G. Lee Wainscott: The Ale‑8 Man (Part One)

With three rail lines com­ing through the city in the late 1890s, Winchester expe­ri­enced a build­ing boom.  Business oppor­tu­ni­ties brought a num­ber of vision­ary men to Clark County seek­ing to make their for­tunes.  One of these was Lee Wainscott, soft drink inven­tor and founder of the high­ly suc­cess­ful Ale-8-One Bottling Co.  He was born in 1867 in Owenton, Kentucky, the son of George and Elizabeth Wainscott.  His par­ents gave him the name “Lee,” to which he lat­er added the ini­tial “G.”  It was said he want­ed to be referred to as “G. Lee Wainscott.”  Lee had a fas­ci­nat­ing career, of which we can only touch on the high­lights here.

Wainscott grad­u­at­ed from Transylvania University with a degree in civ­il engi­neer­ing, worked briefly for the Lexington & Eastern Railroad then went to Texas for a time.  His locat­ing in Winchester was serendip­i­tous.  His father had been a hotel keep­er in Owenton and Georgetown before com­ing to Winchester to run the Rees House (it stood on the site of the Brown-Proctor Building).  When George’s health began to fail in 1896, he called on his son Lee to take over man­age­ment.  George died soon after, and Lee ran the Rees House for two years before going into the coal and lum­ber busi­ness with his cousin Joseph Lindsay (lat­er sher­iff and judge in Clark County). 

In 1899 Lee pur­chased a store­house and lot on Main Street, just south of the C&O Railroad.  The build­ing was locat­ed on the west side of Main across from Depot Street.  It was here in 1902 that Wainscott start­ed mak­ing can­dy and bot­tling soda water. 

He soon intro­duced a num­ber of fruit-fla­vored drinks.  Then in 1906, he began bot­tling and sell­ing Roxa Kola.  After the drink became pop­u­lar in the area, Wainscott start­ed sell­ing the syrup to oth­er bot­tlers.  There were Roxa Kola bot­tling plants in Lexington, Irvine, Beattyville, Georgetown, Cynthiana, and Carlisle.  Each had their own licensed territory.

Roxa Kola’s suc­cess attract­ed the atten­tion of the Coca-Cola Company, who had their own bot­tlers in the area.  From the time Coca-Cola was trade­marked (1887) until they sued the Carlisle Bottling Works for Roxa Kola’s trade­mark infringe­ment (1929), the indus­try giant had nev­er lost a case out of the dozens they filed.  This would prove to be the excep­tion.  Wainscott was called upon to pro­vide the defense.  He and his lawyers did a mar­velous job. 

The case ulti­mate­ly turned upon the fact that Coca-Cola bot­tlers had oper­at­ed in the same ter­ri­to­ry for years with­out any com­plaints against Roxa Kola.  Then Charles Mitchell, a Lexington bot­tler, got into a squab­ble with Wainscott after their emp­ty bot­tles got mixed up.  The com­plaint was heard in the U.S. District Court at Lexington and was dis­missed by the fed­er­al judge.  Coca-Cola took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals and lost there too.

In 1909 Wainscott tore down his orig­i­nal fac­to­ry and put up a new three-sto­ry build­ing.  Deliveries were orig­i­nal­ly by wag­on, but start­ing in 1912, they were made by Wainscott’s fleet of trucks.  (He is cred­it­ed with hav­ing the first truck in Winchester.) 

In 1910 Wainscott orga­nized the Kentucky State Bottlers’ Association at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville.  He was elect­ed their first sec­re­tary-trea­sur­er and lat­er served as pres­i­dent.  He was active in their annu­al expo­si­tion at the Kentucky State Fair as well as the National Bottlers’ Expositions.

The con­clu­sion of this two-part sto­ry will appear next week.