Ale-8-One, Taylor Funeral Home Among Oldest Businesses Here

Ale-8-One Bottling Company, 1902

In 1899, G. Lee Wainscott pur­chased a store­house on the west side of North Main Street near the C&O rail­road cross­ing. In 1902, he opened his first bot­tling plant there.  The Wainscott Pop Company pro­duced car­bon­at­ed, fruit-fla­vored soft drinks. 

Wainscott intro­duced Roxa-Kola in 1908, which became his first big suc­cess.  It did very well in the region, com­pet­ing against Coca-Cola.  (In 1929, Wainscott pre­vailed in a suit by Coca-Cola claim­ing trade­mark infringe­ment.)  Roxa-Kola became such a suc­cess that he had to enlarge his factory.

In 1926, Wainscott launched Ale-8-One, a gin­ger-fla­vored soft drink that became his most pop­u­lar cre­ation.  Surging sales of Ale‑8 neces­si­tat­ed larg­er facil­i­ties, and he moved his bot­tling works to a for­mer liv­ery sta­ble on West Broadway.  Wainscott died in 1944, leav­ing 50 per­cent of the busi­ness to his wife, Jane, and the rest to four com­pa­ny employ­ees.  Jane died in 1954 and left her half of the busi­ness to her broth­er, Frank Rogers.

In 1962, Rogers bought out the oth­er inter­ests and re-incor­po­rat­ed the busi­ness as the Ale-8-One Bottling Company.  The fac­to­ry moved to Carol Road in 1965, where the com­pa­ny dropped pro­duc­tion of oth­er soft drinks to focus on the rapid growth of Ale‑8. 

The com­pa­ny, still oper­at­ed by the Rogers fam­i­ly, con­tin­ues to grow and innovate.

Rolan G. Taylor Funeral Home, 1902

This busi­ness has had a tan­gled cor­po­rate his­to­ry, with numer­ous changes of own­er­ship and location.

The prog­en­i­tor of the busi­ness was the H.M.T. Furniture Company.  The principals—Henry H. Hall, Maurice Miller, and Buford A. Tracy—formed a busi­ness that sold fur­ni­ture, queensware, car­pets, and under­tak­ing ser­vices.  Hall brought his train­ing and expe­ri­ence in embalm­ing to the enter­prise.  They opened for busi­ness in 1902.  Initially locat­ed in the Bloomfield Building, they moved to the Massie Building (now The Hall) after two years.

Miller sold out to Jack McCord (1904).  Tracy and McCord were replaced by Sam W. Willis Jr. and the com­pa­ny became Hall & Willis (1906).  Will W. Ecton acquired Willis’ inter­est and Hall & Ecton was formed (1907).  Hall bought out Ecton and chris­tened the Henry H. Hall Furniture and Undertaking Company (1909). 

In 1929, Hall moved from 17 South Main Street to the Fraternity Building (Masonic Hall as it was then called) on Court Street, where he opened the Henry H. Hall Funeral Home.  His ads list­ed the company’s estab­lish­ment as 1902.

Hall died in 1938, leav­ing the busi­ness to his wife, Ollie.  She sold to Ernest L. Edgington, who had worked for Hall for twen­ty-two years.  Edgington Funeral Home moved from the Masonic Hall to 289 South Main Street in 1948.  After grad­u­at­ing from mor­tu­ary school in 1951, E. L. Edgington Jr. joined his father in the busi­ness.  Ernest Sr. died in 1977, and E. L. Jr. car­ried on the funer­al home until his death in 1997.

The fol­low­ing year, Betty Edgington, E. L. Jr.’s wid­ow, sold the busi­ness to Shannon Mullins and Rolan G. Taylor, and they con­tin­ued as the Edgington, Mullins & Taylor Funeral Home.  After Mullins depart­ed, the busi­ness was restyled as Edgington & Taylor Funeral Home.  That is still the reg­is­tered name, although local­ly it goes by Rolan G. Taylor Funeral Home.

Summing up, we can say that Henry Hall oper­at­ed for 37 years, the Edgingtons for 60, and Rolan Taylor for 27 and count­ing.  This con­vo­lut­ed sequence of changes includ­ed eleven dif­fer­ent own­ers and ten cor­po­rate iden­ti­ties in four dif­fer­ent locations.

Interested in the old­est busi­ness­es in Winchester? Read Harry’s oth­er recent arti­cle, Which Are the Oldest Businesses in Winchester?