Hires, Charles Elmer

HIRES, CHARLES ELMER

Charles Elmer Hires (1851–1937) was the first soft drink entrepreneur. Before industry giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, there was Charles Hires and his "root beer," which he created in 1875. An entrepreneur at 24, Hires went on to develop a second successful business in the manufacturing of condensed milk.

Charles Hires was born on August 19, 1851, in Roadstown, New Jersey, the son of a farming couple. At age 12, after a meager early education, Hires moved from his parents' farm to begin a four year apprenticeship as a pharmacy clerk. He completed the apprenticeship at age 16 and moved to Philadelphia, where he worked for a pharmacist and attended evening classes at Jefferson Medical College and the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.

At age 18, Hires opened his own pharmacy in Philadelphia. Oddly, his first successful business venture involved the purchase and resale of a kind of clay (fuller's earth) that Hires recognized as having solvent properties. He renamed the common substance "Hires' Potter's Clay" and made several thousand dollars selling it to various wholesale drug houses, to whom he advertised it as a successful grease and spot remover.

Hires first tasted the drink that would bring him fame and fortune while staying at a New Jersey boarding house during his honeymoon. The drink, "root beer," was served to him by the landlady. It was a beverage made from sassafras bark and herbs. Hires loved the taste and, so the story goes, wanted to produce it himself.

After conversations with chemist friends and his own experiments with sarsaparilla root and other ingredients, Hires finally created what came to be known as root beer. Originally, he intended to call the beverage a tea, hoping to sell it among Pennsylvania miners as a substitute for an alcoholic drink. A friend told him bluntly that miners would never drink his concoction if it were called tea. His friend further instructed him to call it a beer, root beer, if he expected it to sell to men.

During the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 Hires took the opportunity to sell his root beer to the millions of fair visitors. Their response was immediately favorable and it led Hires to begin marketing and packaging his root beer. He first sold it in bulk, dried, for 25 cents. It could be brewed at home by mixing it with water and a few other ingredients and it made about five gallons of the drink. In 1893 he began to produce root beer in liquid form, packaged in three ounce bottles.

Root beer began to sell extremely well at soda fountains which were popular during that era. The drink became popular among industrial workers as an alternative to water, tea, and alcohol, and it also became popular among the middle class as a universal beverage available to children, adolescents, and adults.

Hires advertised his product extensively in newspapers and national magazines. By 1890 he was able to organize all his business efforts into the Charles Elmer Hires Company. Starting with an original capital investment of $300,000 Hires watched his company's value rise to more than $2 million by 1921.

In addition to root beer, Hires made considerable money from the manufacture and distribution of condensed milk. The venture began in 1899 and blossomed into a wholly separate business for Hires. He eventually sold this condensed milk company to the Nestle Company in 1918, after having built more than 20 milk plants in various regions of the United States and Canada.

Hires spent much of his leisure time supporting the work of the Society of Friends, a Quaker organization he joined during the last half of his life.

By the end of the nineteenth century Hires Root Beer was known as a favorite American soft drink. Hires' success made U.S. business realize there was a large market for an alternative to tea, coffee, alcohol, and fruit drinks. It did not take long for Coca-Cola and other soft drink manufacturers to follow in Hires' footsteps and create the enormous world market for bottled soft drinks. The founder of root beer died in 1937.

See also: Coca Cola

FURTHER READING

Fucini, Joseph J., and Suzy Fucini. Entrepreneurs: The Men and Women Behind Famous Brand Names and How They Made It. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1985.

Ingham, John N. Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1983, s.v. "Hires, Charles Elmer."

Schuyler, Robert L, ed. Dictionary of American Biography. s.v. "Hires, Charles Elmer."

Van Doren, Charles. Webster's American Biographies. Springfield, MA: G & C Merriam Co., 1984, s.v. "Hires, Charles Elmer."

Who Was Who in America. Chicago: Marquis, 1998, s.v. "Hires, Charles Elmer."