Volume 2, Series 1 of the Dr Pepper Museum Intern Interest Peice Series

Written by Jennifer Dobbs, Baylor University Marketing Student

Hey I’m Jennifer and I am currently interning here at the Dr Pepper Museum. I’m a junior studying public relations at Baylor University, and I’m really enjoying learning what goes on behind the scenes at the museum.

I remember coming to the museum when I was a little girl with my family and enjoying the sites that I saw as I walked around. When I moved to Waco to go to Baylor, I thought that the museum would be a great place to intern and learn what really goes on in operating the Dr Pepper Museum. When I walked around the museum when I was young, I didn’t really understand what I was reading. However, the first time I went around it last week, I was really involved in what I was reading. I learned so much in so little time, and was fascinated with everything I saw in this museum.



The actual Dr Pepper Museum is located in an old bottling factory; this sets the atmosphere as you walk inside and leads you into a unique museum filled with history. This museum is an interesting historical feature of Waco, and many tourists come to visit every year to learn about one of the United States’ most popular sodas.



The first floor is occupied with information on the background of the inventors of Dr Pepper, and a little bit about the museum itself. There are displays of old medicine bottles and other artifacts that are really fascinating to see. You then step inside a room where there is an actual bottling machine that was used for Dr Pepper. With other objects and equipment used that are displayed, it’s really neat to imagine how things worked back when Dr Pepper first came out.



Also on showcase there are various bottles and cans, showing Dr Pepper through the years. You even learn how the name ‘soda pop’ came about. In the corner of the room, there is a restored water well. When it was found there were tons of broken Dr Pepper glass bottle pieces in the well. You can look down the well and still see the water at the bottom.
In the second floor of the museum you are welcomed with so many interesting facts about Dr Pepper the drink, as well as the brand name, company, and advertising. As you walk around you will hear and see a television playing a mixture of Dr Pepper commercials. This is a great way for people to see how the soda has progressed commercially. Hanging on the walls are all sorts of various signs, ads, and logos of Dr Pepper. It’s fun to see the many slogans the soda has had throughout the years. It’s great seeing all of the old timey memorabilia placed throughout the museum. It lets you reminisce how Dr Pepper was when you were younger.

My favorite part about the museum are the little tid-bit random facts you find dispersed around the building. These facts answer all of your questions you have ever wondered about Dr Pepper. Whether it be why there isn’t a period after the Dr in the name, or what ingredients are really in the soda (yet the 23 flavors still remain a secret), you learn everything. Like did you know that back in the early years, Dr Pepper was originally called a “Waco” because Waco was the only place you could get it? The soda jerk slang around town to ask for a Dr Pepper was “shoot me a Waco!” Also did you know that Dr Pepper is owned by Cadbury Schweppes, a company that is headquarted in London? However, the Dr Pepper Museum is not owned by Dr Pepper.



Of course you can’t leave the museum without visiting the gift shop and the soda fountain. Visitors that come in can experience the taste of Dr Pepper with pure cane sugar. Visiting the Dr Pepper Museum is a really fun and great way to learn everything you want to know about the soft drink. I still continue to learn something new everyday I’m here.