BIG CHIEF BEVERAGES Coca-Cola Bottling

Big Chief brand started in the early 1900s with alternative flavors outside of Cola. Flavors such as Strawberry, Orange, Creme soda, Lemon and Orange as a few. Big Chief was eventually distributed through select Coca-Cola distributors throughout the United States with concentration in the deep south and western regions. Examples being Mississippi, Alabama and Kansas. There is actually an early Big Chief Brand that was also distributed by Dr. Pepper in Texas. Many other Coca-Cola bottlers chose Royal Palm as their alternative flavored sodas. Examples being Florida, Indiana and New York. I’m not sure of the deciding factor, but it seemed like the bottler had a choice here?

Just like Royal Palm, Big Chief was first bottled in embossed bottles of many different shapes and sizes prior to the ACL era. There are some really neat looking art-deco bottles featuring indian chief pictures within the bottles. There are many different cities and styles of these early bottles. In the early 1930s we know that some of the first examples of Big Chief ACLs started to appear. Some of these had both an embossed likeness as well as a painted label. You can easily notice the Chief picture on these early ACLs seem to have a more rougher look and sometimes more descriptive nose feature. The majority of ACLs come in the colors of Red and/or White and there few sought after bottles that appear in a Red and Yellow color pattern. (Example: Ely, Nv) Over the next 4 decades, we know now that there are well over 200 different ACLs and variants that were produced, which has made the hobby of collecting Big Chiefs ACLs very desirable. By the late 60s early 1970s, Big Chief eventually came end of life as Coca-Cola started to distribute other brands of flavored sodas coming to life such as Fanta, Sprite..

After obtaining a great number of Big Chief ACLs a few years back, I have started my “Master List” of Big Chief ACLs as I have discovered over the years. It has always been a fun and exciting task to continue to perfect this list, which is by far not complete :).

Happy Collecting Big Chiefs!! Tom

 

COMPLETE LISTING OF BIG CHIEF ACL BOTTLES

**ID Numbers in Green are pictured below

Alabama

Arizona

California

Colorado

Idaho

Illinois

Iowa

Kansas

Louisiana

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Mexico

Oklahoma

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Washington

Wyoming

No State/City