Original reference photography from the Cola Machines archive. Select any image to inspect the machine, mechanisms, identification plates, and restoration details.
Three Trulaskes, a garage and an American refrigeration dynasty
True
True began with a homemade upright freezer in St. Louis and grew by giving bottlers rugged coolers that kept the product cold—and kept selling it.
- Founded
- 1945
- Founders
- Frank Trulaske · Bob Trulaske · Art Trulaske
- Home
- St. Louis, Missouri; now O'Fallon, Missouri
- Archive
- 40 machines
True's name sounds like advertising, but its origin is wonderfully literal: a father and two sons building refrigeration equipment in the family's St. Louis garage.
Cold starts at home
A freezer built in a garage
Frank Trulaske and his sons Bob and Art began the business in 1945 after building a large upright freezer in the family's St. Louis garage. The experiment became True Refrigeration, a family-owned manufacturer whose early advantage was practical, repairable refrigeration.
The company soon turned from household-scale experimentation toward commercial beverage equipment. That timing was ideal: postwar bottlers wanted standardized coolers capable of turning floor space into a bright, always-cold sales display.
The order that changed the shop
7UP bets on the roll top
True's early roll-top bottle coolers put the merchandise beneath sliding lids in a refrigerated horizontal cabinet. In 1948, 7UP placed the company's first major order, helping turn a small operation into a bottler supplier.
The N-416 and PC-413 belong to this formative period. They were coolers more than autonomous retailers, but the vivid branded cabinet did half the selling before anyone lifted a lid.
From cooler to merchandiser
Glass doors open a new chapter
During the 1950s True's roll-top business grew and reached customers outside the United States. In the 1960s the company developed its GDM glass-door merchandisers while continuing to serve bottlers—a shift from hiding cold inventory under a lid to presenting it behind illuminated glass.
The archive's T, TI, TD, TID and TM families capture that proliferation. True later expanded deeply into food-service refrigeration and remains family-owned, making it one of the rare names in this archive whose manufacturing story continues.
Seven turning points
True in motion
Frank, Bob and Art Trulaske establish the business in St. Louis.
The family builds its first upright freezer in a home garage.
7UP places True's first major roll-top cooler order.
Roll-top sales grow and the company enters export markets.
True develops the GDM glass-door merchandiser.
The company expands into food-service refrigeration.
True remains family-owned and headquartered in O'Fallon, Missouri.
The complete reference shelf
All True machines
40 model records
True photo archive
4 general collection photos
Research notes
Sources & further reading
Corporate milestones are cross-checked against the sources listed here. Model dates and archive counts follow surviving Cola Machines records; gaps and uncertain dates are left visible rather than filled with guesses.
- True Manufacturing — Our HistoryOfficial founding story, family ownership and product-era timeline.
- True Manufacturing — 80th AnniversaryOfficial anniversary context for the company's continuing operation.
- True Manufacturing — About UsCurrent company and headquarters context.
- Cola Machines — True archiveSurviving model records, dates and photographs.