John Shearer: Thomas/Hunter Coke Bottling Story A Tale Of Innovation, Altruism, Homes and Companionship

When Chattanogans think of Coca-Cola bottlers with local connections, names like Jack and Cartter Lupton and the Frank Harrisons and Summerfield Johnstons come to mind.

But the man who initially came up with the idea of bottling it over a widespread area and allowed numerous families to enjoy large fortunes out of only 6½ ounces was Benjamin Franklin Thomas.

In about 1898, he had been down in Cuba and saw a popular champagne cola drink being sold in bottles and thought such a concept might work in the United States. And that would lead to the idea of bottling Coca-Cola, although the Joseph Biedenharn family was already doing it on a limited scale in Mississippi.

He also liked the idea of a beverage product that could be quickly used up and purchased again.

Although some stories were written last year on the 125th anniversary of Coca-Cola bottling in the Scenic City on the general history and on retired local bottling official Gary Davis, the history of Coke as it relates to Chattanooga is as seemingly vast as one of the company’s warehouses.

As a result, I decided to take another historical look at an additional aspect of the drink’s history, with possibly more to follow. This one primarily revolves around the Benjamin Thomas/George Hunter family and network.

Besides the concept of franchised bottling rights that have lasted for decades, this family also has had even more tangible and lasting legacies in such buildings as the Hunter Museum, Hunter halls at Baylor School and UTC, and the Benwood Foundation.

That is not bad for an extended family of two generations, neither of whom had any children.

A look at original entrepreneur Mr. Thomas’ story shows that he had grown up around Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky and attended the University of Virginia. He later studied at the Cincinnati College of Law after working at a bank and operating a stone quarry. While in school, he had a desk in the offices of the Kentucky law firm that included well-known Kentucky politicians John W. Stevenson and William Goebel, the latter of whom in 1900 died tragically after being shot and had earlier visited Mr. Thomas twice in Chattanooga.

Mr. Thomas after law school briefly lived in Kansas City but came to Chattanooga in the late 1880s at the insistence of former Cincinnati schoolmate E.Y. Chapin, who would eventually become chairman of American National Bank. Mr. Chapin had reportedly been encouraged to come to Chattanooga by former Indiana friend Fred Ferger, who joined with brother Herman Ferger to start a real estate firm and was known for walking the long distance daily from his work in downtown to his Ferger Place home off Main Street.

Mr. Chapin and Mr. Thomas in Chattanooga were initially in a law firm together before Mr. Thomas joined another one that included J.B. Sizer. The latter firm later developed into one that included the Chambliss family and former Sen. Estes Kefauver.

After being involved in the paving business with W.M. and T.H. Lasley, the apparently restless Mr. Thomas accepted an appointment with the U.S. government in Cuba in 1898. While there, he would finally come up with a concept that would rest his soul regarding his vocational impatience and would give countless others a “pause that refreshes.”

There, he saw a carbonated drink being sold in bottles and thought that might be a business possibility. After coming back home, he learned about Coca-Cola, and he and Chattanooga friend Joseph Whitehead were able to get the bottling rights from Coca-Cola head Asa Candler for this drink sold mainly in Atlanta soda fountains.

Mr. Candler’s main concern, according to some historical reports, was that the Coca-Cola Co. have no financial risks in the agreement, while Mr. Thomas had reportedly pledged to Candler to enhance in a positive manner the name and image of Coca-Cola.

Using the philosophy that a bottling territory could be placed everywhere a railroad met a river, perhaps due to good transportation and likely settlement of people, the early bottling franchisee families quickly numbered around 120 within five years of their operation.

According to some historical information passed along by the Benwood Foundation, among Mr. Thomas’ earlier bottling franchisees that he and his operation simply sold slightly marked up soft drink syrup to was Incline Railway designer and contractor Jim Crass. His area included Washington, D.C., and a large part of the mid-Atlantic.

Shoe salesman Arthur Pratt of Alabama, meanwhile, established franchises in New York and New Jersey. Mr. Pratt had also been involved in building the drink in Los Angeles. Crawford Johnson also became involved in Birmingham.

The Thomas company always wanted the selected bottlers to be people who were advocates for their communities and active volunteers.

The Thomas operation apparently continued in a similar manner well into the mid-20th century. DeSales Harrison, who later headed the Thomas company’s operations during and after the death of George T. Hunter, explained in a 1949 speech to the Rotary Club of Chattanooga the company’s unique bottling operation after Mr. Thomas sold the Chattanooga plant early on.

“The Coca-Cola bottling Co. (Thomas) Inc. is an independent unit without corporate connection with the Coca-Cola Company,” he said in the speech in connection with the firm’s 50th anniversary, saying their territory covered much of the East and Midwest. “Within this boundary, there are 329 bottling plants. These bottling plants purchase their syrup from Coca-Cola Bottling Co. (Thomas) Inc., who in turn orders the syrup delivered under the original contract of July 21, 1899.”

