ASA GRIGGS CANDLER

INTRODUCTION Asa Griggs Candler (December 30, 1851 March 12, 1929) was an American business tycoon who made his fortune selling Coca-Cola. He also served as the 44th Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia from 1916 to 1919. Candler Field, the site of the present-day Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, was named after him, as is Candler Park in Atlanta.

Life and career Candler was born in Villa Rica, Georgia. He started his business career as a drugstore owner and manufacturer of patent medicines. In 1887 he bought the formula for Coca-Cola from its inventor John Pemberton and several other share-holders for $2,300. The success of Coca-Cola was largely due to Candler's aggressive marketing of the product. In the year 1891, he had acquired total control of the Coca Cola, which had then become a patented product in the United States. Its popularly would not stay within the United States for long, though, because in the year of 1906, Cola-Cola was bottled in Cuba and in Panama. Bottling operations were soon started in Hawaii the next year, then in the Philippines, France, Belgium, Bermuda, Colombia, the Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Haiti, and Burma in later years. By the year of 1940, the famous soft drink was bottled in forty countries. Advertising for the cola has included many product slogans including "The Pause Candler made millions of dollars from his investment, allowing him to establish Central Bank and Trust Company, invest in real estate, and became a major philanthropist for the Methodist Church. He gave $1 million plus a land gift to Emory University, at that time a Methodist college, for the school to move from Oxford, Georgia, to Atlanta. This gift was influenced by Asa s younger brother, Methodist Bishop Warren Akin Candler, who became president of Emory. Candler also gave millions to what would later become Emory Hospital. The school's original library which now houses classrooms and a reading room is named for him, as well as endowed chairs in the school's chemistry department.[citation needed] He also donated the land for Candler Park.

In 1906 he completed Atlanta's then-tallest building, the Candler Building,[1] whose intricately detailed 17 stories still stands at Peachtree and Auburn Candler was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1916 (taking office in 1917) and ended his day-to-day management of the Coca-Cola Company. As mayor he balanced the city budget and coordinated rebuilding efforts after the Great Atlanta fire of 1917 destroyed 1,500 homes. In 1919 he gave most of the stock in The Coca-Cola Company to his children, who later sold it to a group of investors led by Ernest Woodruff. In 1922 he donated over 50 acres (200,000 m2) of his Druid Hills holdings to the City of Atlanta for what became Candler Park. Candler suffered a stroke in 1926 and died on March 12, 1929. He is buried at Westview Cemetery in southwest Atlanta. The Candler Field Museum in Williamson, GA has been established to commemorate the original Candler Field airport

Asa Candler was also a philanthropist, endowing numerous schools and universities as well as the Candler Hospital in Savannah, GA. Contribution Towards Coca Cola How did an innocuous soft drink, more than 99% sweetened water, come to be regarded as "the sublimated essence of all that America stands for"? For God, Country and Coca-Cola is a cultural, social, and economic history of America as seen through the green glass of a Coke bottle. And what a quintessentially American tale it is. Coca-Cola began humbly as a patent medicine amid the fervor and chaos of Reconstruction Atlanta. A shrewd marketerMr. Asa G. Candlersaw its value as a beverage, and it rapidly grew through the Gilded Age to become the dominant consumer product of the American Century. The key to Coca-Cola's success was ubiquitous advertising, as the Company's master mythmakers first created and then quenched the thirst of a nation. And when World War II carried American troops overseas, the soft drink went as well, laying the foundation for an enduring and lucrative presence. In the year 1891, Mr. Candler proceeded to buy additional rights and acquire complete ownership and control of the Coca-Cola business. Within four years, his merchandising flair had helped expand consumption of Coca-Cola to every state and territory after which he liquidated his pharmaceutical business and focused his full attention on the soft drink. With his brother, John S. Candler, John Pemberton s former partner Frank Robinson and two other associates, Mr. Candler formed a Georgia corporation named the Coca-Cola Company. The trademark Coca-Cola, used in the marketplacesince 1886, was registered in the United States Patent Office on January 31, 1893.The business continued to grow, and in 1894, the first syrup manufacturing plant outside Atlanta was opened in Dallas,Texas. Others were opened in Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles,California, the following year.

In 1895, three years after TheCoca-Cola Company s incorporation, Mr. Asa G. Candler announced in his annual report toshare owners that Coca-Cola is now drunk in every state and territory in the United States. As demand for Coca-Cola increased, the Company quickly outgrew its facilities. A newbuilding erected in 1898 was the first headquarters building devoted exclusively to theproduction of syrup and the management of the business. In the year 1919, the Coca-ColaCompany was sold to a group of investors for $25 million. Robert W. Woodruff became thePresident of the Company in the year 1923 and his more than sixty years of leadership took the business to unsurpassed heights of commercial success, making Coca-Cola one of the mostrecognized and valued brands around the world. A hugely profitable fifty-billion-dollar corporation with sales in 195 countries, Coca-Cola has enriched its shareholders, created countless millionaires around the South, and transformed its home base, Atlanta, into a world-class city, chosen as host of the 1996 Summer Olympics. As it expands into the rapidly growing markets of the Third World, especially the billion-plus consumers in developing China. Provocative, controversial, and always entertaining, the slogan For God, Country and Coca-Cola,reveal how Coke has irrevocably transformed our world. Since its bubbly debut in an Atlanta soda fountain more than a century ago, Coca-Cola has grown into a global enterprise whose trademark is the most familiar - and inescapable - commercial symbol in the world. Pioneering the art of the soft sell, Coke's advertising has stamped an indelible imprint on our popular culture, from the "pause that refreshes" to the modern image of Santa Claus. The simple script label, unchanged since the Victorian era, has become virtually synonymous with America.

