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Our inventor, John Stith,
was born in Knoxville, Ga., in 1831. He was an only child of James
and Martha. He and wife Ann had one child, Charley, who followed him
in his business.
John was a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate army during the
Civil War. In case you weren't paying attention in history class,
the Confederates lost that one.
In John's last battle, he was shot and then cut with a saber
across his chest. He took morphine for his pain; in fact, he took
enough of it that he became addicted to it.
So what did a morphine addict invent to deserve recognition in
your local newspaper?
John developed many different medicines and perfumes during his
career. Altogether, he established 18 business ventures. Out of
those 18, only one exists today, but that one business now does more
than $23 billion in annual sales and has a product line of more than
400 products.
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That business was based on the drink John created in 1886 that
contained a trace of cocaine! Like I said at the beginning of this
column, stop me if you've heard this one before.
There are plenty of stories of inventors who created their
products in their garages. Well, John created his new drink in a
three-legged brass pot in his backyard.
John Stith, the former morphine addict, originally promoted his
drink as a cure for morphine addiction. Actually, Stith was his
middle name. His last name was Pemberton, and he was a pharmacist
working in Atlanta.
Atlanta is the home of Coca-Cola, and John Stith Pemberton is the
man who created the formula for Coca-Cola. But you knew that all
along, didn't you?
He used coca leaves and the cola nut in his formula for Coke.
Coca-Cola has said that John Pemberton never knew how big the drink
would become, and that appears to be true because he sold his shares
for around $2,000. He lived only two more years after incorporating
the company. One hundred twenty years later, the Coca-Cola brand is
the most recognizable brand in the world, and the company does
business in more than 200 countries.
[Paul Niemann]
Paul Niemann may be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Copyright Paul Niemann 2006
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