He said they were like a parent bottler and did not bottle anything themselves, but they did help the bottlers under contract promote their product and guided them in the management and conduct of the business within the terms of the contract.

To help do this and allow Thomas company representatives to visit each bottling company four to six times a year and offer corporate-like advice, they had regional offices in Cincinnati, Wilmington (Delaware), New York City and Chattanooga.

Related to this, John Popham Jr. a few weeks back had forwarded me a 1964 special edition of the Chattanooga Times recognizing a 60th anniversary gathering in New York of all the Thomas-affiliated bottlers. Mr. Popham Jr.’s father, John Popham, at the time was the Times editor and had spoken at the gathering.

The commemorative paper has a dearth of Coca-Cola bottling history nationwide as it relates to the Thomas firm, and it is now in the collection of the Chattanooga Public Library’s Local History and Genealogy Department downtown.

Among the other early Coke bottling operations not directly related to Mr. Thomas, J.T. Lupton I had joined with Joseph Whitehead’s bottling interests in the early years, and through various evolutions, their families and others also became wealthy. Mr. Whitehead had died in 1906 and Mr. Lupton lived until 1933.

Mr. Thomas died in 1914 at the Brighton Hotel in Atlantic City in his early 50s of kidney disease after earlier being paralyzed from a stroke. His nephew, George Thomas Hunter, the son of Mr. Thomas’ sister, then took over the operation along with the support of Ms. Thomas.

Ms. Thomas – whose full name was Anne Taylor Jones Thomas -- lived until her death in April 1938 after suffering a fall and breaking her hip several weeks earlier at her home where the Hunter Museum of American Art is today. She and Mr. Thomas had met while he was in Cincinnati but did not marry until 1894 after he had been in Chattanooga a few years.

After her death, this world traveler uniquely left some money to her domestic help along with the bulk to Mr. Hunter. She also had several homes over the years on Lookout Mountain, including her most recent one on the West Brow.

About the time Mr. Thomas was coming up with the bottling concept in 1899, the couple lived at the Read House, although the current building would not be built until 1926. They later lived in an onion-domed Victorian home that was long a landmark at the southwest corner of Central and McCallie avenues. It would unfortunately suffer an arson fire in 1991 before being torn down several years later.

Elisabeth Pearson Waugaman, now from a Maryland suburb near Washington, D.C., and whose family had lived in the onion-domed home for several years long after the Thomases, recently forwarded me her descriptions of the home she had previously written down for her family.

In the reminiscences, she says, “The house was unusual for many reasons. First of all, it was stucco. Cement was daubed on over the wood. The stucco protected the wood and gave it a massive, impassive, appearance compared to typical Victorians. It was painted yellow. The wood around the window frames was brown, and the double front doors were black. From the front you saw a wraparound porch with sturdy concrete pillars.”

In describing what she called a bulky-looking house, she also recalled its double front door, a large bay window to the right of the doors, and a turret up and to the left. “The whole thing was topped with a large silver colored dome, topped, in turn, by a ball so that it looked like the top if a whimsical teapot,” she said of the turret.

Ms. Waugaman also remembered a round window above the turret, saying jokingly that it suggested the house was kind of a cyclops looking down at the traffic below. It was later painted over, she added.

The inside of the home, she wrote, included a wraparound staircase, a living room with large windows, a back staircase, a library, a bathroom with a long closet and an area where her father, Dr. Welton “Bill” Pearson, kept his dental office. She thinks some of the latter might have originally been used as Mr. Thomas’ office.

In summing up the house and tying it to Mr. Thomas, she added, “I think it was such an oddball of a house -- even for a Victorian -- because Mr. Thomas wanted to be in fashion, but with gravitas (Latin for seriousness, dignity, and importance). Victorians were all the rage, but he wanted something solid, not flighty, because he was a businessman after all. He wanted to be in fashion, but dignified, solid, anchored and confident.”

This home at Central and McCallie avenues had been built about 1889 for William E. Love, who manufactured stoves, ranges, and tinware. It was later lived in by Chattanooga Transfer Co. president James C. Howell briefly before Mr. Thomas bought it about 1912.

Although Mr. Thomas only lived in the home for roughly two years, Ms. Thomas was able to live there for nearly 10 years. I wrote about this home a number of years ago, and I remember I remarked that Anne was queen of this Queen Anne home.

A year or two after Thomas left the Central Avenue home, Otto Hubbuch, who was in the glass business, moved in. The Pearsons had bought it in the late 1940s as a dental office and home, and the family lived there until 1986.

Mrs. Pearson, the mother of Ms. Waugaman, was a native of Belgium and taught French at Chattanooga High. After they moved out, the McCallie Avenue home was used for businesses and then for low-rent housing apartments.

In 1921, seven years after Mr. Thomas’ death, Mrs. Thomas moved from the Central and McCallie home into the former Ross Faxon home that is the original part of the Hunter Museum. Mr. Hunter, who did not marry or have children and had impressively begun helping his uncle while still just a Baylor School student, had lived with his aunt at both homes after her husband’s death.