Drawing on previously untapped archival sources, For God, Country and Coca-Cola paints vivid portraits of the entrepreneurs who led the Company: pious Methodist Asa Candler, who nourished the fledgling enterprise across the threshold of a century; cigar-chomping Robert Woodruff, who hosted presidents at his Georgia plantation; and the aristocratic Roberto Goizueta, whose cosmopolitan background gave him the vision to reach global markets. All have left their indelible imprints on Coca-Cola. Here, too, is a colorful supporting cast of hustlers, swindlers, ad men, and con men who have made the soft drink the most recognizable trademark in the world. The underside of Coca-Cola is also here: shady legal proceedings, cozy arrangements with politicians, brutal treatment of competitors and Third World workers. But, despite its occasionally tarnished image, the Company has marched zealously forward with its cherished product - and its global conquest.

In Secret Formula award-winning reporter Frederick Allen peels away the layers of myth about CocaCola and goes inside the executive suite to write the biography of a business. Granted unprecedented

access to the company's archives - and to the inner circle and private papers of Robert Woodruff, the reclusive autocrat who ran the company with an iron hand from the 1920s to the 1980s - Allen relates the engaging and provocative narrative behind the world's most famous product.

From the untold story of founder Asa Candler's unsuccessful struggle to get the cocaine out of CocaCola, to the inside account of the "brilliant blunder" of New Coke, Secret Formula provides fresh information and insights about the activities of the people who invented Coca-Cola's mystique.

Allen reveals how the company survived challenges from the federal government, foreign powers, and the medical establishment; endured the Great Depression, wartime shortages, inflation, and even dangerous insider trading by its own executives; followed American GIs into battle; played a vital, unsung role in the civil rights movement; and, in the long run, always stayed ahead of the competition.

The history of Coca-Cola is a tale of dynasties, a poignant account of the turbulent clashes between a pair of fathers and sons whose private lives shaped the destiny of the most public company in the world. It is also a microcosm of the history of America and American business over the past century. Engagingly readable and compelling, Secret Formula will stand as the definitive account of one of the world's great success stories. Read less

[edit] Mansions The Candler home Callan Castle in Inman Park, built 1902-4, still stands as a private home.

The mansion at 1428 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Druid Hills, built 1916 eventually became St. John Chrysostom Melkite Greek Catholic Church.[4]

[edit] Children

Asa's eldest son, Charles Howard Candler (1878-1957), was chairman of the board of trustees of Emory University. His family estate was Callanwolde on Briarcliff Road in Druid Hills, now a fine arts center. The second son, Asa G. Candler, Jr. (1880 1953), eccentric, alcoholic and depressed, became a realestate developer, opening the Briarcliff Hotel. His mansion and estate - also on Briarcliff Road in Druid HIlls - was turned into an alcohol rehab center, then a psychiatric hospital, and is now Emory's Briarcliff campus. Asa Jr.'s menagerie of animals enabled a major expansion of Zoo Atlanta in the 1930s. Third son, Walter T. Candler(1885-1967), businessman, philanthropist, and horse sportsman. His estate was Lullwater, which is now the residence of the Emory President, a park, and land used for the Veterans' Administration complex in Druid Hills [edit] See alsoWarren Akin Candler, for whom Emory's Candler School of Theology is named. Samuel Candler Dobbs [edit] References1.^ Kemp, Kathryn W. (2002-09-03). "Asa Candler (1851-1929)". New Georgia Encyclopedia.Georgia Humanities Council.Archived from the original on 2007-11-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20071113222959/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id= h-633. Retrieved 2009-01-16. 2.^ Candler Building Atlanta: A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary 3.^ http://www.peachstateaero.com/dotnetnuke/CandlerFieldMuseum/tabid/121/Default.aspx 4.^ "Candler Mansion". St. John's Chrysostom Melkite Church.Archived from the original on 2007-11-14. http://web.archive.org/web/20071114112615/http://www.stjohnmelkite.org/candler.html. Retrieved 2009-01-16. "Before all of this present and holy utilization of this place, this [...] mansion [...] was formerly the home of Asa Candler Asa Griggs Candler Born December 30, 1851(1851-12-30) Villa Rica, Georgia Died March 12, 1929(1929-03-12) (aged 77) Cause of death Stroke Nationality American Known for Coca-Cola