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.
Drug 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. The company offered a way to all the fountain owners, to produce
carbonated water on their own, making it very beneficial for both the
company and the soda fountain owners. 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 ........
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