The Soda Spectrum Series

All smiles... Orange 'Smile' Soda was a St. Louis Thirst Quencher

By Jonathan Kardon

William F. Cox entered the soda industry at just the right time and in the right location.

Orange Smile Syrup Company opened in Soulard right before the 1929 peak in the U.S. soda industry. The factory survived for nearly 35 years as a small soda manufacturer, despite the Great Depression and changes in production that gave more control to large soda plants. In 1937, Missouri was one of the top ten soda producing states, and the 1930 St. Louis Manufacturing Census explains how there were seventeen establishments manufacturing $2,892,097.54 of carbonated beverages during that year. The St. Louis beverage industry included Orange Smile Syrup Company's "Buster Cola," "Cheer-Up Soft Drink" and "Smile Orange Drink." Smile's beverages were part of a national chain that operated at least in St. Louis and Tennessee, as Smile memorabilia was found from "Cheer Up-Doughboy Bottlers Inc." in Kingsport, Tennessee.

In 1928 there were four other companies in St. Louis that advertised in the Greater St. Louis Telephone Directory and also bottled the same drinks as at 2001 S. Ninth. Just five blocks away at 1326 Ann Avenue, "American Soda Water Company" bottled "Smile" and "Cheer Up," promoting these beverages, and many others. The proximity of American Soda Water Company and the booming Missouri soda industry suggest that Orange Smile Syrup Company was a popular employment opportunity in Soulard until the early 1960s, and that Smile's soda was commonly drank in St. Louis.

In order to successfully manufacture soda for over thirty years in the former social hall, William F. Cox altered the interior and exterior of the building. He most likely added offices to the eastern side of the first floor and manufactured the soda on the second floor. Most of the changes in the first floor architecture that can be seen today were probably made by Cox, especially the addition of a post-19th century curved brick wall that splits the first floor into two sides. Cox also added an elevator, seen on the 1937 Sanborn Map, to transport equipment and products between the first and the second floor.

The St. Louis Building Department recorded the additions of two hot air furnaces and a "brick factory" for $1500 in 1927, and the altering of the three-story "brick factory" for $300 in 1942. Shortly after opening the factory, Cox added color tile advertisements of "Drink Cheer Up, Made Good for You" and "Drink Smile, Refresh with a Smile" on the lower exterior of the northern and eastern facades of the building. These advertisements kept the once popular ethnic social center as a vibrant landmark of Soulard even until today, as exemplified by the inclusion of the Cheer Up tile advertisement in the header of http://www.stlouis.com, an online visitor's city guide to St. Louis. At the time, the tiles also encouraged people to purchase the drinks, and perhaps enticed Soulard residents to work for the company. These architectural changes helped the soda business thrive until the early 1960s.

Despite these structural alterations, Cox kept many of the original forms of the interior and exterior architecture of the ethnic building. The stage, the tin arch around it, and the three-sided mezzanine all remained on the second floor. Ornate cast iron poles continued to support the second floor. While the open auditorium of the second floor probably housed the manufacturing equipment, the east and west sides of the room remained in their original structure as a reminder of the building's rich ethnic past. Aside from the addition of the tiles, the exterior's appearance stayed roughly the same since the 1896 St. Louis Cyclone repairs. While 2001 S. Ninth drastically changed in its use from a German and Bohemian ethnic social center to an industrial soda factory, Cox preserved the energy and culture of the ethnic past inside the walls of the old Union Capitol Hall.

In the early 1960s, the building entered a short-lived social reincarnation as a roller rink as an attempt to revitalize attention towards the building and return to its original roots as a neighborhood social center. On July 28, 1959, William Cox's adopted daughter, Martha Frances Cox Webb (Jackson), inherited the property from her father, who died on December 19, 1953. Conceivably, the business was not profiting well, as only American Soda Water Co. advertised for Smile in 1947 and no bottlers in St. Louis advertised for Smile by 1964. Seeing the business fail as large soda plants took control over the industry, Martha likely thought that the spacious second floor could house a roller rink, which had boomed in the 1940s and 1950s across America.

While skaters enjoyed the rink and watching others skate from the mezzanine, the business closed its doors rather quickly, as City Directories listed 2001 S. Ninth as a vacant property from 1966-1968. The ill-fated roller rink reveals that 2001 S. Ninth and the Soulard neighborhood had left its primarily ethnically social roots nearly 40 years earlier; a return to the building's former purpose was inappropriate for the contemporary culture.

The site of the former Orange Smile Syrup Company has recently found new life as a condo building, with a conscious effort by the builders to preserve the history of the soda company that was once an important landmark there. For more information about Smile Lofts, visit their website at: www.smilelofts.com. Appreciation is expressed to the Timmermann Group and Jonathan Kardon for use of this story.