, Crushed
Fruits and Whole Fruits included in the liquid fruits and syrups. Cherrie
Punch was one of the other products made and marketed by the company.
‘Diamond’ brand grape juice concentrate free of germs was manufactured by
the company, which turned out to be a big consideration and the end of the
last century In 1903 Liquid Carbonic began market-testing its prototype
iceless fountain in a Chicago confectionary**.
In their heyday, soda fountains flourished in
drugstores, ice cream parlors, candy stores, dime stores, department stores,
and train stations. They served an important function as a public space
where neighbors could socialize and exchange community news. In the early
20th century many fountains expanded their menus and became lunch counters,
serving light meals as well as ice cream sodas, egg creams, sundaes, and the
like. Soda fountains reached their height in the 1940s and 1950s. With the
coming of the Car Culture and the rise of suburbia, they began to decline.
Drive-in restaurants and roadside ice cream outlets, such as
Dairy
Queen, competed for customers. Retail stores switched to self-service,
and the labor-intensive soda fountain didn't fit into the new sales scheme.
Today only a sprinkling of vintage soda fountains survive.*
Aull & Company were very much in tune with the
latest technology. Not long after the Liquid Carbonic Company test-marketed
its product Aull & Company brought one of their Soda Fountains to Auburn.
In 1910 Aull & Company put in a “Soda Fountain”
for which they paid $870.00. This Soda Fountain was mortgaged (see the
following) with the suppliers ‘The Liquid Carbonic Company’ until it was
fully paid-up in June of 1913.
**************************************************************
The Liquid Carbonic Co. – To {Release of Mortgage} –
Aull & Company
October 26, 1910
Know All Men These Presents, That The Liquid Carbonic
Company, a corporation under the laws of the State of Illinois, does hereby
certify That a certain Indenture of Mortgage, bearing date the 13th,
day of October, A. D. 1910, wherein Aull & Co. is mortgagor and The Liquid
Carbonic Company is mortgagee, covering certain personal property therein
mentioned, viz: Soda Fountain; the consideration therein being the sum of
Eight Hundred Seventy Dollars, ($870.00) as therein stated, and said
instrument having been filed in the office of the Clerk of Logan County, in
the State of Ky., on the 26th., day of October, A. D. 1910, and
recorded in Book _______ at page _______ of the ______ records of said
County, is, with the notes secured thereby, and the debt mentioned therein,
fully paid, satisfied release and discharged.
In Witness Whereof, said The Liquid Carbonic Company
has caused these presents to be executed and its corporate name to be
hereunto subscribed by W. K. McIntosh its Secretary and Assistant Treasurer,
duly authorized hereunto by its Board of Directors, and its corporate seal
to be hereunto affixed this 26th day of June, 1913.
(Seal) The Liquid Carbonic
Company,
By W. K. McIntosh, Secretary
And Assistant Treasurer
*******************************************************************************
* Soda Fountain History:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_fountain
** Liquid Carbonic:
http://www.encyclocentral.com/11071-Liquid_Carbonic.html
