The Hunters Beverage Company of Williamston, MI
Hunters - Hits the Spot!

   A Brief History of The Hunters Beverage Co.

Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper and 7up; these are the brands one usually thinks of when asked about soda pop.  However, what most people don't know is that from the late 1800's to the 1960's there were thousands of local soda companies with their very own brands and flavors.  The Hunters Beverage Company of Williamston, Michigan was one of these independent companies.  It was an integral part of local history and culture.  An interview with former employee and area historian, Cloyce O'Dell, provided some valuable insight into this company.

The Hunters Beverage Company was originally owned by Emmet Barnes who bottled Golden Glow, a "Natural Alkaline Water."  Mr. O'Dell said it "must have started in the thirties" and was located in a small building next to the creek where the Williamston Brookshire Golf Course is today.  In 1940, Emmet Barnes was killed in a car accident and his daughter sold the plant to a group of stockholders who created the Hunters Beverage Company.  The company started out with a few flavors and came up with more as business grew.  There were ten flavors: Orangeade, root beer, golden ginger ale, cherry, strawberry, grape, punch, cherry strawberry, rock and rye, and pineapple.  "They were all pretty good; root beer and orange (were popular)," O'Dell said.  "I liked rock and rye. I used to drink all I wanted when I worked there," O'Dell recalled with a laugh. "There was pineapple, I never cared for that."  There have been other soda items from Williamston found which may prove that the Hunters Beverage Company bottled other brands and flavors before Mr. O'Dell worked there.  Mr. O'Dell has some Williamston caps that use the brand name "Dixie Dew" and a bottle and some caps of "O-So Beverages," which can be seen at the Williamston Depot Museum.   There have also been reports of a Williamston 7up bottle.

            By the late 1940s, Hunters was doing pretty good business.  As the company grew, the old Barnes factory was torn down and a new, larger facility was built.  "Semis used to come in early in the morning and pick it up and haul it up to Saginaw, and they used to sell it around Jackson and Brooklyn.  I went on the pop truck with a guy one summer and we peddled down through Leslie and all around Ingham (and) Jackson County," O'Dell remembered.  "They'd have a flatbed truck with racks on it and had it stacked by flavor." Hunters Beverage was sold in stores, gas stations, restaurants and bars for ten cents a bottle, plus a two cent deposit.  The bottles were returned to sellers and were taken back to the plant to be washed, inspected and reused. 

The factory bottled soda everyday. Mr. O'Dell remembers some days working from four in the morning to five at night.  It took about fifteen people counting office workers and deliverymen to run the factory.  The bottles were washed and went down the line where there were two inspectors with mounted magnifying glasses who checked them for foreign materials and damage.  Then the bottles would move to the bottler, where the pop went in, and then down to the capper, where the bottles were capped by flavor.  After that twelve bottles were put into cardboard cartons, each bearing the Hunters logo.  Hunters Beverage always used the red and yellow labeled bottles and used thousands of bottles.  Business was going so well that in the summer of 1953, more bottles were ordered, as can be seen from some bottle artwork slips. 

The good times, however, were not meant to last.  Around 1954, the soda started to get syrupy and had stringy stuff in it.  People stopped buying the soda and Mr. O'Dell remembers helping to move thousands of the Hunters bottles to storage barns because no one would buy the soda.  It turns out that a burlap bag had accidently fallen into the syrup while ingredients were being mixed and had rotted, spoiling the soda.  The Hunters Beverage Company closed in late 1954 or in 1955.  Hunters Beverage was gradually replaced by other local competitors, like the Hi-Klas and Nehi companies of Lansing.  Mr. O'Dell remembers the company as a vital part of the town.  "It was good for the community.  It provided local jobs."  With the end of the Hunters Beverage Company, Williamston lost an integral part of its culture.  It is doubtful, however, that the company would have lasted much longer.  With large soda corporations buying out small bottlers and mass consumption favoring national brands, small companies all but died out.