GOING BACK: We’re constantly amazed at how mention of a simple
item can trigger an avalanche of memories.

Liz Fleming Duggan of Omaha, Neb., dropped us a line after
reading about the Coke bottling plant on East Main Street, telling
us she remembered it from the mid to late 1950s.

“In the summer during Little League baseball season, my father,
Bob Fleming, would stop there in his green Studebaker truck after
finishing his mail route delivery.

“He would get a big red cooler filled with ice and pop for my
brothers’ game to be played at the field at Fairview Heights.

“Dad always made sure there was enough pop so the players on
both teams could have one for free after the game. I don’t remember
what the spectators paid for the pop – probably a nickel or a
dime.”

SALOON BAN: Way way way before Prohibition, McKean County had a
battle of its own in the drinking war. And it was in Kane, of all
places!

Wayne Caskey of State College gives us the low-down: “It was 134
years ago in 1873 when a McKean County school figure led the drive
to keep a saloon out of the town of Kane.”

“A popular teacher, Samuel W. Smith, was principal at Kane
1869-73.

“He later took up education interests in Port Allegany, 35 miles
away at the eastern end of the county. The Smith Memorial Library
at Port Allegany today carries his name.

“Smith as well as Gen. Thomas L. Kane, leader of the famed
Bucktail Regiment in the Civil War for whom Kane was named, led
opposition to liquor licenses.

“A public meeting was held, and Smith spoke on 12 reasons why
the license should not be granted.

“Attending were his charges from the Kane schools who sang ‘I am
a Young Abstainer’ and “The Right Shall Gain the Day.’

“People for and against the license gathered at the polls on
Election Day, and many stayed all day, bantering cordially back and
forth, each confident of victory,” Wayne writes us.

“A Kane businessman, sure the license would be voted in, arrived
during the afternoon and took repeated swigs from a bottle until
the polls closed.

“‘Liquor interests were confident of an inglorious victory,’ the
Smethport McKean County Miner reported.

“‘The license was defeated by eight votes.'”