DALLAS (May 1,2009)--A 359-page ledger filled with 40 years of formulas from the Waco drug store where Dr Pepper was created goes on the auction block later this month and it’s expected to sell for as much as $75,000 because it includes an original recipe for the soft drink.

Bill Waters stumbled across the tattered old ledger book filled with formulas while poking through Texas Panhandle antiques store.

He bought it for $200, suspecting he could sell it for about $1,000, and his gut feeling about the book’s value turned out to be more than correct.

The Tulsa, Okla., man eventually discovered the book came from the Waco drugstore where Dr Pepper was invented and includes a recipe titled "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters."

When the 8½-by-15½ inch book of more than 360 pages goes on auction at Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries on May 13, it's expected to sell for between $50,000 to $75,000.

Waters discovered the book beneath a wooden medicine bottle crate in a Shamrock antiques store last summer.

A couple months after he bought it, he took a closer look as he prepared to sell it on eBay.

He noticed there were several sheets with letterhead pasted into the book that hinted at its past, like a page from a prescription pad from a Waco store titled "W.B. Morrison & Co. Old Corner Drug Store."

An Internet search revealed that pharmacist Charles Alderton invented Dr Pepper and that it was first served in 1885, at the Old Corner Drug Store in Waco owned by Wade Morrison.

Six years later Morrison and Robert Lazenby started what would eventually become the Dr Pepper bottling company.

According to the Heritage Galleries Web site, the book also contains formulas for such concoctions as Dr. Wilkes Dead Shot for Tape Worm; Red Lead Ointment; King's Korn Kure; Indelible Ink; Kough Kure, which contained morphine acetate and chloroform: Catarrh Inhalant; Dr Samuel Johnson's Cough Syrup; Calamine Lotion; La Grippe Remedies; Rubber Stamp Ink; Austin Avenue Cologne; Floor Wax; Orange-Flower Skin Food; Coating Solution for Rx Counter; Bust Developer; Castles Hair Restorer; Stephen's Condition Powder; Miller Chill Tonic; and Conger's Horse Powder.