John Shearer: Houston Man Fondly Recalls Coke Bottler ‘Bud’ Evans

Although he died in early 1963 at the age of only 41, former Chattanoogan Thomas Cartter “Bud” Evans left behind a long legacy as a successful Coca-Cola bottler in Houston and a developer of the Sprite drink.

 

He is also favorably remembered years later by a fellow Houston resident, Larry Hankamer, who initially met Mr.

Evans when Mr. Hankamer was – yes -- a sprite-sized youngster.

 

“After more than half-a-century, my friends and I still speak fondly of Bud, remembering him with great respect and admiration,” Mr. Hankamer recalled recently.

 

Mr. Hankamer had sent an email recently after finding a story that had appeared in chattanoogan.com in 2012 about Mr. Evans and his development of Sprite.

 

The story was about Chattanoogan Kurt Schmissrauter and his family’s discovery of some old empty Sprite bottles when they moved into the former Cartter Lupton home in Riverview in 1977.

 

Mr. Schmissrauter later learned from Coca-Cola historian Doug McCoy that Mr. Evans had sent some Sprite bottles to Jack Lupton, son of Cartter Lupton, and Mr. Evans’ stepfather, Paul Carter, to establish proof of Interstate commerce. This was done to obtain the copyright.

 

Both Mr. Carter and, of course, the Luptons were also involved in Coca-Cola bottling.

 

These bottles were actually clear, not green, and had white lettering. Mr. Evans had such flavored drinks as strawberry and orange under the Sprite name before Coca-Cola bought the name and introduced the lemon-lime drink in 1961 as a competitor to 7 up.

 

Details about his time in Chattanooga are not quite as clear as the original Sprite bottle due to the passage of time, however. But it is known that Mr. Evans, the son of Mrs. Paul (Anne Lupton) Carter and Jesse Evans Jr., had grown up in Riverview.

 

For a number of years, he lived in the large home at 1649 Minnekahda Road in Riverview resided in more recently by such families as Gordon Street and the recently retired U.S. Sen. Bob Corker.

 

He had moved there after Mr. Evans’s death at a young age and following his mother’s marriage to J. Frank Harrison Sr.

 

Mr. Hankamer said he first met Bud Evans in the summer of 1952, when Mr. Hankamer was only 5 years old.

 

“My parents had built a home in Tanglewood, a new subdivision in West Houston, of mostly one-story, Mid-Century Modern and traditional homes, on half-acre lots,” he said. Numerous homes were under construction, and President George H.W. and Barbara Bush also became residents of that subdivision over time. 

 

Mr. Hankamer said that during that summer, his older brother had the idea to sell sodas to construction workers. “He got a big metal tub, filled it with ice, Coca-Colas and other soft drinks.  We sat out on the boulevard in the sweltering heat and sold cold Cokes for a dime. 

 

“After a couple days, we were surprised to see a big Coca-Cola tractor-trailer pull up, deliver and set up a 10-foot-by-10-foot metal Coke stand with ice chests, Coca-Cola signs and, thankfully, a roof. Nowadays, someone would complain to the police, but not in the ‘50s. We had no idea, at the time, who our benefactor was.”

 

Mr. Hankamer said they later learned that T.C. “Bud” Evans was building a new home on the boulevard and had seen their plight and anonymously helped them out. As the years would pass, Mr. Hankamer would learn more about him and grow to like him greatly.

 

“When he moved to Houston, he had initially purchased a very large, two-story, older home on Inwood Drive in River Oaks.  But Bud quickly decided the grand old home brought back bad memories of the mansion (Annehaven) where he had grown up.”

 

Mr. Hankamer said he understood that Mr. Evans (and likely his siblings) and a nanny had occupied one wing of the Riverview home, while his parents were off in another wing, or often traveling, during much of his childhood.

 

According to some information found in obituaries in the old Chattanooga newspapers on microfilm at the Chattanooga Public Library’s local history department, Mr. Evans’ father, Jesse Evans Jr., died in Chattanooga apparently on Feb. 17, 1925, although the exact day is not clear.

 

The elder Mr. Evans had undergone an operation for appendicitis the previous week after suffering health problems for several months, the article said. The doctors felt it was not safe to use anesthesia on him. Although he remained in critical condition, he was thought to be rallying before taking a turn for the worse shortly before he died.

 

He had been the superintendent of the Dixie Mercerizing Co. (later Dixie Yarns) operated by the J.T. Lupton family, and he and his wife, Anne -- a daughter of J.T. Lupton’s brother, Cornelius – lived on Lexington Road in Riverview at an unknown address. They had married in May 1915.

 

Jesse Evans, a great-nephew of H. Clay Evans, had graduated from McCallie before attending Washington and Lee and Yale University, where he was in Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

 

The family already had Texas connections, as his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Evans Sr. – Bud Evans’ grandparents -- were living in the Lone Star State, although they arrived back in Chattanooga before he died.

 

Bud Evans’ widowed mother in 1926 married J. Frank Harrison Sr. He had arrived in Chattanooga in 1925 from Greensboro and later Charlotte in North Carolina after selling to Coca-Cola his Southern Carbonic company.   

 

The couple had one child together, J. Frank Harrison Jr., who became a well-known Chattanooga bottler and father of current Charlotte-based bottler Frank Harrison III. Mr. Evans and Anne had two daughters, Jesse Evans (Millis) and “Presh” Evans (Pattee), in addition to Bud Evans, so Frank Harrison Jr. had three half siblings.

 

Mr. Harrison Sr. became president of Chattanooga Glass – which provided bottles for the bottling of Coca-Cola – and was also a stockholder in Dixie Mercerizing Co. and what became the American National Bank. He was also part of an ownership group of the Chattanooga Lookouts for a period.

