Soda Fountain Season
Soda, POP, fizzy juice, LOLLY WATER, sodey dope, BELLY WASH, seltzer, COKE, and tonic. Is your tongue tingling yet? It's soda fountain season in Texas!
"tssSSS kr-POP!"
As summer in Texas digs its claws in, usually around late July, it's tempting to dismiss what remains of the season as an obligatory trudge towards the school year and the coziness of fall beyond it. But like a flower that blooms in the desert, there are certain things that distinguish themselves under the harshest conditions.
Yes, when the mercury climbs and the cicadas' hypnotic drone is loudest is when the fizziness of a freshly carbonated soda is its most potent or the slurp of a frosty ice cream concoction is as near perfection as a cold beverage ever achieved.
Thirsty?
Nostalgia Dispensaries
Very few can claim immunity to the nostalgic pull of an old-fashioned soda fountain. Even children who don't yet understand the concept of nostalgia can sense that a soda fountain is not so much a real place as much as it is a memory of a real place, like a themed ride at Disney World. The long marble bar, the soda dispensers, and the shelves of retro candy are all props in a scene depicting somewhere and sometime we'd like to be. But that's the magic of the old-fashioned soda fountain: no matter where or when we grew up, somehow, soda fountains are all of our happy place.
Historic Soda Fountains in Texas
Tropical Trail Region
Harrel’s Kingsville Pharmacy
204 E Kleberg Ave. Kingsville, Texas 78363 Website
Forest Trail Region
Jefferson General Store and Old-Fashioned Soda Fountain
113 E. Austin Street Jefferson, TX 75657 (903) 665-8481 Website
Hill Country Trail Region
Uvalde Rexall
201 North Getty Street Uvalde, TX 78801 (830) 900-7300 Website
From Medicine to Milkshakes
It was only a matter of time before the medicinal properties of these miracle elixirs fell under increased scrutiny, resulting in the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, which banned cocaine and opiates in over-the-counter products.
However, soda fountains found renewed purpose when the closure of bars during Prohibition created a need for public gathering places. To appease their new clientele, druggists found innovative new uses for carbonated water, combining it with flavored milk and a raw egg to create something called a milkshake. The hybrid soda fountain-ice cream parlor concept caught on and soon evolved into what we think of today as the old-fashioned soda fountain.