– Early Life and Career:
– Benjamin Franklin Thomas was born in 1860 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
– He became a businessman and industrialist.
– Thomas played a key role in developing the Coca-Cola bottling industry.
– In 1899, he and Joseph Whitehead met with Asa Griggs Candler to secure bottling rights for Coca-Cola.
– Candler sold the rights to Thomas and Whitehead for one dollar.
– Family and Legacy:
– In 1894, Benjamin Thomas married Ann Taylor Jones.
– The couple did not have children.
– They invited their nephew, George Hunter, to learn the bottling business in 1904.
– In 1944, George Hunter established the Benwood Foundation in tribute to Benjamin Thomas.
– The foundation continues to operate as a legacy of Thomas’s contributions.
– Business Ventures:
– Thomas and Whitehead sought to bottle Coca-Cola, an untested industry at the time.
– Asa Griggs Candler had concerns about product quality.
– The rights to bottle Coca-Cola in the U.S. were eventually sold to Thomas and Whitehead.
– This marked the beginning of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company.
– The decision to bottle Coca-Cola revolutionized the beverage industry.
– References:
– Dean Arnold’s book “The Spirit of the Fathers” provides insights into Benjamin Thomas’s life.
– Ned L. Irwin’s work on Benjamin Franklin Thomas is available in “The Tennessee Encyclopedia.”
– Various authority control databases contain information on Thomas.
– Readers can find more details about Thomas in the provided references.
– The article on Benjamin Thomas is available for expansion on Wikipedia.
– Categorization:
– Benjamin Franklin Thomas was born in 1860 and passed away in 1914.
– He was known as a prominent business figure from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
– Thomas was a notable personality in the American drink industry.
– He was one of the influential 19th-century American businesspeople.
– Thomas’s contributions are recognized through various categories and identifiers.
Benjamin Franklin Thomas (1860–1914) was a Chattanooga, Tennessee, businessman and industrialist who pioneered the development of the Coca-Cola bottling industry and founded the Coca-Cola Bottling Company.
In 1899 Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead traveled from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet with Asa Griggs Candler, the owner of Coca-Cola, in hopes of securing the rights to bottle the beverage. At the time bottling Coca-Cola was seen as an untested industry, and Candler had concerns over maintaining the quality of his product. Eventually he sold the rights to bottle Coca-Cola in the United States to Thomas and Whitehead for one dollar.
In 1894 Benjamin married Ann Taylor Jones. They had no children. In 1904 they invited their nephew George Hunter to move to Chattanooga to learn the bottling business and to be their heir. In 1944 George Hunter established the Benwood Foundation as a perpetual tribute to Benjamin.