 

After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison lived with Bud and the other children for a period on Riverview Road, which until 1927 was called Sevier. They later lived on Piney Wood Road, which was formerly part of Falmouth. It is not clear if this is the address that in the late 1920s became their large Annehaven home with the  address of 1649 Minnekahda Road.

 

Unfortunately for the family, Mr. Harrison Sr. died young, too. In early November 1933, he died at Annehaven following an attack of acute nephritis – inflammation of the kidneys -- while suffering from influenza, the newspaper said.

 

His service was at Annehaven, and the Virginia native and World War I Navy veteran was buried in Greensboro.

 

One of his pallbearers and friends was Paul B. Carter, the brother of Rock City Gardens co-founder Garnet Carter. Mr. Carter and the twice-widowed Anne were soon married and continued to live at Annehaven with her four children.

 

Mr. Carter had also lost a wife, the former Mary Craig, at a young age.

 

They enjoyed several decades of marriage until her death on Dec. 13, 1967, also at her residence. She was a member of First Presbyterian Church, and both Dr. James L. Fowle and newly arrived pastor Ben Haden officiated at the services at the home before her burial in Forest Hills Cemetery at the foot of Lookout Mountain.

 

Her obituary said she had come to Chattanooga from Virginia in 1918 and that she and Mr. Carter had owned the land where Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute was built as well as land around where Nickajack Dam was constructed. They also had some Coca-Cola bottling interests.

 

Mr. Carter died in 1979.

 

While his family lived in the Riverview residences, Bud Evans attended Bright School in downtown Chattanooga. From 1934-40, he went to Baylor School, where he participated in sports.

 

He was a Navy flight instructor during World War II, attaining the rank of lieutenant, and graduated from the University of North Carolina.

 

According to a memoir published by Paul B. Carter in 1977, Mr. Evans had worked with the Coca-Cola bottling operations in Raleigh before moving in about the early 1950s to Houston. The Houston plant was half owned by Cartter Lupton, another fourth by Mr. Evans’ paternal grandfather, and another fourth by Anne Carter, Mr. Carter wrote.

 

While in Houston as an adult, Mr. Evans and his wife, Patsy, eventually became acquainted with Mr. Hankamer’s parents, the younger Mr. Hankamer remembered.

 

“They took ski trips together to Aspen.  I remember our home movie of Bud, laughing in knee-deep snow, trying to balance a bottle of Coke on his head,” Mr. Hankamer said.  “There were many hunting and fishing weekends with several close friends.  The Evans spent Christmas of 1962 in Vail, the first year of Vail’s existence.”

 

Mr. Hankamer also remembered witnessing a little of the beginning of the history of Sprite. 

 

“Bud dropped by our home early one evening around 1960, proudly showing off a bottle of Sprite.  I didn’t know until many years later that he had created Sprite or about his family’s long and storied relationship with Coca-Cola.”

 

Mr. Evans also made Mr. Hankamer’s father one of only three directors of his Houston Coca-Cola Bottling Company, and the families worked together during fun times, too.

 

“Bud was always a lot of fun,” the younger Mr. Hankamer said. “There were always new adventures.  He took us out on his classic, 42-foot Chris Craft yacht, the Coke Float.  We skied behind his other boat, the Sprite Float.  And he drove a ‘50s MG, bought horses, and one evening tried out his latest hobby – scuba diving – in our swimming pool.”

 

Mr. Hankamer also remembered that Mr. Evans’ sons, Cartter and Todd, and he and his brothers went to a summer camp in Colorado in the late 1950s, and Mr. Hankamer’s parents and Bud and Patsy came to pick them up at the end of the camp session. 

 

“Bud drove a big, new Buick station wagon, with all the latest gadgets, including an electric rear window.  He forgot he had placed several fishing rods partially out the back window, and raised the window, breaking all the rods,” he recalled.

 

Mr. Hankamer added that Bud’s son, Cartter, was his age and Todd was his brother’s age. “They were the cool kids in high school,” he said. “I didn’t know the younger siblings, Peter and Deborah, well.  In our teens, we all had homemade go-carts.  I clearly remember Cartter and his yellow fiberglass go-cart at our house one Saturday morning.”

 

He said they were shocked to hear the news of Mr. Evans’ sudden death on Feb. 2, 1963, at his Houston home. After a funeral at his mother’s large home on Minnekahda Road, he was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.

 

Today his body lies near that of his father, Jesse Evans, and those are the only two graves around the large “Evans” marker.

 

Bud Evans’ sister, Jesse Evans Millis, died in 2010 in her longtime hometown of High Point, N.C., while half brother Frank Harrison died in 2003 in Chattanooga. Efforts to find information about his other sister, Dorothy “Presh” Pattee, proved unsuccessful. She had lived in California for a period and later on Lookout Mountain, and would be about 99 years old.

 

While he did not know the rest of the family, Mr. Hankamer said he was saddened to hear about the death of Mr. Evans at such a young age.

 

“We were shocked and saddened at the news of Bud’s death,” he said.  “Apparently, he had never gotten over his childhood feelings of rejection.  I went to my high school the morning of his funeral.  But once there, I decided I needed to go to his funeral, to pay my respects.  The dean called my mother for permission.  I was 17 and Bud’s was the first funeral I had ever attended.”

 

Even after 55 years, Mr. Hankamer still has not forgotten this Texan and former Chattanoogan, who brightened his life as a young man.

 

“Bud’s death still brings tears to my eyes,” he said. “He was young, bright, handsome, energetic, and perhaps still a kid at heart, with an effervescent personality. 

 

“We wanted to be like Bud.  It had seemed to us he didn’t have a care in the world.”

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net