Coca-Cola’s Different Bottle Shapes
Coca-Cola was first bottled by the Biedenharn Candy Company in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1894. The proprietor, Joseph A. Biedenharn, was a customer of The Coca-Cola Company, buying Coca-Cola syrup and serving the soft drink to customers at his soda fountain. He came up with the idea of making Coke available to people who lived in the country and did not have a local soda fountain.
Bottling Coca-Cola was the answer. Cases of Coke could then be sent to into the countryside so more people could enjoy it, and obviously, more sales could be made. Biedenharn’s first customers were plantations and lumber camps along the Mississippi River. He sent a case of bottled Coca-Cola to the owner of The Coca-Cola Company, Asa G. Candler, but at the time, Candler wasn’t interested in getting involved in bottling, but rather, wanted to focus on soda fountain sales.
It wasn’t until 1899 that Candler agreed to sell bottling rights to two young attorneys, Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead. They negotiated exclusive rights to Coca-Cola bottling for most of the U.S., with the specific exception of Vicksburg, for one dollar. A third lawyer joined them, and together, they divided the U.S. into territories where they sold bottling rights to other entrepreneurs. By 1909, there were almost 400 bottling plants, most of them family-owned.
The original Coca-Cola bottle was one that Biedenharn was already using to put soda water into with equipment he had bought from Sarasota Springs. His company was already bottling many other beverages using Hutchinson blob-top bottles that were embossed with “Biedenharn Candy Company, Vicksburg, Miss.”. The straight-sided bottles, which were sealed with a rubber disk that changed the soda’s taste after a few days, have become known as Biedenharn bottles.
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