The Mountain Dew Gravstone
This six-foot-tall headstone in Oak Hill Cemetery, Johnson City, TN, stands as a tribute to the iconic Appalachian drink, Mountain Dew, a beverage that altered the rhythm of everyday life. The monument, designed to resemble the original Mountain Dew bottle, honors the drink’s history.
Brothers Ally and Barney Hartman, who operated a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant in Knoxville, Tennessee, concocted a lemon-lime soda to mix with whiskey. They whimsically named it Mountain Dew, an old slang term for moonshine. The beverage made its debut in its distinctive deep green bottles at a 1946 bottling convention in Gatlinburg.
The bottles featured labels adorned with an illustration of a barefoot, overall-clad character known as “Willie the Hillbilly.” Willie was depicted holding a rifle in one hand and a jug of moonshine in the other. The drink’s tagline proudly proclaimed, “It’ll tickle yore innards!” Be sure to bring your favorite bottled beverage! The headstone is equipped with a built-in bottle opener in the lower right corner for everyone to enjoy.
Photo by Bruce Fanning on FB.
