THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9608300076SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E4 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR DATELINE: RURAL RETREAT, VA. LENGTH: 85 lines
DON'T YOU LOVE that name? A long time ago - I can't be more exact thatthat, but it was stagecoach days - this place was called Mount Airy. There wasa tavern here called the Rural Retreat, and eventually this Wythe Countycommunity a mile off Interstate 81 came to be called that as well.
Mostly because that is what it was . . . and is: a pleasant rural retreatin the southwestern Virginia Highlands.
Once it was also called the ``Cabbage Capital of the World,'' but not anymore. So we don't have to deal with that.
Today it is known, at least to pursuers of trivia, as the home of Dr.Pepper, and maybe even the birthplace of Dr Pepper, the soft drink. Or atleast the place of its conception, which is sometimes considered even morememorable.
(Note to editors, and readers as well: Dr Pepper, the soft drink company,dropped the period in its name when it started using in its logo a particulartype face in which the serif part of the ``r'' looked like a period. When usedwith an actual period the lettering was confusing.)
There are more than a dozen versions of how the drink got its name. I willtell you the one I like best because it begins here. It may or may not becompletely true.
Doctor Pepper was Charles Taylor Pepper, a former Confederate surgeonraised in nearby Christiansburg, who set up a pharmacy in Rural Retreat afterthe war. In his spare time, so the story goes, he began mixing mountain herbs,roots and seltzer into a fizzy brew, which his assistant, Wade B. Morrison,began to mass-produce.
The sign over the ex-drugstore - it closed about two years ago and is now aflorist and gift shop - at the corner of Main Street and Railroad Avenue,across from the depot, boasts that it was the home of Dr. Charles Pepper, whodeveloped the formula for the soft drink. That's their story, and they'resticking with it.
You can still get a can of Dr Pepper there for 50 cents - the newproprietors keep some on hand for trivial pursuers like me - but the coolerhad a lot more cans of Pepsi than anything else.
``We sell just enough to buy some more,'' a lady told me.
Anyway, the story goes that the doctor's daughter fell in love withMorrison. The doctor wasn't too pleased about that, so he sent her off toschool. And he fired Morrison.
So Morrison did what a lot of other Virginians from this region - SamHouston and Stephen F. Austin, among others - had done, although not all forthe same reason: he moved to Texas.
In Waco, Morrison set up a pharmacy of his own, the Old Corner Drug Storeat Fourth and Austin streets. The Texas version of the story is thatMorrison's pharmacist, Charles C. Alderton, began fooling around withcombinations of flavorings when he wasn't making medicine and that, about1885, he invented the drink.
Morrison began selling batches of the mix, drugstore to drugstore, promotedas a tonic, until 1891, when he opened a bottling plant.
So why was it called Dr Pepper? Nobody seems to want to give the Virginiadoctor credit. Some even claim it was named after Morrison's horse, Pepper.Why would Morrison have named his horse that? Think about why he left RuralRetreat.
The drink's precise recipe remains a secret, although it is known tocontain 32 ingredients, including juices, herbs and spices. It does NOTcontain prune juice. That was one of those rumors that got started about 50years ago - my impressionable years - and one I still halfway believe despitethe disclaimer.
There is a Dr Pepper Museum in Waco in what was the company's bottlingplant from 1906 to 1923. That year the company left Waco for Dallas. Last yearthe company was bought by Cadbury Schweppes PLC, the British conglomerate.
``We want Dr Pepper to come and paint our water tower like a can of DrPepper,'' a lady in the pharmacy turned florist shop told me, ``but they don'twant to have anything to do with Rural Retreat.''
Come on, Mr. Cadbury and Mr. Schweppes. Lighten up. What harm can a DrPepper water tower in Rural Retreat do . . . except to the pride of Waco?
Meanwhile, the remains of Dr. Charles Taylor Pepper rest with those of hiswife and several children in Mountain View Cemetery overlooking the town. Hedied in 1903 in his 73rd year, a man destined to be remembered at least inlegend.
At the foot of the modest marble obelisk marking his grave lay an empty DrPepper can, slightly crushed and already sun-faded. It was a specialcommemorative can marking the 105th anniversary of the drink that bears hisname.ILLUSTRATION: Photo
STEVE HARRIMAN
A florist and gift shop in Rural Retreat is the former site of the
drugstore of Dr. Pepper, who may have invented the soft drink. by CNB
