Chapter 1
Vicksburg, MS
The Coca-Cola Trail starts in Vicksburg, Mississippi where in the summer of 1894 Joseph A. Biedenharn first put Coca-Cola in a bottle, and consequently started the world's first Coca-Cola bottling business.
Joseph was the son of a German emigrant, Herman Henry Biedenharn who arrived in Louisiana in 1852. After working in several Louisiana cities, Herman settled in Monroe, Louisiana where he met and married Joe's mother, Louisa Lundberg, who had emigrated from Denmark.
The Civil War took Herman Biedenharn to Vicksburg where his skill as a boot maker was pressed into service making and repairing boots and shoes for the Confederate soldiers. Louisa joined her husband in Vicksburg after the war, and Joseph Augustus Biedenharn, their first son, was born in 1866.
Joe's father continued his shoe and boot business, but the future Coca-Cola business would eventually become a reality because Herman also decided to open a confectionery store.
Herman's brother arrived from Germany to run the store, and at the age of 14 Joe dropped out of school to work full time with his uncle in the store. Joe became manager of the store when his uncle died in 1888. The first telephone in Vicksburg was installed in the Biedenharn business in 1889.
Joe added a soda fountain to the store, and in 1890 he and his father built a two story brick building at 218-220 Washington Street to house both the boot and shoe and the confectionery businesses. Joe's store had a long soda fountain where carbonated water drinks flavored with syrup were sold by the glass.
A difficult business situation resulted in Joe getting into the bottling business in 1891. He had received customer orders for 30 cases of soda water, and as he had in the past, went to the local bottling company to have his orders filled. However Joe's large order could not be done due to a heavy demand for soda created by the July 4th picnics being held that weekend.
That incident caused Joe to decide to begin bottling his own soda water. Second hand equipment was purchased in St. Louis and within 30 days he was in the business of bottling and distributing lemon, strawberry and sarsaparilla soda water.
A few years before the Vicksburg soda water incident, a pharmacist in Atlanta, John S. Pemberton had created the “secret formula” for Coca-Cola syrup. Pemberton had been injured in the civil war, and developed an addiction to morphine. He decided to invent a tonic to cure him of his habit. He created a “coca wine” made from coca leaves (the basis for cocaine) and kola nuts, a source of caffeine.
The syrup drink was offered for sale at drug store soda fountains, as Pemberton claimed it would cure several ailments. The first advertisement for Pemberton's Coca-Cola appeared in 1886.
In 1890 Coca-Cola traveling salesman Samuel Candler Dobbs persuaded Joe Biedenharn to buy a five gallon keg of syrup to serve as a new drink at his fountain. The salesman was the nephew of Asa Candler of Atlanta, who had recently purchased Coca-Cola from Pemberton for $2300. Samuel probably was Candler's first salesman.
The Biedenharn soda fountain served a 10 ounce and a 12 ounce glass of Coca-Cola, your choice for a nickel. In addition the bakery made jelly rolls and pound cake. A half-pound slice of cake also sold for a nickel.
The popularity of the fountain drink grew in Vicksburg and larger syrup orders were being placed. Asa Candler then paid a visit to Joe in 1891, and convinced him to become a wholesale distributor for the syrup. Owners of soda fountains up and down the Mississippi River and the surrounding area were solicited and became repeat customers for the syrup. Candler made at least two more visits to Vicksburg. The Biedenharns would give him a tour by delivery wagon to visit other soda fountains in the area. At that time Vicksburg had about a dozen soda fountains and a population of 20,000 people.
The fountain syrup sales continued to grow even after the bottling began. By 1897 the Coca-Cola Company owed the Biedenharn Company over $500 in commissions for the syrup sales. At that time Candler was offering his distributors one share of stock in his Coca-Cola Company for every $100 he owed them. This would have given Biedenharn Candy Company five shares . There were only 500 shares outstanding, which meant the Biedenharns would have owned one- percent of the company. However Joe needed cash to finance the growing needs of his company, and declined the stock offer. It was later estimated that in 1990 one-percent of the Coca-Cola Company was valued at over $300 million.
In the meantime, the Coca-Cola fountain drink had become such a success that Joe concluded it would be just as popular with people living outside of Vicksburg if they could have access to it. Thus the decision to bottle the drink was easy, as Joe already had purchased the necessary bottling equipment.
“The world’s first Coca-Cola delivery man”. Andrew Butler making a delivery in 1896 in Vicksburg.
The Coca-Cola syrup would arrive in wooden barrels. When empty the barrels were sawed in half, with one half being used to wash bottles. The other half would become a cooler where bottled Coca-Cola was placed in ice for sale.
Twenty seven year old Joe Biedenharn did not realize that summer of 1894, the far-reaching future impact of what he was doing when he poured the Coca-Cola syrup and shot the carbonated water into that first bottle. Joe had six younger brothers, most of them already involved at that time in the various activities of the Biedenharn family business. William was 21 years old, followed by Harry age 17, Lawrence 15, Herman Henry 1
