Sahara Dry Beverages (1939-1959) 
     Although there is no record of who bottled Sahara Dry in El Paso, numerous bottle fragments are scattered ubiquitously about in a historic trash dump in Socorro, Texas (about 20 miles southeast of El Paso along the Rio Grande).  The parent company, Sahara Dry Beverage Co., was located in Akron, Ohio and advertised itself on its bottles as "Akron's Best."  Originally opened in 1939 by Samuel C. Bershin, the first Sahara Dry plant was at 140 East North St. Two years later (1941), the firm had moved to 404 Wooster Ave. and remained there until they closed.  Sahara Dry incorporated in 1946 with Bershin as president and Mrs. Jeanette Bershin (presumably his wife) as secretary and treasurer.  Around 1955 or 1956 the Bershins sold the company to Samuel Epstein (president) and H. E. Zeid (treasurer).  The firm was last listed in the Akron City Directory in 1959, when it employed fourteen people, thirteen men and a single woman.  The company produced Club Seltzer, Ginger Ale, Lime Rickey, Set Up, Grape Fruit, and Silver Fizz (Akron, Ohio, City Directories 1939-40-1958; Directory of Ohio Manufacturers, 1959; Ohio Bottle Club, Inc. 1989:354). 

     Although no positive identification of the local bottler can be ascertained, speculation can narrow the list of possibilities.  Between 1939 and 1959 (the years Sahara Dry was available), El Paso hosted eleven major bottlers.  When interviewed, former owners of all but two of those companies had never even heard of Sahara Dry.  This does not totally preclude the possibility that one of the companies, under a previous owner, had bottled Sahara beverages, but it lessens the likelihood.  Of the remaining two companies, Flores Brothers/Wonder Beverage Company was a small local bottler who probably only bottled Wonder Beverages and their local Flores Brothers brand.  Empire Products Corporation, on the other hand, had been noted for bottling everything it could franchise.  Empire, therefore, becomes the most likely choice as the local distributor of Sahara Dry.  Even though the local bottler cannot positively be identified, the bottles deserve inclusion in this work because of the great quantity of examples at the Socorro dump.