This page is the most extensive and up-to-date Mountain Dew timeline. It is still under construction and is not perfectly set in stone. If you think the timeline is missing something, please help us by submitting the date and event within the comments section.

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1940's

Early 40's - Brothers Barney and Ally Hartman, who own Hartman Beverage, begin bottling a lithiated-lemon drink to be mixed with hard liquor. It is dubbed "Mountain Dew," a term originally used for Tennessee mountain-made moonshine.

1946 - Bottles of Mountain Dew are given labels featuring the classic hillbilly design.

November 12, 1948 - The Hartman brothers file for and receive a copyright on the Mountain Dew name.

1949 - Barney Hartman dies, leaving Ally as the sole owner of the Mountain Dew name.

1950's

1954 - Tri-County Beverage begins carrying the first franchise of Mountain Dew.

1955 - Mountain Dew becomes available commercially. These are the first ACL (Applied Color Label) bottles of Mountain Dew, which read: "by Charlie, Jim and Bill."

1955 - Hartman Beverages begins producing the second set of ACL Mountain Dew. These bottles read "by Barney and Ally" because they were originally ordered in 1951, but were stored in a warehouse until then.

1955 - A Pepsi bottling plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina begins bottling Mountain Dew. This is the first time Pepsi notices Mountain Dew's potential.

1957 - Ally Hartman becomes co-owner of the Tip Corporation along with four other men. He then sells the Mountain Dew brand to it.

1959 - A man named Bill Bridgforth is made plant man-manager of Tri-City Beverage in Johnson City, Tennessee. He, along with Bill Jones (one of the Tip Corporation's co-owners) developed a new drink called Tri-City Lemonade.

1960's

1960 - Bill Bridgforth then merges his Tri-City Lemonade flavor with the Mountain Dew formula, replacing the 7-Up flavor it had been using. ( This is the creation of the current flavor Mountain Dew has used to this day. )

) 1962 - Herman Minges (another co-owner of Tip) also merges Tri-City Lemonade with Mountain Dew in an effort to compete with a local brand called SunDrop Cola.

May 29, 1962 - The Tip Corporation grants its first franchise to Kingston, North Carolina's Pepsi-Cola Bottler. These bottles read "by Hoyte Minges."

September 2, 1964 - Pepsi purchases the Tip Corporation, and with it the Mountain Dew name and rights.

1965 - Pepsi unveils the "Ya-Hooo!" Mountain Dew promotion. At this time, the Mountain Dew label is redesigned to be more humorous, featuring Willy the Hillbilly and the phrase "It'll tickle yore innards!" Pepsi also orders all distributors of Mountain Dew to stop using their names on them.

1970's

1973 - Pepsi completely alters Mountain Dew's packaging, abandoning the "hillbilly" look and changing the logo for the first time since the drink's creation to appeal to a "younger, outdoorsy generation."

1976 - Caffeine-Free Mountain Dew is introduced. It is the first additional drink on the Mountain Dew line.

1980's

1980's - Aurora and Golden Lime are released exclusively to Japan, becoming the first international-only release.

1984 - With the growing trend in America of weight-watching, a Sugar-Free Mountain Dew is released, using an all-red variant of the standard packaging.

1986 - Sugar-Free Mountain Dew is then renamed Diet Mountain Dew, using a green and white-stripped variant of the standard packaging.

1988 - Mountain Dew Red is introduced for test marketing in Alabama, and is the first Mountain Dew flavor variant. A Diet version is also tested alongside it. Both are discontinued this same year.

1989 - Mountain Dew Sport has a test release on shelves.

1990's

1990's - Dry Ginger is released in Japan.

1990 - Following its successful test release, Mountain Dew Sport returns to shelves, along with a 2-calorie variant and Diet variant.

1991 - All versions of Mountain Dew Sport are completely removed from shelves.

1996 - Mountain Dew's logo is changed to a similar, but less-wavy one.

1996 - Production of Mountain Dew spreads to the United Kingdom.

1998 - This U.K. production is now ended due to bad sales.

1999 - The Mountain Dew logo is changed once again, this time to a more-drastically angled one. The packaging also changes, now using a green swirl design.

2000's