Building History

This plant bottled Royal Crown and Par T Pak brand beverages by the late 1930s. As noted by the San Francisco Ghost Sign Mapping Project.com, "Par-T-Pak, distributed by Nehi Beverage Company, was a line of quart, or 'family sized' sodas sold between 1933 and 1954. These bottles were returnable and came in a variety of flavors such as Orange Soda, Ginger Ale, Tom Collins Mixer, Club Soda, Cherry Soda, Cola, Sparkling Water, and Root Beer. A predecessor to the 2 liter bottle, Par-T-Pak bottles were - unsurprisingly given the name - marketed as drink mixers that were perfect for parties (they were meant to serve six)." (See San Francisco Ghost Sign Mapping Project.com, "Par T Pak Soda Signs of San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland / July 19, 2020," accessed 07/31/2024.) It is also likely that this plant bottled Nehi soft drinks, as Nehi, Incorporated, owned the Royal Crown brand during the 1930s.

Architect William J. Bain, designed this Streamline Moderne bottling plant for the bottler. Bain would go on to greater fame as a member of the highly successful Modern architectural partnership Naramore, Bain, Brady and Johanson (NBBJ), active after World War II.

The plant's streamlined styling aligned with other botlling plants on the West Coast, including Robert Derrah's remarkable, nautical Coca-Cola Bottling Plant (Los Angeles, CA, 1939) and Jesse M. Shelton's and E. T. Foulkes's Coca Cola Botlling Plant, (San Francisco, CA, remodeled c. 1940). It is likely that the largest soft drink companies, like Coca-Cola, 7-Up and others, popularized the use of streamline imagery.

PCAD id: 25408