Demise of Dublin Dr Pepper brand has Texas town worried about losing its identity

DUBLIN, Texas (AP) - Dublin didn't invent Dr Pepper, but no other place has embraced the soft drink quite like it has.

A dozen or so signs and murals around town tout the virtues of the local version of the drink, Dublin Dr Pepper, which was first bottled in Dublin in 1891, six years after it debuted in Waco. And a giant Dublin Dr Pepper billboard

greets the nearly 100,000 annual visitors to the central Texas town - most who come just to buy the drink, which is made with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup and is sweeter than typical Dr Pepper.

But because of a legal settlement that led to the demise of the Dublin Dr Pepper brand and logo, the town's name is being cut out, covered up or painted over on the signs, and many residents feel the town's identity is disappearing along with it.

"You see somebody cutting your name out of something like it never happened, and that's just gut-wrenching," said Pat Leatherwood, vice president of First National Bank of Dublin. "You walk in stores all over town, and some people are mad. Some are upset. It's like someone has died."

Dr Pepper Snapple Group, which is based in Plano, announced this week that it bought all of the Dublin bottling company's sales and distribution operations and related assets, as well as the rights to distribute Dr Pepper and its other brands in the six central Texas counties served by Dr Pepper Bottling Co. of Dublin, which has been renamed Dublin Bottling Works.