Vincent's Beverages, and Sunset Beverages, Lewiston, Maine

In 1888, a pair of ambitious retail clerks, Regis Provost and Sabin Vincent, founded the Lewiston Soda Beer Company at 31 Chestnut Street in Lewiston, Maine. The "beer" was misleading, as it was a nonalcoholic beer, or "soft beer", as an 1893 ad would describe it. Their stock in trade was soda and mineral water.

Within three years, the partners made a move to the New Auburn section of Auburn, Maine. Regis Provost passed away around 1905, and the firm acquired a new name, the Vincent Bottling Company. It was later shortened to just the Vincent Company in 1914.

Sabin had four sons, two of which became very active in the bottling business. Louis, also called "Louie", joined the firm in 1909. Older brother Zephirin followed him a year or so later, and was the company's manager, with Sabin as President, by 1912.

In 1913, Sabin retired and Zephirin became the company's head. Under his leadership, the Vincent Company landed a major account, the rights to bottle Coca-Cola, around 1917. Soon thereafter, they became the agents for Moxie as well.

With both Coca-Cola and Moxie, as well as Orange Crush, Nu-Icy and a full line of their own Vincent Beverages, it was hard to go wrong, and Zephirin didn't. He constructed a brand new state-of-the-art plant where South Main, Mill and Pulsifer Streets meet in the year 1927.

Zephirin died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve in 1931. Now it was Louie's turn to run the company, and considering the changing economies of bottling, he did well.

Ninety-year-old Val Tardif, who remembers the happenings around Auburn, recalls one mistake that Louie did make in the late 30s when a representative from Coca-Cola headquarters offered him $20,000 to buy back the area's rights to bottle Coca-Cola. As Val recounts, Louie thought it was no great loss because "you can't give Coca-Cola away in the winter."

In retrospect, it was not a smart move. Perhaps it was a reflection of Louie's confidence in his own lineup of Vincent's Beverages. Val Tardif even agrees with this when recalling Vincent's Ginger Ale as a "good number" and remembers it being advertised on the radio all the time during the early years of the 40s.

The Vincent Company carried on through the 40s and 50s, replacing Coca-Cola with Royal Crown Cola. Orange Crush and the Vincent Beverages lineup continued doing well. The company, however, suffered from a lack of unity in the family. Discord and infighting weakened the firm's chances for survival in what was a vicious soft drink world as it was.

Louie Vincent elected to fold the Vincent Company in 1962-63. Today, the impressive 1927 state-of-the-art bottling plant still stands. It is in what is known as Hulett Square, and is still impressive as the home of Waterrest Waterbeds.

Still in Auburn, Maine, north along Washington Avenue (Routes 100 and 202), you will notice Sunset Poultry to the right and Sunset Motel to the left. Not so long ago, you would have noticed another Sunset, Sunset Beverages.

Actually, Sunset Beverages was "born" in Portland, where it was bottled by Joe Pio from 1938 to 1945. Then came along Gerry Bilodeau, who was bottling and distributing Pepsi-Cola in the Auburn area. Deciding he could do better with a brand of his own, Gerry bought out Joe Pio and moved the machinery to Auburn, where he set up shop at 571 Washington Avenue.

Bilodeau was a flying buff, with a Cessna parked behind the bottling plant. If a customer bought a bottle of Sunset Beverages with a "Free Ride" cap, all he or she had to do was show up there, and Gerry would take them for a gratis flight.

Sunset Beverages also distributed Clicquot Club beverages for a number of years. When it came parade time, or other public functions, Bilodeau dressed his young son as the Clicquot Eskimo for the festivities.

There were bad times too, when a fire did serious damage to the plant in November of 1951. But the infamous disaster was the wire-brush incident in November, 1952, when Irene Lajoie drank a bottle of Sunset Ginger Ale and claimed she became ill because there was a rusty wire brush in the bottle. She and her husband sued, and the press picked up the story.

Although Gerry Bilodeau explained convincingly that a brush in a bottle was impossible and the jury awarded the Lajoies only a fraction of what they had asked, the result was still not exactly the sort of publicity a small business wants or needs.

In 1953, Gerry and Jeanne opened the Sunset Motel - the same year that their second son was born. Something had to give, and the Bilodeau's decided it should be the bottling business.

In April of 1955, Sunset Beverages was sold to Gerry's brother, Ernest "Blackie" Bilodeau, who had eight years experience with Mount Zircon Beverages in Rumford.

While continuing to bottle Sunset Beverages, Blackie also increasingly aligned himself with Nehi and Royal Crown Beverages. The name of the company, in fact, was changed to Nehi Beverages in the late 50s, and then to Royal Crown Beverages in the early 70s.

Shortly after that, Blackie sold the business to Gould and Scammon, an Auburn shoe machinery manufacturer, which ended Sunset Beverages' last chapter.