Many years ago, I was fortunate to work with His Eminence,
The Grand Poobah, a legendary master of the art and science of marketing. This, of course, gave me the opportunity to
have His Eminence, The Grand Poobah pass on some the immense wisdom he had
acquired over the ages when he would deign to interact with me. Many times, His Eminence would tell me that I
could look forward to a field trip with him to
Sadly, His Eminence, The Grand Poobah is a very busy man whose sage advice and wisdom is always in high demand. So, like many, I always knew that I should take advantage of those few moments when he was available to allow me to bask in the reflected wisdom of his brilliance. Sadly, he never had time to go the Dr. Pepper Museum with me.
Nonetheless, when I realized that my schedule would have me
driving down Interstate 35 from
The first floor contains exhibits tracing the development of
Dr. Pepper from syrup mixed with soda and Drug Store fountains to the bottled
product we know today. There are many
examples of the evolution of bottles and cans, displays of old equipment used
in the manufacturing and bottling, and even the actual well that provided the
water for Dr. Pepper until the company moved operations to
The second floor of the museum has examples of the marketing of Dr. Pepper over the years. I really liked the fabulous old posters and the a wonderful display explaining how a franchise bottling system works. In addition, there is a display case describing the history of Dr. Pepper knock-off Mr. Pibb. In 1972, the Coca Cola company decided that they needed a drink to compete with Dr. Pepper and so they started to market a similar tasting drink they called “peppo.” Dr. Pepper successfully sued them and so they were forced to change the name. Hence, Mr. Pibb!
The third floor houses the W. W. Clements Free Enterprise
Institute and several related exhibits.
W. W. Clements (better known as “Foots”) stated as a delivery truck
driver for Dr. Pepper in 1935 while a student at the
My favorite part of the whose museum learning that in the
early days of Dr. Pepper, the name was not as well known as the fact that it
was bottled in Waco, Texas. As a result,
it was common for customers to walk up to a soda fountain counter and request
Dr. Pepper by saying “Give me a shot of
As you might expect, there is a gift shop where you can
purchase all manners of Dr. Pepper
stuff. Sadly, unlike the