Mr. Hunter, who was said to be quiet and retiring, continued to head the company until his death on Oct. 3, 1950, from heart problems. At a celebration of his birthday in November 1947, a number of Coke officials and bottlers – including company head Bob Woodruff of Atlanta – had gathered in Chattanooga and dedicated a still-standing plaque at Patten Parkway in honor of the first bottling operation here.

Mr. Hunter, who was born in 1886, the same year Coke was invented and developed in Atlanta, had helped create the Benwood Foundation in 1944. It was named after a second summer home on Lookout Mountain the Thomas family had. After his death, gifts through his foundation were made that resulted in the Hunter Museum and Hunter halls at UTC and Baylor School.

According to one story or legend, the Benwood name came about after Ms. Thomas saw a piece of property or something and said that “Ben would” like it or approve of it.

Some historical information written by the Benwood Foundation said that Mr. Hunter was not innovative as a businessman but tried to stay true to his uncle’s principles.

But as a person, he apparently had an approving manner that did have its own style and set a positive precedent. The Benwood information describes him as a perfect gentleman and approachable. And he drove his own Packard rather than being chauffeured around town, it said.

He also reportedly helped pay several people’s way through college without wanting the credit to be made public. Future Thomas official Sebert Brewer also remembered climbing around the bluff areas of the Hunter house as a child and being invited in for a Coca-Cola.

And while most historical articles call him a lifelong bachelor who enjoyed sports, hunting, boating, and horse racing, the Benwood information does quote acquaintances saying that he had a longtime female companion named Miss Maudie Hines.

A check in some old city directories at the Chattanooga Public Library say that Maude Louise Hines was a registered nurse who for at least about the last few years of Mr. Hunter’s life lived at the Margarita Apartments at 520 Houston St. in unit No. 11. The now-razed structure, which stood near the intersection with Vine Street where the fairly new UTC West Campus housing facility stands today, was apparently home to several single women.

After Mr. Hunter’s death, she eventually moved to the Read House for a brief period before apparently moving to a home at 327 Taliwa Drive in the south part of Knoxville, where she had siblings. She died in May 1966.

Her obituary said she was the aunt of well-known Coca-Cola bottler Carl Navarre, who lived in both Chattanooga and South Florida, so that might explain the connection to Mr. Hunter. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, also in South Knoxville.

DeSales Harrison, an avid tennis player and former Atlantan who had once managed the popular Howard Theatre there, headed the Thomas Coca-Cola operations here after arriving in 1941. He was no relation to the Frank Harrison family that had other bottling interests.

In Atlanta, he had been friends with noted “Gone with the Wind” author Margaret Mitchell and future mayor Ivan Allen.

Mr. Harrison lived at 101 E. Brow Road on Lookout Mountain until his sudden death in 1973 at the age of 73.

Sebert Brewer had also been involved in the operation of the Thomas company as a leader until it was sold to the Coca-Cola company in 1974, when another chapter to the Chattanooga and Atlanta connections was added. The name Thomas had been added to the company’s name in parentheses by Mr. Hunter to maintain the memory of Mr. Thomas.

Although the Thomas company is no more, signs of the Thomases’ and Mr. Hunter’s work are still quite evident primarily through the Benwood Foundation, which had once been set up not to create new worthy non-profits but to aid those organizations in the United States already doing good work. That almost followed identically the concept of Mr. Thomas trying to make a good product like Coca-Cola hopefully even better with his bottling concept.

Some information at the Benwood website says that today it is a private foundation involved in strategic grant-making, collaborative problem-solving, and adaptive leadership. The website also said it partners with a number of entities – from nonprofits to other foundations, governments and businesses.

The Benwood offices today are at 736 Market St, and Sarah Morgan is the president. Since the Thomas company has long been sold, the foundation’s money it gives to worthwhile causes now comes from its financially managed investment, the Benwood historical information says.

When the foundation was initially established, it tried to have a representative of the American National Bank as part of the board, due in part to the fact that the Thomas bottling company had been the biggest depositor in the bank. American National Bank later became part of what is now Truist Bank.

While the foundation’s work is still taking place and the old Hunter and Ms. Thomas home by the bluff is now an art museum, apparently another museum had an opportunity to be created with one of their homes.

When I wrote a story on the old Central and McCallie Avenue home in 1991 for the News-Free Press, Ms. Pearson told me that a Coke official – perhaps Sebert Brewer – had contacted her while they still lived there and thought the home would make a neat Coca-Cola bottling museum.

In part because they were still iiving there at the time, that never came to fruition.

But maybe there is still an opportunity or interest to create a museum to the bottling history as it relates to Chattanooga, or incorporate it into a larger one, the latter of which was done for a period with the Chattanooga Regional History Museum/Chattanooga History Center.

After all, a rich local story definitely exists about this drink that many consider richly satisfying.

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net