One of my co-workers was traveling in San Francisco this week and visited Alcatraz, the famous island prison in the middle of San Francisco bay.  She took a moment to snap the photo here with this quick note.  "Visiting Alcatraz and what do I see?  It was in the supervisor's/officer's room and not only had the cooler but glass bottles to the left hand side of it in a wooden crate."

I always love to run into elements of Coca-Cola heritage when I travel!  Now I need to plan a trip to San Francisco to see it myself ^TR 

Some 57 years ago, two historic African American figures met in the city of Atlanta at a sports event co-sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company. The event was the Annual Sports Jamboree of the “100% Wrong Club”, a unit of the sports department of the Atlanta Daily World newspaper. The historic figures? Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League Baseball, and Mrs. Mary Alexander, the first African American model to appear in Coca-Cola advertising. “That was the highlight of my life”, Mrs. Alexander shared with me a few weeks ago when recounting the experience. “I was modeling for Coke and they asked me if I would come to the [sports program] and I said, ‘Yes! What do I do?’ and they replied, ‘You just go there and meet the people and talk and drink Coke.’ I said ‘fine!’” In addition to meeting Jackie Robinson, she also met Branch Rickey, the general manager who signed Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

Yesterday, I got to take a bus trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee to give a presentation on the history of Coca-Cola. While I have given this presentation many times in the past, never have I done it while riding on a bus, standing backwards (to face the audience). As I told them, I considered it a successful presentation simply because I did not lose my balance and fall down the steps! When it comes to Coca-Cola in bottles, all roads stem from Chattanooga, site of the first Coca-Cola Bottling Company which was started when Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead acquired the rights to bottle Coke in 1899. In fact, there is a local saying that I learned: "Inside every bottle of Coca-Cola, there's a little bit of Chattanooga."

The highlight of my day came when I met Robert, who is pictured below with me at a great shop called The Ice Cream Show in Chattanooga. Robert told me that he had a Coke every afternoon between 3-4 PM, and loves ice cream at night. He is an 80 year-old Alabama native, and even has a case of the Coca-Cola Bear Bryant commemorative bottles, a favorite among Coca-Cola Collectors. Please join me in giving Robert a Coca-Cola salute!

Ever think about how a Coca-Cola fan would have "shared" his love for Coke in the 1890s? What about in the 1940s? Chances are that you would have written a letter or made a postcard with your Coca-Cola picture and sent it (by snail mail) to The Coca-Cola Company.

We've gone through the Archives and pulled out our "fan history" over time. The letters, pictures, stories and videos sent by Coca-Cola fans over 125 years are showcased on the Coca-Cola Page timeline. What you'll see represents the history of the brand through the lens of fans.

A friend of the Archives, Lynn Watson-Powers, went through her own photo collection and sent this early 1980s photo to us, along with the following quote: “Life didn't get any better than riding in the back of Mike's pick-up truck with my best friends, Andy, Beth and Paul, in the Washington, DC suburbs in 1984.” (Lynn is second from the left in the picture).

The monitors in the loft portion of the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta display a feature we call "Coke by the Numbers," which have a dizzying array of numerical facts about our Company.  For example, did you know that in the first year of operation, we only averaged sales of nine drinks per day?

We were recently discussing some of the numbers associated with our blog and other social media outlets and we were amazed at the outreach.  Part of this was spurred on by the fact that this blog just celebrated its second birthday on Saturday, January, 23rd.  In those two years, we have written over 450 posts and fielded over 3,700 comments.  While we are still not able to answer questions about the value of individual collectibles, we have created a section of the blog which gives you broad guidelines on values.

In addition to the blog, we have started our own YouTube Channel where we have posted 45 videos which have been viewed nearly 500,000 times.  We are really excited about the addition of videos to the YouTube Channel and embedding them on the blog and are proud of some of the content like the Cooking with Coke series featuring James Beard nominated Chef Linton Hopkins and the oral history interview with Mean Joe Greene.

We have also launched a facebook page where you can join the more that 600 fans of the Coke Archives and you can also follow us now on Twitter where we are approaching 500 followers.  While you will generally see all of our blog post on these two sites, we try to offer some different or expanded stories and photos via facebook and Twitter.

Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on the site these last two years and I hope that we will continue to provide a blog that entertains and educates.

I was sent an article entitled "They'd like to buy the campus a Coke" from Nebraska's Lincoln Journal Star a few months back, about a pair of Nebraska Wesleyan University students who bought Cokes for their peers. I reached out to the students, Nick Myers and Jordan Mruz, to ask why they did it. Here's what they shared:

What do you think of when you hear the song, "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke"?

I guess I just think of people being decent to each other. Taking a break from things, if only for a few minutes, and being happy with life.

What inspired you to buy fellow students a Coke?

We just liked the song and we were talking one day and thought it would be neat to try and make the jingle come to life for a few people. That and it was an opportunity to meet people new people in our building.

Do you know how much it would cost to buy the world a Coke?

A bunch. I suppose it would depend on if you had to buy it at retail price or wholesale.

Are you planning to give away more Cokes in the future?

Yes, although we're not exactly sure when. It will be sometime this spring after the weather warms up a bit. Not sure if we'll continue once we're out of school.

Do either of you have any memories or stories of growing up with Coca-Cola?

Nick: I suppose one memory I have is when I was a little kid and going to [Nebraska] Cornhusker games, they would have Coke ads running on HuskerVision before and after replays. Another is hanging out with my cousins on Independence Day setting off firecrackers all day and having a few Cokes.

In the photo, the Jordan is the one handing the can of Coke to a student while Nick is sitting next to him in the hat. The signs behind them read, "Once Again... We are Buying the World a Coke. Take one and Enjoy. It's The Real Thing" and "Good luck on mid-terms!" I'd like to thank Nick and Jordan for sharing a little Happiness with everyone.

"Cooperage" is one of those words that most people would have trouble defining. What it refers to is the manufacturing of barrels. Back in the 1920s, the Headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company actually resided of the same piece of property that we occupy today, but in that earlier period, syrup manufacturing took place in the same complex that housed our administrative offices. As part of that production process, the syrup was packaged in oak barrels and distributed to our bottlers throughout the United States.

Because there was a constant need for a steady supply of these oak barrels, a group of employees, called coopers, assembled the barrels on site. The photographs below show elements of  the barrel construction in 1924.

Barrels used for Coca-Cola were stained red to differentiate them from whiskey barrels, and for many years, the Company had a sales publication called The Red Barrel dedicated to the soda fountain business.

 

 

Did you know? Last week in Japan, the Coca-Cola contour bottle was granted registration as a three-dimensional trademark.

When the contour bottle was first created 90+ years ago, one goal was that the bottle be recognizable even in the dark. That’s how it got its famous shape. The recent decision marks the first time that a court in Japan has recognized a package without text or graphics as a 3D trademark – just the bottle, without the famous Coca-Cola script.

In 1977, the contour bottle was granted registration as a trademark by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an honor awarded few other packages.