Finance History | Jacobs Pharmacy, Five Points — Five Cents Bought the First Glass

People treat Coca-Cola as a Midtown Atlanta headquarters that later listed on an exchange.

The first glass was sold on this corner.

On 8 May 1886 Jacobs' Pharmacy charged five cents for a soda made from John Pemberton's syrup.

Pemberton was an Atlanta pharmacist.

The building is gone.

A Georgia Historical Society marker, dedicated in 2016, stands in front of Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.

Asa Candler bought the remaining claims to the formula by 1891 for a total outlay of 2,300 dollars.

In 1892 he formed The Coca-Cola Company as a Georgia corporation with 100,000 dollars of capital.

The trademark was registered with the United States Patent Office on 31 January 1893.

That year the company paid its first dividend, 20 dollars a share.

In 1919 a syndicate that included Ernest Woodruff bought the company for 25 million dollars in 1919 currency.

The original issue that year was 500,000 common shares without par and 100,000 preferred shares of 100 dollars par.

The mechanism on this sidewalk is a formula that became a corporation, then a listed brand.

A five-cent fountain drink turned into a 100,000-dollar Georgia company whose stock still sits in the S&P 500.

The pharmacy itself was demolished. The marker is public.

Photo: JJonahJackalope, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.