Kutol-Dough

Kutol was founded in Louisville, Kentucky in 1912 and originally sold powdered hand cleaner and a few other cleaning products. Kutol was floundering during the next decade. Saving the company from failure, Cleo McVicker bought Kuto in 1927 and made it profitable. He then purchased the company from Precision Metal Workers, owners of Kutol, and worked with Kroger to manufacture the largest seller of wallpaper cleaner "putty" in the world. But time waits for no one. By the 1950s, the days of cleaning sooty build-up from walls came to an end. The coal-burning furnaces were being replaced by cleaner natural gas or electricity. 

As the saying goes, "It's not what you know but who you know." McVicker's sister-in-law, Kay Zufall, tested the nontoxic material for modeling projects on her kindergarten students and they loved molding it into all kinds of shapes. Zufall also suggested the Play-Doh name. The original odor might best be described as the comforting smell of vanilla wheat dough. The McVickers formed the Rainbow Crafts Company to make  Play-Doh Modeling Compound in 1956. After several buy-outs, Hasbro now owns the company. Play-Doh has grown into a worldwide franchise generating a lot of dough for selling over 3 billion cans since becoming a child’s toy.

Pulp Illusions

In 1911, Neil C. Ward, a California-born beverage chemist, perfected the blending process, making the drink palatable and commercially viable. Five years later Ward partnered with Clayton J. Howel to form the Orange Crush Company. Howel had previously developed "Howel's Orange Julep," an orange syrup. The headquarters for the company was in Chicago with laboratories in Los Angeles. Soft drinks of the time often carried the surname of the inventor along with the product name. Howel sold the rights to use his name in conjunction with his first brand so it premiered as Ward's Orange Crush. 

Originally, artificial orange pulp was added to their bottles creating an illusion of freshly squeezed juice. The pulp deception was soon removed from the bottles. Bottles were originally ribbed in clear glass but in 1937 the drink was bottled in brown glass. The bottle design eventually discontinued the amber glass and ribs for a larger clear bottle giving it a fresher, more modern appearance.

The single orange flavor was market-limiting and the name was changed to simply Crush, offering several flavors. Keurig Dr Pepper now owns the Crush brand.

Pictured is the clear bottle, circa 1920