Coca Cola Dreams

History and Origins of Coca Cola

1886

John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, invents Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is named by Frank Robinson, John Pemberton's bookkeeper.

1891

Atlanta businessman Asa Griggs Candler secured rights to the business for a total of about $2,300. Candler would become the Company's first president, and the first to bring real vision to the business and the brand.

1893

Candler found brilliant and innovative ways to introduce them to this exciting new refreshment. He gave away coupons for complimentary first tastes of Coca-Cola, and outfitted distributing pharmacists with clocks, urns, calendars and apothecary scales bearing the Coca-Cola brand.

1894

Mississippi businessman, Joseph Biedenharn became the first to put Coca-Cola in bottles.

1895

Candler had built syrup plants in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.

1899

Chattanooga lawyers, Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead, secured exclusive rights from Candler to bottle and sell the beverage -- for the sum of only one dollar.

1911

Kola nuts act as a flavoring and the source of caffeine in Coca-Cola instead of coca leaves.

1915

The Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, won a contest to design a bottle that could be recognized in the dark.

1916

Manufacturing the famous contour bottle begins.

1919

Ernest Woodruff purchased the Company from Asa Candler.

1920

1,000 Coca-Cola bottlers in the United States, Canada, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, France, and other countries and U.S. territories

1923

Robert Woodruff becomes the company president and spends more than 60 years as the company leader.

1928

Coca Cola is introduced to the Olymipc games for the first time when Coca-Cola traveled with the U.S. team to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.

1935

Coca-Cola is certified kosher by Rabbi Tobias Geffen, after the company made minor changes in the sourcing of some ingredients.