Are you sure that that’s the “real” reason, or did you just make that up ?
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Not made up. My mother was from Mississippi (she “ran off and married a Yankee”, as my maternal grandfather would say of her marriage to a Pennsylvanian) and whenever I visited family down there and listened to the old folks’ talk, they ALL had stories about how they turned down offers to buy Coca-Cola stock at the beginning. Apparently, Coca-Cola was the Apple of its day and made many Southern investors quite wealthy. But, even as a small child, I quickly realized they were just BS one another.
Anyhow, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
LOL...family MYTHS, so I’m NOT taking your word for why Southerners call all soft drinks “coke”.
Out here in Seattle it is Microsoft.
“If only my investment guy hadn’t told me to dump Microsoft!”
Although there are plenty of guys that retired at 35 - 40 too!
JOSEPH BIEDENHARN: "The First Bottling of Coca-Cola"
On a summer day in 1894, Joseph Biedenharn, a candy merchant and soda fountain operator, had an idea that would reshape the soft drink industry. He took the popular fountain beverage, Coca-Cola, put it in bottles, and delivered it to rural areas outside of Vicksburg.
It was the first time Coca-Cola had been sold in bottles. Mr. Biedenharn created a totally new concept of marketing the beverage and established the cornerstone of the independent network of franchise bottlers who now distribute bottled Coca-Cola all over the world.
Born in 1866, Joseph Biedenharn was the eldest of eight children and, in his teens, became part of the candy business founded by his father and uncle. Later, he and his brothers Will, Harry, Lawrence, Herman, Ollie, Albert and sister Katy acquired franchises to bottle Coca-Cola in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
The building located at 1107 Washington Street, where the first bottling took place, was built in 1890 and is operated today as the museum "interpreting this important moment in our nation's history.
My house was built in 1881 and the owner/builder of it owned the Ice Company and went onto start the Military Park after the Siege of Vicksburg.