The Bottle, Alabama
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The Bottle is a community located in the northern
corporate limits City limits or city boundaries refer to the defined boundary or border of a city. The area within the city limit can be called the city proper. Town limit/boundary and village limit/boundary apply to towns and villages. Similarly, corporate li ...
of
Auburn, Alabama Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama. The population was 76,143 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a principal city of the Auburn metropolitan area, Alabama, Aubu ...
, United States. The Bottle is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 280 and Alabama Highway 147, north of downtown Auburn, and adjacent to the
Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 26,800 undergraduate students, over 6,100 post-graduate students, and a tota ...
North Fisheries Research Complex. The Bottle is located at 32°40′34″N 85°29′11″W at an elevation of . The Bottle is named for the bright orange wooden replica of a
Nehi Nehi ( ) is a flavored soft drink that originated in the United States. It was introduced in 1924 by Chero-Cola/Union Bottle Works and founded by Claud A. Hatcher, a Columbus, Georgia, grocer who began bottling ginger ale and root beer in 1905. ...
soda bottle which stood in the location from 1924 to 1936. It has frequently been noted on lists of
unusual place names Place names considered unusual can include those which are also offensive words, inadvertently humorous (especially if mispronounced) or highly charged words, as well as place names of unorthodox spelling and pronunciation, including especiall ...
.


History

Built in 1924, and billed as "the world's largest bottle", The Bottle (sometimes referred to as The "Nehi Inn") was built by John F. Williams, owner of the Nehi Bottling Company, in
Opelika, Alabama Opelika (pronounced ) is a city in and the county seat of Lee County, Alabama, Lee County in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 United States censu ...
. The Bottle stood tall, and measured in diameter at the base, and at the cap. The ground floor was a grocery store and service station. The second and third floors were living quarters and storage. The neck of the Bottle had windows for use as an observation tower. The "bottle cap" was the roof. Inside there was a spiral oak stairway. The Bottle became a gathering place for tourists and locals alike to swap yarns and have parties every Friday night on the balcony above the service station. President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
stopped briefly at The Bottle after visiting Auburn, as did
Grand Ole Opry The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a regular live country music, country-music Radio broadcasting, radio broadcast originating from Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, on WSM (AM), WSM, held between two and five nights per week, depending on the ...
comedian
Minnie Pearl Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon (October 25, 1912 – March 4, 1996), known professionally as her stage character Minnie Pearl, was an American comedian and country singer who appeared at the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years (1940–1991) ...
. In a 2001 account by W. A. "Arthur" Wood, The Bottle burned at 5:00 one morning in fall 1936. However, multiple contemporary newspapers claim The Bottle burned down in 1933, 1935, or 1937. Although the structure no longer exists, and the former location is only an empty lot, a historic plaque and a photograph mark the location, and Alabama maps still list the area as "The Bottle". The property was put on sale in 2005. The land was purchased in early 2006 by the Hayley Redd Development Company.


See also

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References


Sources

* Logue, Mickey & Simms, Jack (1996). ''Auburn: A Pictorial History of the Loveliest Village, Revised''. Auburn, Ala. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bottle, Alabama Unincorporated communities in Lee County, Alabama Unincorporated communities in Alabama Auburn, Alabama Columbus metropolitan area, Georgia Novelty buildings in Alabama Keurig Dr Pepper 1924 establishments in Alabama