User talk:Barqs19

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Hello, Barqs19, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! -- Infrogmation (talk) 21:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been collecting Barq's rootbeer for almost 10 years now and have done extensive research on the brand. I will correct some common mistakes that people make about the product. For example the Hires suing Barq's myth and when exactly Root Beer came out. Also another problem is people pronouncing Barq's as BARG'S. People, it's not a G but a Q. Please do not delete this again.

Edward Adolph Barq Sr. was born in New Orleans on March 4, 1871. He was one of four living children. There were six in all but one brother had died months after childbirth. Edward Barq had two brothers and two sisters, all older than he was. His father, Jules Augustes Barq, was a doctor in New Orleans while his mother, Marie Georgina Savonniere, was a piano teacher.

At the age of five Edward Barq and his family moved to France. While Edward was there he studied chemistry at the University of Paris. He studied about sugar in the chemistry field while attending the University of Paris. Upon returning to the United States he began studying at the University of Tulane.

Upon returning to New Orleans in the early part of the 1890s, Edward entered a drink that he developed, called Orangine, into the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, also known as the Columbia Exposition. He won a gold medal for this drink, thus starting his career in the beverage-making business.

Edward did not go right into the soda industry but had actually tried his luck in the alcoholic industry first. In 1891 he and his brother, Gaston, started the Barq's Brother's Bottling Works. There they bottled different cordials, which was a alcoholic drink. The business prospered until 1895 when Gaston died. In 1896 the name of the company was changed to Barq's and Hughs but not much, if anything, is known about this transition.

In 1897 Edward moved to Biloxi, Mississippi and married Ellodi Graugnard. He began working on a Louisiana sugar plantation as a chemist. When he had weekends off, he would spend them in Biloxi experimenting with flavors and sugar. During the summer of 1898, Edward began bottling his soft drinks. He started out in a little building on Howard Avenue in downtown Biloxi, MS. This would be the beginning of a company known as Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works, Barq's Pop and Jersey Creme.

Jersey Creme was a franchise based out of Texas and not much is known as to why Edward Barq Sr. started his business under the name. In the early 1900s he began working with another chemist known as Dr. Alford Court. In 1902 for unknown reasons Ed Sr built a plant in Gulfport, Mississippi. Later on he and another business man, Samuel Hardtner went in together on the Gulfport bottling plant and created Barq's & Hardtner's Bottling Works. Not much is known about the Gulfport plant except that it was not around for very long or maybe was even sold out. In the early 1900s, Dr. Court said that Ed Sr being the great chemist he was dissected the Coca Cola formula and created his own Cola using their formula. He then ordered bottles with his name and Coca Cola's name on it, which are highly sought after today. Coca Cola got word of what was going on and told Ed Sr. that if he did not purchase a franchise then he could not bottle Coca Cola. A court ordered him to discontinue and destroy all the bottles. If any bottles were still being used he would be fined $5 per bottle.

In 1908 Barq began experimenting with Root Beer flavors, NOT 1898. Even though he played around with the formula he did not prefect it the way he wanted it until 1937. That same year they opened their new plant on Lameuse St. in Biloxi, Miss. A huge article was displayed on the front pages of the local newspaper known today as the Sun Herald about the grand opening. AT this time Barq's had grown nationwide to 62 plants in 22 southern states. The biggest being in Louisville, Ky. The first franchise was old to Russ Bottling Works from Mobile, Alabama in 1934. On top of that their were many distribution centers scattered throughout the USA including Hattiesburg, MS.

That year Ed Sr. had a bottle made up that said Drink Barq's ROOT BEER. Until this time he had started out using lead top Hutchinson bottles, straight sided bottles, then a 12 oz bottle with BARQ'S in block letters at the top ( which was a first since everyone else was using 6 1/2oz bottles at the time) that was ordered by Fabacher Brewery in New Orleans, LA. This company was also known as JAX Beer. The reason behind this is because it may have been cheaper to go in dibs with another company on a bulk order than to purchase them by himself.

In 1938, the FDA told Ed. Sr. he could no longer use the word Root Beer in any of his advertising because if his product contained caffeine then it could no longer be called rootbeer. The bottle that he came out with in 1937 had to be discontinued and changed to the blue labeled design that is still used today. Hire's Rootbeer, which was located all the way up in Pennsylvania had NOTHING to do with this. Barq's Rootbeer was changed to Barqs Sr.

