MUSEUM OF BEVERAGE CONTAINERS & ADVERTISING
by Bob Carter Travelbits
My introduction to the Museum of Beverage Containers & Advertising was when I picked up a copy of a delightful book, America's Strangest Museums: a Traveler's Guide, by Sandra Gurvis. A short time later my travels took me to Goodlettsville, Tennessee and to the museum.
The Museum is located about 15 minutes north of Nashville on Interstate Highway 65. Once there, however, you'll think you've traveled back in time to days when there were no super highways and Burma Shave signs dotted the landscape. Bring the kids...they'll have a wonderful time!
The official ribbon cutting ceremony and grand opening celebration of the museum was held April 1987. What began as a yong boy picking up beer cans off the side of the road became what is now the world's largest combined soda and beer can collection.
Thousands of soda bottles and antique advertising signs fill the museum shelves and upstairs loft. Organized in logical categories are more than 36,000 beverage cans and signs of all shapes, sorts, and sizes. The collection includes not only the first beer can made, but the first soda can, odd-shaped cans, pop-top cans, and cans shaped in every conceivable size and honoring sports figures, pets, politicians, movie stars, television performers, cartoon characters, and much more. Hundreds of appropriate historic advertising pieces complement the collection and each display includes detailed descriptions of each exhibit.
In addition to the major exhibits, the gift shop sells antique bottles and cans, signs, trays, glasses, steins, coasters, matchbook covers, and bottle caps. Visitors shouldn't miss climbing the stairway to the upstair attic area. Be certain to ask the location of the stairway to the attic/loft. You'll be amazed at what you'll discover awaits you there.
The Museum of Beverage Containers & Advertising, 1055 Ridgecrest Drive, Goodlettsville, TN 37072, 615-859-5236. Open Monday through Saturday 9 to 5 and Sunday 1 to 5. For more information, visit them on the web www.gono.com/cc/museum.htm.
