Where Coca-Cola Was First Bottled

Vicksburg, Mississippi

In the summer of 1894 Joe Biedenharn owned a Vicksburg candy store that sold Coca-Cola the way everyone else did at the time: by the glass, from a soda fountain. He had agreed to buy 2,000 gallons of Coke syrup, and one day realized that since he already bottled soda water, he could mix the soda water with all that syrup and sell Coke -- for more than soda water -- to people who couldn't make it to the store. He bottled the soft drink in a variety of containers until the custom Coke bottle was introduced in 1916.

The old candy store is now the Museum of Coca-Cola History Memorabilia, with exhibits ranging from the beginnings of Coca-Cola, the original Biedenharn bottling process, and a reproduction of the equipment first used to bottle Coke. Visitors can also buy Coke the old-fashioned way: from the soda fountain.