Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Then and Now

513 W Santa Fe Trail Street

The south side of what was originally called Locust Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues was mostly residential until the 1890s. Home Steam Laundry occupied what was then 324 Locust Street for a few years before relocating to Chestnut Street in June of 1903.

Floy (not Floyd) Brumbaugh moved to Dodge City with plans of opening a new bottling plant that same year. F. S. Brumbaugh Bottling Works set up shop in the former laundry building. Improvements including an electric motor and a water filter were made in 1907.

The wood frame building was also upgraded with a concrete floor. Around 1909, addresses were standardized and the building found itself newly located at 513 Santa Fe Trail. By the end of 1914, Brumbaugh’s soft drinks were distributed to most of Southwest Kansas.

By 1915, he was bottling Coca-Cola. The building nearly doubled in size that year and the daily capacity was increased to about 4,000 bottles.

John Cannon bought the business in December of 1915 and began advertising as Dodge City Bottling Works.

Cannon went to work for Ernest Nickels around 1919, at which time the Dodge City Ice Cream and Produce Company began bottling Coca-Cola in their building at Fourth Avenue and Front Street.

It is unclear how the building was used during this time, possibly as a warehouse, but the Klan apparently deemed the neighborhood unsavory and burned a cross nearby in late 1924.

Russell Walker opened R.T.’s Auto Salvage in the old bottling works building around July of 1925 but relocated after about eight months because the business had quickly grown out of the space.

John Cannon resigned from the Dodge City Ice Cream and Produce Company on January 1, 1926 and regained ownership of the Coca-Cola bottling operation. After the salvage company moved, he began construction of a 32-by-100-foot concrete block and brick building at the old location. The new Coca-Cola Bottling Company opened in May of that year.

A couple additions were constructed in the 1930s, which added flair and more than doubled the size of the building. This photo was taken around February of 1956.

The company changed hands several times over the years but continued at the same location. A building permit was issued in May of 1965 to “remodel business premises.” This photo from the flood in June of 1965 appears to show pallets of soda bottles at the location of the company’s eastward expansion to the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Trail Street.

The large metal building with an approximately 12,000-square-foot warehouse and 2,000 square feet of office space along Fourth Avenue was completed in 1965.

Wichita Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Inc. bought the Dodge City operation on November 1, 1978 and the Dodge City plant closed in January of 1979. Chaffin, Inc. bought the property that July.

Multiple tenants leased the property over the years but it was listed as being vacant more often than not. The Dodge City Cooperative Exchange used the building as a warehouse for the farm and home store for a while during the 1980s. It appears the old brick building was demolished in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

This Google Street View image from 2012 shows the wide gable end along Fourth Avenue.

If you go around the block, you can see the foundation and front steps from the old block and brick building.

The City bought this property intending to repurpose it as a recycling center. However, planning for the new Holiday Inn Express caused the building to be dismantled for future use. According to the Globe, the metal frame was reused in construction of the new recycling center at 14th Avenue and Park Street. The Holiday Inn Express opened in August of 2017.

This is how the site of the former Coca-Cola Bottling Co. looks today:

I’m not thrilled about Dodge City losing its bottling plants but I don’t miss that pale and sickly metal building. The brick cutie out back is another story altogether.

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