Lately, my day-job has included helping demolish and gut out an early 1900 warehouse to make way for a new showroom -very exciting stuff. The potential in these old district warehouses are limitless really. And I am so happy to be a part of the transformation. There is such life left in these old buildings and they were built to last.
We have found some interesting objects, from old lead pencils, wallets to these cool 1950 Shasta cans. There were five or six different flavors, but I kept my three favorite based on color detail. I have always been under the assumption that Shasta was just the off-brand of soda, so I was amazed when I went on-line to date the cans we found. Did you know that Shasta was started back in 1889 and was so named after the Shasta Springs? The springs were named after the Shasta Native American Tribe that lived in the Northern CA and Southern OR territory when the first settlers came through. Located about four hours north of San Francisco, where the natural spring was sourced, on Dec. 6th , 1889 the Mt. Shasta Mineral Springs Company also opened a health spa and resort...ahead of their time, eh?
Other fun facts: In the 1920's during Prohibition, Shasta expanded and was shipped to accounts by way of special glass-lined redwood tank cars. Expansion occurred because, "At Least Shasta was legal!" and a popular phrase of the speakeasies of the day was "I'll have a Shasta and whiskey". In the 1930's Shasta's "Pale Dry Ginger Ale Chases away depression". The 1940's had troops writing home, "Send me a Shasta Club Soda". Bringing me back to the cans we found; in the 1950's Shasta was the first to package soft drinks in metal cans, the exact cans you see in my picture above.
So now, after doing a bit of research, I have my facts and stand corrected.
Shasta info found at Shastapop.com
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