raw · papers · ingested 2026-07-26
Empire Products Corp., El Paso — Three Rivers Glass Dr. Pepper Bottle (Bill Lockhart, Bottles on the Border)
Source: https://secure-sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/EPChap5c.pdf
- Source URL: https://secure-sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/EPChap5c.pdf
- Ingested: 2026-07-26
- Note: This is a focused excerpt. The full chapter (“Bottles on the Border…,” © Bill Lockhart 2010, Revised Edition, Chapter 5c, “The Later Empire Companies, Part I — Empire Products Corporation (ca. 1925-1956)”) covers the company’s full history and many brands; only the Three Rivers Glass-relevant Dr. Pepper passages plus standing context are extracted here.
Bottler context: Empire Products Corp. (ca. 1925-1956), El Paso Dr Pepper franchisee
The Empire Bottling Works corporation “restructured in late 1924 or early 1925, losing Link and Dorsey and renaming itself Empire Industries, then Empire Products Corp. by 1926.” By 1930 Gardner had displaced Heineman as president, with his wife Nellie S. Gardner as secretary. “About that time, the corporation added the distribution of Dr. Pepper to its list of activities (EPCD 1930-1938).”
Beginning in the 1931 city directory, Empire featured Dr. Pepper. The ad showed the Dr. Pepper logo in the upper left corner, the slogan “Drink a Bite to Eat at 10 - 2- 4 O’Clock” in the right-center, and a drawing of the bottle in the upper left corner.
Dr. Pepper “became part of the Empire line about 1930 or 1931 and remained until at least 1949.” In 1952, the Trone Bottling Co. began offering Dr. Pepper in El Paso.
On the embossed-vs-debossed timeline: “Although Dr. Pepper franchisers used embossed containers from about 1923-24 to 1930 or later (personal communication from Mildred G. Walker, Curator of Collections, Dr Pepper Museum, Waco, Texas), the company officially changed to debossed bottles about 1930… Although Dr. Pepper was not advertised until 1931, the first bottles used by Empire were embossed, and these may have been ordered during 1930.”
The Three Rivers embossed “10-2-4 clock face” Dr. Pepper bottle (ca. 1930)
Machine-made, colorless, 20.5 cm (h) x 5.7 cm (d), crown finish, 6.5 oz., cylindrical.
Front Description Body: Embossed - Dr. Pepper in script with an underlining tail sweeping back from the final “r” that contained the words, GOOD FOR LIFE Heel: Embossed - EMPIRE - EL PASO, TEX. Back Description Body: An embossed, stippled clock face with three hands pointing to the numerals 10, 2, and 4 in approximately the same position in which they are located on a normal clock Heel: Embossed - 6½ OZS. Base: Embossed - 3 RIVERS [star] / Dr. Pepper (with underlining tail) / F Manufacturer: Three Rivers Glass Co. (1925-1937) Dating: [ca. 1930] Unfortunately, the Three Rivers Glass Co. did not emboss date codes on its bottles. However, as noted above, embossed bottles were only made until ca. 1930. Empire may have ordered the bottles in 1930, or may have begun selling the brand in 1930, too late for inclusion in the city directory. These bottles are rare and were almost certainly used until they wore out. Collection(s): Robert Sproull collection; author’s collection.
Note: the claim that Three Rivers “did not emboss date codes” parallels the stronger “Three Rivers never used date codes” statement in Chapter 9b, and conflicts with date-coded TRG bottles Lockhart documents in his El Paso dairies chapter and Alamogordo series (see those raw sources).
The successor debossed Dr. Pepper bottle (1931-1949) was made by Owens-Illinois Glass Co., not Three Rivers.