The Early History of Dr Pepper Drinks

While working at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store, Dr Alderton noticed that customers quickly tired of the beverage flavors offered at the soda fountain.

Old Corner Drug Store was located in the ground floor of Waco’s McClelland Hotel.

He mixed a variety of fruit extracts from the fountain and through trial and error, eventually devised a distinct tasting that both he and store owner Morrison enjoyed.

They shared beverage with customers and soon people were coming to the drugstore to try ‘Doc Alderton’s drink.’ The two later renamed the drink Dr Pepper.

Created in 1885, in Waco Texas, it was sold as a ‘tonic, brain food, and exhilarant’.

Exactly how Alderton’s creation came to be called Dr Pepper is unknown. It might have been chosen by Morrison, who had once worked at a drug store, owned by Dr Charles T Pepper in Rural Retreat, Virginia. Dr Charles T Pepper was the father of the woman Morrison once hoped to marry.

Morrison would often talk of how his girlfriend’s father had come between them in Virginia. Alderton at the store mixed up the concoction of flavors as a beverage for his customers, and it hopes of helping out Morrison’s romance, named it after the girl’s father.

In the beginning, Morrison and Alderton worked in a backroom at the Old Corner Drug Store, mixing up batches of the syrup for sale at their fountain and a few others. When demand increased, they decided to expand and rented a building for that purpose.

Robert S. Lazenby, Morrison’s soda fountain patron studied Alderton’s mixture for two year and patented the formula that is still used today.
The Early History of Dr Pepper Drinks