From 1937 until 1976 Barq's had great success. Ed Sr. died in New Orleans in 1943 at the age of 72. He is buried in Biloxi, Ms. His son Edward Barq Jr. had been in control of the business since 1938. In the 1920s Ed Jr. had started his own plant called Twin Cities Bottling Company in Pascagoula, MS. This was a Orange Crush franchise.

During Barq's reign it did not have many slogans. Those advertised in their early years were "Drink Barq's, It's Good and Wholesome", "Drink Barq's Rootbeer", "Drink Barq's It's Good", and then to the slogan today "Famous Olde Tyme Root Beer.

In 1963 Edward Jr Died. The company was taken over by his son, Edward Barq III. He did not run it for very long for he died suddenly. I believe that same year, 1963, Edward Jr's son, William "Bill" Barq took the company over. Bill Barq kept the business until 1976 when he sold Barq's Bottling Company to two entrepreneurs from New Orleans, John Oudt and John Koerner. Even though that section of the company was sold, their still remained one part, Barq's Inc. Barq's Inc., still located in Biloxi, was in charge of preparing the syrup concentrate. Only the bottling rights had been sold.

The two business men moved that part of the company to New Orleans and started advertising like Barq's had never done before. This is when Barq's was advertised as being from New Orleans. It was either a marketing ploy or they were confused from the fact Barq' had been there in the 1890s. Another reason people think it started in New Orleans was because their was a separate company already there known as Barq's Beverages.

Barq's Beverages began in New Orleans, LA in 1919 when Ed Sr gave the bottling rights to a young man known as Jessie L. Robinson. This meant that Jessie Robinson could use the Barq's name as he pleased and do whatever he wanted with the formula with no repercussion from the Biloxi firm. They were totally separate. Jessie Robinson was a local kid that was "adopted" by Ed Barq Sr. in the 1920s. Jessie's bottling plant started out as a Cascade Bottling Company franchise located in downtown New Orleans, LA. It was later changed to Barq's of New Orleans. This company later created Barq's Beverages of Baton Rouge, LA when the family split up. In 1994 Barq's purchased Delaware Punch, a grape drink. In 1995 Barq's Inc. sold the rest of their franchise to Coca Cola. The bottling rights had been previously sold to Coca Cola earlier on. The last Barq's company to sell to Coca Cola was Barq's of Baton Rouge in the year 2000. Until that time the had been bottling their product in bottles similar to the other company except instead of a blue label, they used red. When Barq's of Biloxi used red and blue in their advertising signs, New Orleans used red and yellow. Some of Barq's of New Orleans logos were the same as Barq's of Biloxi except for one, "Is it Rootbeer?" which made no sense and came out in the 1970s.

Now that Coca Cola owns Barq's, it's marketed all over the United States, Canada, and even the Philippines. Barq's is also sold in USA stores throughout the world! Since Coca Cola has owned it, it has became the number one root beer in the world! One of their famous logos is "Barq's has Bite!" Some of Coca Cola's advertising for Barq's is pretty crazy and weird and is intended for the young male population. They did a deal with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Simpsons one year. Not many commemorative bottles have been made in Barq's. Only three so far, Barq's 100th Anniversary, Boom Town Casino in Biloxi, MS, and Biloxi, MS tri centennial.

February 2008[edit]

The recent edit you made to Barq's constitutes vandalism, and has been reverted. Please do not continue to vandalize pages; use the sandbox for testing. Thanks. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 08:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! I noticed that you recently added commentary to an article, Barq's. While Wikipedia welcomes editors' opinions on an article and how it could be changed, these comments are more appropriate for the article's accompanying talk page. If you post your comments there, other editors working on the same article will notice and respond to them and your comments will not disrupt the flow of the article. Thank you.

Please stop. If you continue to violate Wikipedia's no original research policy by adding your personal analysis or synthesis into articles, as you did to Barq's, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. haz (talk) 19:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please read Wikipedia's policies of no original research and verifiability for more information on why your edits were reverted. haz (talk) 20:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is your last warning. You will be blocked from editing the next time you vandalize a page, as you did with this edit to User talk:Snowolf. Scarian ^{Call me Pat} 19:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Don't write in the first person in articles-- an encyclopedia article is not an "I" who has researched anything. Discussion goes on the talk page, not within the article. Please take time to look over the links at the top of this page for proper formats for writing. Thanks, -- Infrogmation (talk) 21:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]