History of Barq's Brothers Bottling Company

"Barq's" was long the name of the company's signature product, now known as Barq's Famous Olde Tyme Root Beer. It was the iconic root beer of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the greater South. Edward Charles Edmond Barq was born in New Orleans in 1871. When he was only two years old, his father, who was French, died. After his father's death, Edward's mother returned to France, where Edward learned the art of flavor chemistry.

The Barq's Brothers Bottling Company was founded in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana in 1890, by Edward and his older brother, Gaston. The Barq Brothers bottled carbonated water and various flavours. The most popular initially was their orange flavoured called “Orangine,” which won a gold medal at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

Edward and Gaston bottled soft drinks in New Orleans until Gaston’s death about 1892. Barq Sr. moved to Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1897. The following year he constructed the building to house his bottling company, Biloxi Artesian Bottle Works. Once construction was complete, he began experimenting with formulas for an array of soft drinks and eventually developed the recipe for his now-famous root beer. 1898 is often given as the debut year for what was later to be known as “Barq’s root beer.”

It was there he began bottling his soft drinks. By day he and his wife sold the drinks, and then spent the rest of their time mixing the formula for them and refilling glass bottles.

Barq’s Root Beer was produced in the small building on Keller Avenue until 1937, at which time production relocated to 604 Lameuse Street also in Biloxi. Barq developed a line of soft drinks, including Barq's Sr. and Barq's Root Beer. Similar to root beer, Barq's Senior has its own unique flavor.

The first franchise came in 1934 in Mobile, Alabama when Edward Barq, Sr. and Jesse Robinson. signed a contractual agreement on Barq's product rights. Three years later sixty-two bottling plants churned out Barq’s in twenty-two states. In 1995, The Coca-Cola Company purchased Barq’s, making history with the company’s first purchase of a carbonated beverage in the U.S.
History of Barq's Brothers Bottling Company