Piece of glass beckons a local history lesson

It is interesting that one little paragraph in this column last week generated so much conversation.
It was the following words that started the ball rolling:
“I found a piece of an old bottle. It says on the piece “Drink High Top, bottled in Fort Frances, 10 fl. oz.” But all I have asked about it do not remember what High Top was... soda? beer? Maybe you know?”
I received a couple of emails, one from Lance and Millie Lindal at True Value and The Source by Circuit City in RR. Millie said she remembered High Top being a soda and recalled it being either root beer or cream soda.
The other email was from Roy Wilson who lives in Vancouver, B.C. and was born in Rainy River in 1942 to Ed and Marge Wilson. He said, “If memory serves me right; High Top was a soda pop somewhat like 7-Up or Sprite back in the 50’s. I remember the name but my taste memory is a little fuzzy.”
I did a search for High Top on the net and found someone in Fountain Valley, California selling one of the bottles on ebay only it was green and the one I found was clear.
Record publisher Jim Cumming told me last Thursday that High Top was produced in Fort Frances, right next to where the Fort Frances Times building is now, by Royal Beverages. He said they eventually became the local bottler of Coca-Cola as well as High Top. As the company grew the plant was moved to where the Adventure Inn is now.
He said they had a variety of High Top flavours, fleets of trucks and were run by Stan and then Dave Marsh of Fort Frances. He said he thinks the plant closed in 1972 or 73.
–Until then, Ken