Extolled by the Boston Traveler as a “monument to nerve building”, the 1907 Moxie Bottle House essentially paved the way for generations of commercial mimetic architecture, like Bob’s Big Boy and Lucy the Elephant. In a sense, it is also the predecessor of more modern travesties such as U.S. Cellular and Progressive Fields (formerly Comiskey Park and The Jake, respectively).
Equal parts staggering and dazzling, the Moxie Bottle House was spawned by the most groundbreaking of all soft drinks sold only on the east coast. As any New Englander will attest, were one to add a splash of licorice flavoring to liquefied, carbonated greatness, it would taste like Moxie. The bubbly beverage is in and of itself a taste of history, too. Invented 134 years ago by Union’s Dr. Augustin Thompson, Moxie Nerve Food*, as it was then called, was the first ever mass-produced soda.
It all began when the fizzy phenom’s marketing team envisioned the Moxiemobile: a transportable structure capable of touring the country and spreading the proto-pop’s good word. The neon orange, 33 foot-tall billboard on wheels visited many a conference and amusement park in its day. Although it didn’t drum up enough business to stock shelves nationwide, the gigs did present customers with the rare, quasi-matryoshka opportunity to sample a frosty glass from within a wooden Moxie replica before returning to reality via an outdoor slide.
Brilliant though it may have been, the publicity campaign was abandoned in favor of the newer, sleeker “Horsemobile”. Life after advertising was not kind and after a brief stint as a private vacation cottage, the Moxie House fell into ruins.
The Moxie Congress, a fan club of sorts, has recently joined forces with the Matthews Museum of Maine Heritage to develop the site as a museum. Scarred by the ravages of age and desertion, the Moxie Bottle House Museum now features the largest collection of “Moxiana” memorabilia in the land. Although no longer actually made in Maine, Moxie is nevertheless the Pine Tree State’s Official Soft Drink.
* Moxie Nerve Food was originally promoted as a “food for the nerves which has been proven to cure imbecility and loss of manhood”.
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