Asa Griggs Candler

Asa Griggs Candler Sr. was born on December 30, 1851, in Villa Rica, Georgia, to Martha and Samuel Charles Candler, a merchant and property owner who had served in the South Carolina legislature and fought in the Creek War of 1836. He was one of eleven children, including his brother Warren Akin Candler.

A druggist by trade, Candler met chemist John Stith Pemberton in 1888 and became interested in a sweet, carbonated drink Pemberton had developed. Candler bought the recipe for a reported $2,300. The drink was made from brewed coca leaves, caffeine, carbonated water, and sugar. In 1892, he founded the Coca-Cola Company, trademarked the brand the following year, and issued the first dividends to shareholders. By 1895, Coca-Cola was distributed nationwide in the United States. Exports began in 1899 to Cuba, and reached Europe two years later. Candler also created the "$1 contract," selling the rights to bottle Coca-Cola in the U.S. for a single dollar. Early advertising promoted the drink as a remedy for mental and physical fatigue and headaches. In 1903, Candler removed cocaine from the coca leaves before mixing them into the drink, selling the extracted cocaine to pharmaceutical companies. By 1911, the company’s annual advertising budget reached $1 million. In 1915, the Root Glass Co. designed the iconic Coca-Cola bottle. Candler stepped away from daily management in 1916 after being elected mayor of Atlanta. In 1917, the company agreed to cut caffeine content by half. In 1919, Candler gave most of his Coca-Cola stock to his children, who sold their shares to a consortium led by Ernest Woodruff.

Candler was also a major Atlanta builder. In 1906, he completed the 17-story Candler Building, then the city’s tallest, with intricate carvings. It still stands at Peachtree and Auburn streets and is on the National Register of Historic Places. A Candler Building opened in New York in 1912, and others were built in Kansas City (later the Western Auto Building) and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

As mayor from 1916 to 1919, Candler balanced the city budget and coordinated rebuilding after the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 destroyed 1,500 homes. He made large personal loans to improve Atlanta’s water and sewage systems. A philanthropist, he gave $7 million to Emory University and paid to relocate it from Oxford, Georgia, to Atlanta. He also endowed Candler Hospital in Savannah, Georgia, and other schools and universities.

Candler’s children included Charles Howard Candler (1878–1957), who chaired Emory University’s board of trustees; his family estate, Callanwolde, became a fine arts center. Asa G. Candler Jr. (1880–1953) was an eccentric, alcoholic, and depressed real-estate developer who opened the Briarcliff Hotel; his Briarcliff mansion was later used as an alcoholism rehab center and psychiatric hospital, and is now Emory’s Briarcliff campus. His menagerie helped expand Zoo Atlanta in the 1930s, and he reshaped Westview Cemetery and built its Spanish Plateresque abbey. Daughter Lucy (1882–1962) married banker and Kiwanis president Henry Heinz, who was shot by a burglar in their mansion, Rainbow Terrace, in 1943; rumors suggested a relative was responsible. Lucy later married cellist and conductor Enrico Leide, who founded a forerunner of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Walter T. Candler (1885–1967) was a businessman, philanthropist, and horse sportsman; his Lullwater House estate became the residence of Emory’s president, with part used as a park and other land for a Veterans Administration complex. William Candler (1890–1936) financed the Atlanta Biltmore Hotel and Biltmore Apartments, served as president of the Biltmore Corporation, and managed the hotel. His mansion, Rest Haven, is on Springdale Road in Druid Hills.

Candler suffered a stroke in 1926 and died on March 12, 1929, at Wesley Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He is buried at Westview Cemetery. Candler Field, now the site of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, was named after him, as is Candler Park in Atlanta.