Dating Containers Used by Small Bottlers — Crystal Beverage Co., Alamogordo, and Three Rivers Date Marks (Bill Lockhart, Alamogordo Sodas series)

• Source URL: https://bottleinfo.historicbottles.com/pdffiles/ASchap2.pdf
• Ingested: 2026-07-26
• Note: This is a focused excerpt of “Chapter 2 — Dating Containers Used by Small Bottlers,” © Bill Lockhart 2011, from his Alamogordo, New Mexico soda-bottler series. The chapter is a dating-methods essay built on the bottler lineage Alamogordo Bottling Works (George Weigele 1910; later Jerry M. Johnson, L.H. Karosen, D.R. Pharr, A.B. Rose) → Crystal Bottling Co. (E.L. Craig, 1928) → Crystal Beverage Co. (Thomas O’Conor, from 1930). Only the Three Rivers Glass-relevant passages and small-bottler dating context are extracted here.

The bottler: Crystal Beverage Co., Alamogordo (Tularosa Basin, NM)

In its 30 years if [sic] existence, the Alamogordo Bottling Works was owned by six proprietors, the last of whom, E.L. Craig, renamed it the Crystal Bottling Co. Craig was followed by Thomas O’Conor, who then called the business the Crystal Beverage Co.

O’Conor opened the Crystal Beverage Co. in March 1930, changed the location, and purchased new equipment. Crystal’s bottle series ran about 18 years (embossed bottles, then ACL “White Sands” 1938, “Lula” bottles 1939/1941, all-white ACL 1944 and 1947; O’Conor died in 1946).

The Three Rivers heel mark with base digit “6” — exact quote

Examples of the bottles used by Crystal over the 18 years of its existence suggest that the company ordered bottles fairly infrequently. The only two examples of the embossed bottle that I have seen each contained the manufacturer’s mark of the Three Rivers Glass Co. on the heel and the digit “6” on the base – probably a date code for 1936. To my knowledge, there has been no research on specific dates for bottles made by Three Rivers (although the earlier bottles from that company in my collection did not include date marks). There was probably a previous run of the same variation of the embossed bottle. The Alamogordo Advertiser of March 13, 1930, noted that Crystal had received “a carload of distinctive bottles (fluted sides) and new made-to-order cases to hold them.” That description fits the known early bottles for the company.

Date-code note: this passage (a probable 1936 Three Rivers date code, with earlier TRG bottles lacking date marks) is more nuanced than Lockhart’s flat statement in Bottles on the Border Chapter 9b that “Three Rivers never used date codes,” and aligns with the date-coded TRG milk bottles in his El Paso dairies Chapter 11.

Generic paper-labeled bottles

During the late teens, the trend swept away from plate molds and often from any form of embossed identification. Paper labels, of course, had been applied with glue to glass containers of various sorts by at least the late 18th century, often in conjunction with embossed identification. Paper labels removed the necessity for embossing, and they became the norm by 1918. Paper labels were inexpensive, easy to apply, and contained complex advertising messages. The major drawback, however, was that the paper tended to wash off when bottles were cooled in buckets or barrels of ice – the only medium then in general use for cooling soft drinks.

The missing bottles used by the later owners of the Alamogordo Bottling Works probably contained paper labels identifying the various flavors. At least one owner, E.L. Craig, sometimes (possibly always) used bottles without any labels of any kind!

Minimum orders of 1,000 bottles and reorder cadence

Although Alamogordo newspapers did not mention quantity, Deming and Las Cruces bottlers (the closest small New Mexico towns) were reported as ordering 1,000 containers at a time. It may be that 1,000 was a minimum order required by the glass houses (manufacturers). If this number is correct, then the normal life of a bottle in Alamogordo during the 1930s and early 1940s was about two years.

Bottles seem to generally have been ordered every one to two years except for three periods. The first of these was during the initial five years of the business – during the Great Depression, a period of time when money was scarce, and resources were tight. The second was between 1941 and 1944 – during World War II, when sugar, steel (for bottle caps), and glass were all rationed. The final period was immediately after the war – possibly when O’Conor was beginning to have health issues.

(For comparison: “many El Paso companies bought bottles more than once a year.”)

Depression-era reuse

Bottlers in El Paso reused their bottles during the Great Depression until they completely wore out. There are fewer bottles remaining from that period than from earlier, pre-Depression times. Similarly, orders for bottles slacked off during World War II, due to the scarcity of supplies and ingredients.