Historic marker honoring Columbus’ soft drink heritage unveiled

The Historic Columbus Foundation unveiled the first of a series of historic markers that will create the Columbus Soft Drink Heritage Trail in downtown.

Fittingly, the ceremony was held in front of the W.C. Bradley Co., founded by one of the early investors and the longtime chairman of the board of the Coca-Cola Co.

The marker, at the corner of Front Avenue and 10^th Street, illuminates the relationship Bradley had with the company and with Ernest Woodruff, another early investor in the company.

The ceremony also included some history of Royal Crown Cola, Nehi and Diet-Rite Cola, which also originated in Columbus. A marker a half-block east on 10^th Street tells more of the RC Cola story.

But the focus of the ceremony Friday — and the beverage being handed out to those attending — was Coca-Cola.

Jack Jenkins, president-elect of Historic Columbus, said John Pemberton, the pharmacist who invented Coca-Cola, came to Columbus from Macon, Ga., in 1855 and while he was here, he created the formula, which he later took to Atlanta and began selling at his drug store there.

“We always have taken pride that the Pembertons were here in Columbus, and that, according to us, Coca-Cola was invented here,” Jenkins said. “There are many stories about that and many sides. The people in Atlanta don’t like to talk about it or listen to it.”

Half of the eight markers on the Soft Drink Trail are devoted at least in part to Pemberton’s time here. One tells of his involvement in the Confederate Army, which was brief due to illness. One marks the current location of a cottage he once lived in when it was located farther north. One marks the location of Pemberton’s drug stores on Broadway and another marks the spot of Pemberton’s Chemical House, his laboratory, also on Broadway.

Other markers tell the story of the relationship between Ernest Woodruff and W.C. Bradley, two of the company’s founding fathers, and how, with Woodruff’s son, Robert, they took the company to international stature.

There is the marker that was unveiled Friday and finally, one that tells the story of Nehi and Royal Crown Cola, which were born just blocks from where it’s believed Coca-Cola’s formula was born, then moved to the location where’s it’s still made on 10^th Street.

The company started out making Royal Crown ginger ale, cream soda and several Melo fruit drinks. Then came Chero Cola and Nehi, another line of fruit drinks. Finally, Royal Crown Cola was created, but the bottling companies balked at the long name and it was shortened to RC Cola.

John Turner, great-grandson of W.C. Bradley and an executive with the company that bears his name, told the crowd that growing up in Columbus when Coca-Cola and RC Cola were competitors made for clear allegiances to one company or the other.

“As a boy growing up in Columbus, you were very aware that you were at ground zero of the Cola wars,” Turner said. “There were Coca-Cola households and there were RC households. And if I went to an RC household, no way was I’m drinking an RC. And if my RC friends came to my house, no way were they drinking a Coca-Cola.”

Except for once, Turner admitted.

“But I must confess, I did drink one RC Cola,” Turner said. “And that was because I needed the bottle cap to get into the cheap movie, the Saturday matinee at the Bradley Theater.”

This story was originally published June 3, 2016 at 1:41 PM with the headline "Historic marker honoring Columbus’ soft drink heritage unveiled."