National Day Coffee Day

September 29th is National Coffee Day. In honor of this unofficial holiday, Cobb Memorial Archives is sharing a bit of local coffee history. In 1957, George Cobb Jr., our local Coca-Cola bottler, branched out into the vending machine business. He created the Vend-All Company to serve the textile mills of the WestPoint Pepperell Company in  Lanett, Shawmut, Langdale, Fairfax, and Riverview as well as the textile mills in LaGrange.

By 1959, as the “coffee break” became integrated into American vernacular and everyday life, Mr. Cobb had expanded his vending business to include Coffee Service, Inc. His companies offered full-line vending services to mill employees. Their selection included hot foods, sandwiches, pastries, coffee, and Coca-Cola. Reflecting on his business career as the Coca-Cola bottler for West Point and LaGrange in 1980, Mr. Cobb noted that “now we also sell a lot of coffee.”

From left to right: Marshall Evans, manager of Coffee Service, Inc., D. Z. Cauble, general manager of Vend-All Company and Coffee Service, Inc., and George Cobb Jr., president of West Point and LaGrange Coca-Cola Bottling Companies and president of Vend-All Company and Coffee Service, Inc. This photograph was published in the August 1962 edition of the American Soft Drink Journal. The item is on loan from Lillian Cobb Cauble and currently on display at Cobb Memorial Archives. 

To see this article as well as many other artifacts on display, please visit our exhibit “Better by the Bottle: The Story of the West Point Coca-Cola Bottling Company” at the H. Grady Bradshaw Library and Cobb Memorial Archives in Valley, Alabama. We are also including adding an online component to the exhibit on our blog. Click on Exhibits to follow the link and see what we have added so far!