Fans of Coca-Cola consume the world’s most popular soft drink in different ways.
Some drink it from cans, others like plastic bottles, and some swear by the taste of a fountain drink.
But many Coca-Cola devotees will tell you that nothing comes close to the taste of the soda in an iced cold glass bottle. A cold glass bottle of Coca-Cola just hits different.
The first person in the world to ever bottle Coca-Cola was Vicksburg candy store owner Joseph A. Beidenharn.
In 1894, Beidenharn — a German immigrant who ran the Biedenharn Candy Co. on Washington Street in downtown Vicksburg — started to put Coca-Cola in bottles, so he could ship it to rural areas outside the city limits.
Beidenharn’s story as well as decades of Coca-Cola history, advertising, and memorabilia are at the heart of the Museum of Coca-Cola History and Memorabilia in Vicksburg.
I think we get about 25,000 visitors a year.
“I think we get about 25,000 visitors a year,” said Nancy Bell, the executive director of the Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation. The foundation owns and operates the museum.
One look at the museum’s visitor’s log during a three-day period shows visitors from as far away as Scotland, the Netherlands, and England. Many of those museum visitors arrive in Vicksburg via riverboat cruises on the Mississippi River.
This year marks the 130th anniversary of the first bottled Coca-Cola.
‘Coke is It’
The museum opened in 1979 and is housed in the original Biedenharn candy store building on Washington Street.
When you first walk in, you enter a shotgun blast room of a gift shop filled with Coca-Cola memorabilia for sale on one side and the other filled with bottles and cans from years gone by for display purposes.
The gift shop also features cold bottles of Coca-Cola for sale as well as ice cream for Coca-Cola floats.
On the left side and behind the gift shop is the museum — rooms filled with glass display cases of Coca-Cola memorabilia and toys, advertising from decades ago, and a reproduction of the store’s “bottling works.” The bottling works was the name for the system used to make carbonated water, wash and cap bottles, and mix the syrup and water.
One of the glass displays holds the history of Coca-Cola in bottles, including the different sizes and shapes of the glass bottles throughout the years.
A big chunk of the memorabilia and advertising at the museum was donated. In 1985, the museum purchased a Holly Springs resident’s huge Coca-Cola collection, Bell said.
Interestingly, just about everything in the museum is connected to the original Coca-Cola. Out of the thousands of items there, just one references “New Coke” — a 1985 experimental rebranding by the soft drink giant that failed spectacularly.
After six weeks, New Coke fizzed out, and the company pulled the plug.
Coke is Family
According to the museum, Joseph A. Biedenharn — born in 1866 and one of 12 children — got into the soda water business as a sideline to his candy sales.
In 1890, a salesman for Coca-Cola called on the Vicksburg company leaving a five-gallon keg of syrup on the counter. Biedenharn started selling the soda via his soda fountain. Before long, Coca-Cola sales were outpacing his own soda flavors. The sales of Coca-Cola were so high at his store, the businessman figured the drink would be popular in the country as well. He just needed to figure out how to transport the sweet tasting beverage.
Later, after the success of his bottling idea, Biedenharn and his brothers acquired franchises to bottle Coca-Cola in Shreveport and Monroe, Louisiana, and Texarkana, Wichita Falls, San Antonio, Temple, and Uvalde, Texas.
Today, there are still Biedenharns in those areas and all over Vicksburg.
“The museum is definitely a source of pride for all of us,” said 63-year-old F.M. “Easy” Biedenharn, a financial advisor in Vicksburg.
Joseph A. Biedenharn was Easy Biedenharn’s great uncle.
“It’s amazing to think that immigrants were responsible for all of this. I think this (the museum) is great for Vicksburg and great for Mississippi,” Easy Biedenharn said.
Coke is Memories
The feedback Bell gets on the museum from visitors usually revolves around the idea of nostalgia.
“They say things like, ‘I remember growing up with this.’ ‘This brings back such great memories,’” Bell said.
Back in 2001, Coca Cola’s advertising slogan was “Life tastes good.”
Feeling good seems to be what the Museum of Coca-Cola History and Memorabilia is all about.
For more information about the museum, visit www.biedenharncoca-colamuseum.com or call (601) 638-6514.
A wide variety of original Coca-Cola advertising and memorabilia is on display to allow the visitor to follow the evolution of “The Pause That Refreshes!”
The restored candy store and office area will take you back to a simpler, sweeter time with furnishings and displays from the 1890s. Visitors can buy ice cream, fountain and bottle Cokes, Coke floats, and a wide selection of Coke souvenirs.
Photos by: Chad Calcote
