John Stith Pemberton - World of Coca-Cola - Atlanta, GA
Posted by: 
Lat34North
N 33° 45.767 W 084° 23.608
16S E 741406 N 3738906
This statue of John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola is located a next to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, GA.
Waymark Code: WM6VYD
Location: Georgia, United States
Date Posted: 07/25/2009
Views: 17
This statue of John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola is located a next to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, GA.
Source Wikipedia: (
visit link)
John Stith Pemberton (January 8, 1831–August 16, 1888) was a Confederate veteran, an American druggist, and perhaps was best known for being the inventor of Coca-Cola, which in his lifetime had been used only for medical purposes.
While he was a druggist and chemist in Columbus, Georgia, Pemberton began work on a coca wine, an alcoholic beverage mixed with coca, kola nut and damiana called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. Amid a background of drug addiction, depression and alcoholism among Confederate States Army veterans and perceived 'neurasthenia' among 'highly-strung' Southern women, his medicinal concoction was advertised as being particularly beneficial for "ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration, irregularities of the stomach, bowels and kidneys, who require a nerve tonic and a pure, delightful diffusable stimulant".
In 1885, when Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, Pemberton produced a nonalcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca. Frank Mason Robinson came up with the name "Coca-Cola" for the alliterative sound, which was popular among other wine medicines of the time. Although the name quite clearly refers to the two main ingredients, the controversy over cocaine content would later prompt The Coca-Cola Company to state that it is "meaningless but fanciful". Robinson also hand wrote the Spencerian script on the bottles and ads. Pemberton also made many health claims for his product and marketed it as 'delicious, refreshing, exhilarating, invigorating' and touted it as a 'valuable brain tonic' that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion and calm nerves.
Asa Candler bought the business in 1888. In 1894, Coke was sold in bottles for the first time. During World War II, bottling plants were set up in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific.
Pemberton himself was plagued by an addiction to morphine and imbibed his cocawine and soda in an effort to control the addiction (both beverages contained coca leaf, from which cocaine is derived). The original formula allegedly called for 8.46 mg of cocaine, while an average dose of the street drug is between 15–35 mg. However, the effects of the coca leaf is greatly compounded by the presence of caffeine from the kola nut. Coca-Cola was originally advertised as a cure for morphine and opium addictions among a multitude of other health benefits.