Ann Uhry Abrams offers an illustrated talk on Asa Griggs Candler at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12, in the Jones Room on Level 3 of Emory’s Robert W. Woodruff Library, 540 Asbury Circle in Atlanta, 30322; free; books will be available for purchase; parking is available in the Fishburne deck. 404-727-6873; web.library.emory.edu/
In 1888 Asa Griggs Candler and two partners purchased the rights to the Coca-Cola formula from druggist John Pemberton. Candler acquired sole title in 1891 and sold 20,000 gallons of Coca-Cola syrup the following year. That quantity shot up to 76,000 gallons by 1895.
His fortune expanded exponentially until a syndicate organized by Ernest Woodruff and his son Robert took over Coca-Cola in 1919, purchasing the company for $25 million.
Candler would live only another seven years, but his influence became apparent in every corner of Atlanta, as a real estate developer, a politician and a philanthropist. He served as mayor, started a bank, created an automobile racetrack that would eventually become the nation’s busiest airport and engineered the relocation of Emory University from Oxford to Atlanta.
His five children became millionaires themselves and some of them of them improved on their fortunes while others threw it at unlikely pursuits.
Like her brother playwright Alfred Uhry, Ann Uhry Abrams grew up in Druid Hills, which was developed by Candler. On Monday, Abrams will talk about the tangible evidence of the Candler legacy at Emory University, detailed in her new book “Formula for Fortune: How Asa Candler Discovered Coca-Cola and Turned It into the Wealth His Children Enjoyed.”
Here Abrams discusses a few of the Candler landmarks.
The Candler Building
“The Candler Building was his pride and joy,” said Abrams. A 17-story downtown high-rise sheathed in Amicalola marble, it was, upon its completion in 1906, the tallest structure in Atlanta. Sculptors created a bas-relief frieze on the front of the building and decorated the interior with figures of Civil War soldiers — and Asa Candler’s parents.
Candler Field
In 1909 Candler conceived of an Atlanta exhibition of automobiles and built a racetrack near Hapeville called the Atlanta Speedway to help fire up interest. The speedway lasted a only short time and Candler leased the land to the city. When Mayor William B. Hartsfield determined that Atlanta should have an airport, he used the old race track, naming it Candler Field. Hartsfield persuaded aviator Charles Lindbergh to make a stop in Atlanta during his victorious tour of the country in 1927 and tens of thousands turned out to greet the trans-Atlantic pilot.
Candler Park
In the 1920s Candler donated land for a public park to serve the neighborhood south of Druid Hills. Its amenities included a six-hole golf course, tennis courts, a swimming pool and a lake. Candler attended the opening of Candler Park in 1926, but would suffer a stroke that year and would never completely recover. He died in 1929.
Grant Park Zoo
Asa Candler Jr., also called “Buddie,” was perhaps Candler’s most colorful child. His mansion on Williams Mill Road, called Briarcliff, was distinguished by a 3,500-square-foot ballroom, one of the biggest Aeolian pipe organs in a private residence and his own zoo. According to Abrams, Buddie’s zoo included, at one time, six elephants, a Bengal tiger, four lions, four leopards, two polar bears, four Himalayan bears, a brown bear, 63 monkeys, a puma, a camel, two zebras, two ostriches, four American buffalo, four deer, two elk, nine ponies, seven sea lions, six alligators and many exotic birds.
The neighbors complained. In 1935 Asa Jr. donated most of his animals to the Grant Park Zoo, adding to the menagerie that would become Zoo Atlanta.
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