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

(If you missed it, you might want to part one before proceeding.)

G. Lee Wainscott suc­ceed­ed in his busi­ness ven­tures, begin­ning with the Roxa Kola brand of soda pop.  He was not always so for­tu­nate in his per­son­al life. 

Wainscott mar­ried Sarah Bell Miller in 1895 dur­ing a sojourn in Texas and brought her to Winchester.  He bought a lot in the Thomson Addition at the south­west cor­ner of Maple and Belmont, where the cou­ple built an ele­gant home, com­plet­ed in the year 1899.  The news­pa­per report­ed that the Wainscotts “had built a splen­did home in a pop­u­lar res­i­dence por­tion of the city.”  Lee and Sarah sailed abroad for a tour of Europe and the Paris Exposition.  Everyone sup­posed that “there was nowhere a more lov­ing, hap­py and con­tent­ed couple.”

The Roxa Kola fac­to­ry was thriv­ing, and Wainscott had estab­lished a rep­u­ta­tion as one of Winchester’s lead­ing mer­chants.  He was invest­ing in local real estate and was a mem­ber of the city coun­cil.  Then came a fam­i­ly tragedy in June 1903, in which Wainscott shot and seri­ous­ly wound­ed his sis­ter-in-law, Margie Miller. 

Wainscott described what hap­pened in a state­ment released by his attor­ney, Edward S. Jouett.  “Some time ago I invit­ed my father-in-law, D. J. Miller of Waco, Texas, to come and make his home with me.  When he came Miss Miller was with him and imme­di­ate­ly after their arrival influ­ences were set to work to alien­ate my wife’s affec­tions.”  Miss Miller was so per­sis­tent that Sarah left her hus­band and moved into anoth­er part of the house with her sister. 

Wainscott said on the night of the tragedy he tried to embrace his wife and was attacked by Miss Miller and her father.  “Miss Miller struck me on the head with a heavy cane, and Mr. Miller tried to cut my throat with a knife.  In anger and excite­ment on account of such treat­ment I drew my pis­tol and fired with­out def­i­nite aim.”  His bul­let struck Miss Miller over the heart, passed through her lung, and exit­ed her back.  She was tak­en across the street to the home of John Bean and ulti­mate­ly recov­ered.  Wainscott was left with a cut over his eye and blood run­ning down his face.

Wainscott was charged with mali­cious shoot­ing.  At his tri­al the jury returned a ver­dict of “shoot­ing in sud­den heat and pas­sion” and fined him $500.  Sarah was grant­ed a divorce.  By that time, Wainscott had agreed to an out of court set­tle­ment with his ex-wife and Margie Miller.

By 1906 Wainscott had recov­ered nice­ly.  In February of that year he sold the house at Maple and Belmont, moved into the house he had built next door on Belmont and in April mar­ried Jane Rogers (daugh­ter of Harvey and Nettie Rogers of Wades Mill), the sec­ond mar­riage for each. 

In 1908 he began sell­ing Roxa Kola.  With his rep­u­ta­tion appar­ent­ly still on the uptick, that year he was the Democratic par­ty can­di­date for Congress from the 10^th dis­trict but with­drew from the race before the elec­tion.  (Nine years lat­er, Wainscott ran for state sen­a­tor but again with­drew from the race.)

Lee and Jane moved their res­i­dence again, pur­chas­ing the large house at the south­east cor­ner of Maple and Hickman (now the office of Michael Caudill, CPA).  During World War I Wainscott was a dol­lar-a-year man, serv­ing as chair­man of the Clark County Fuel Board.  After the war the cou­ple sailed to Europe to vis­it Jane’s great-uncle, Gen. Henry Allen in Coblenz, Germany.  At the spe­cial request of Governor James Black, Wainscott viewed the ceme­ter­ies where Kentucky’s World War I vic­tims were buried.  On his return, he sub­mit­ted a report to the gov­er­nor, was made an hon­orary colonel on his staff, gave a speech to the gen­er­al assem­bly, and pro­vid­ed pho­tographs of the graves to fam­i­ly members.

It was on this European tour that Wainscott is said to have acquired the gin­ger-blend­ed recipe which he per­fect­ed as the for­mu­la for Ale-8-One.  He launched this new soft drink in 1926.  According to the com­pa­ny his­to­ry, “Wainscott spon­sored one of America’s first ‘slo­gan’ con­tests at the Clark County Fair.  ‘A Late One,’ the win­ning entry, was a pun adopt­ed for its descrip­tion as the lat­est thing in soft drinks.” 

The drink was so suc­cess­ful that in 1935 he moved his grow­ing fac­to­ry to a two-sto­ry brick build­ing at the north­west cor­ner of Broadway and Wall Alley.  That year he reg­is­tered a new trade­mark for “a non-alco­holic, malt­less bev­er­age, sold as a soft drink” with the U.S. Patent Office, stat­ing that it had been “con­tin­u­ous­ly used and applied to said goods in applicant’s busi­ness since July 13, 1926.”

Wainscott was active in the busi­ness and civic affairs of the coun­ty.  He was a direc­tor of the Winchester Bank, the Clark County Warehouse Company, the Clark County Health and Welfare League (lat­er became the Clark County Health Department), the Kentucky Baptist Children’s Home in Glendale, a trustee of the First Baptist Church, and a del­e­gate to the Democratic National Convention in 1936. 

He was a mem­ber of the Commercial Club, the Elks Club, and Winchester Country Club (he was an excel­lent golfer).  Wainscott was one of the first to press for the erec­tion of a coun­ty hos­pi­tal, which he began advo­cat­ing for in 1912.  When the Clark County Hospital was built in 1933, he was on the fundrais­ing com­mit­tee, the build­ing com­mit­tee, and then served as the pres­i­dent of the board of direc­tors.  He donat­ed the funds to build Wainscott Hall, the hospital’s nurs­es’ quar­ters on Wainscott Avenue.

The year the hos­pi­tal opened, Wainscott was involved in an auto­mo­bile acci­dent on the way to the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.  The car he was dri­ving blew a tire, plunged over an embank­ment and down a 300-foot hill­side near Covington, turn­ing over sev­er­al times on the way down.  In the car were Miss Anna Gordon, Miss Katherine Lyons, Miss Lena Reeves, and her sis­ter-in-law Mrs. Frances Reeves.  Amazingly, none of the pas­sen­gers was injured, and the par­ty con­tin­ued to the World’s Fair by train.

G. Lee Wainscott died in a Cincinnati hos­pi­tal on May 15, 1944.  He is buried in Lexington Cemetery.  In his will he left half of the soft drink busi­ness to his wife Jane and the oth­er half to his employ­ees Marshall Jones, Elizabeth Winburn, Sherman King and Herbert Napier.  At her death Jane Wainscott left her share to her broth­er Frank Rogers, who bought out the inter­est of the oth­ers.  The Rogers fam­i­ly still oper­ates the Ale-8-One Bottling Company.

The Kentucky Historical Society will hon­or the Ale‑8 Company with an his­tor­i­cal high­way mark­er soon to be erect­ed near the Carol Road bot­tling plant.