Hiya Skeleton Crew,

Yesterday I asked ya ’bout a sodey pop named (spoiler alert!) Green River. It looks like this:

It was first brewed up by a fella named Richard C. Jones in Davenport, IA. So ya could imagine that it got named Green River because (1) it’s colored green, & (2) Davenport’s on the Mississippi so maybe they named it in honor of that?

Great, cool, love it!

Except ...

It’s maybe a bit hard to read in that picture, but the bottle says that Green River was first brewed up in 1919. BUT! If ya look online, you’ll see other folks sayin Mr. Jones invented it in 1916, & 1919 was just the year he sold it to a company called Schoenhofen Brewing.

OK, that’s also fine!

But then ya might come across this Nomination Form for the National Register of Historic Places for a place called Sweetwater Brewery, A.K.A. GREEN RIVER BREWERY, located in GREEN RIVER, WYOMING & located along—you guessed it—the GREEN RIVER tributary of the Colorado— & so anyway this form says:

With the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919, the beer making operations were closed down and the name changed to the Sweetwater Beverage Company. The brewery sold non-alcoholic near beer, which became known as “Wyoming Beverage”, alemon-lime drink named "Green River", and various citrus crushes. [That emphasis is mine –Mr. S] [Also is anyone else SUPER CURIOUS about what “Wyoming Beverage” was?? –Mr. S again]

The point I’m tryna make here is that here we have a sodey pop named Green River that pretty much everyone agrees was invented in 1916 in Iowa along the Mississippi—& which is just generally pretty strongly associated with the Midwest, I feel like most Midwesterners’d back me up on that—but which ALSO was brewed along the Green River at a brewery that started brewin it because of Prohibition that was passed in 1919?

& you’re tellin me that that name is a COINKYDINK?

Like, someone at Schoenhofen Brewing Company had this new fizzy drink on their hands named Green River & they thought to themselves, “Hey, let’s go find a brewery along the ACTUAL Green River—there’ll probably be some that need business ’cause of this here Volstead Act nonsense—wouldn’t THAT be neat?”

I dunno, it just seems kinda weird is all.

Anyways, if ya happen to be some kinda entrepreneurin podcaster or somethin, ya should do a multi-episode deep dive into this mysteeeeeeerious history ... ’cause somethin here just ain’t quite addin up!!

Trivia 1

What amendment was it that allowed for the passage of the Volstead Act?

Trivia 2

“Green River” was the title track of CCR’s third studio album. What was the title track of John Fogerty’s third solo album? This song mentions Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, & Ty Cobb (who all played the same position) & Mr. Fogerty played it at the 2010 Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.