DUBLIN, Texas – Dublin didn’t invent Dr Pepper, but no other place has embraced the soft drink quite the way 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. A giant Dublin Dr Pepper billboard greets 100,000 visitors a year to the central Texas town.

Most 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, 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.

The company said it will still make the sweeter version of the carbonated drink at another plant and distribute it in several Texas cities, including Dublin.

Jeff Kloster, vice president of Dublin Bottling Works, said his plant will keep making other soft drinks, including Triple X root beer, Sun Crest, Nu Grape and Big Red. But in the wake of the settlement Wednesday, he had to lay off 14 employees.

“The good news is that we’re still here,” he said, fighting back tears as employees were selling the last cases to people lined out the door.