Celery Cola: Difference between revisions

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'''Celery-Cola''' was a soft drink created in [[1887]] by [[James Mayfield]] and manufactured in [[Birmingham]] by his '''Celery-Cola Company''' from [[1899]] to [[1910]], when the Pure Food and Drug Administration successfully prosecuted the company for unhealthful amounts of cocaine and caffeine in its beverages.
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Mayfield and two other investors partnered with Atlanta, Georgia patent medicine entrepreneur John Pemberton in [[1888]]. Before Pemberton died late that year, they learned from him the secrets of producing medicinal syrups that could be mixed with soda water to make refreshing beverages, such as the "Coca-Cola" formula that Pemberton has sold to George Lowndes. In [[1893]] Mayfield and his partners sold the remainder of the Pemberton Medicine Company to T. J. Eady, keeping only the formula to their "Kola" beverage. Eady hired Mayfield back as general manager for his overall real-estate, banking and manufacturing enterprise.
 
In [[1895]] Mayfield secured sole ownership of the Kola formula and, with his wife Diva, produced bottled sodas for Atlanta's Cotton States Exposition. She divorced him the next year and, as [[Diva Brown]], became one of his main competitors.
 
Mayfield moved to Birmingham in [[1899]] and founded the '''J. C. Mayfield Manufacturing Company''' with partner [[Henry Brittain]], manufacturing extracts which he sold to bottlers in North and South American. He soon opened additional offices in St Louis, Missouri and Nashville, Tennessee. The main offices moved to Nashville in [[1901]], just as he gave his sons; Stephen, Joseph and Carl, control of the manufacturing business and focused his own efforts in the development of oil wells in Kentucky and Tennessee.
 
Newly renamed the Celery-Cola Company, the firm returned its headquarters to Birmingham in [[1905]]. The four Mayfield men criss-crossed the country selling their '''Vig-O''', '''Peppo-Ade''', '''Pepsin-Ola''', and Celery-Cola extracts to more and more bottlers. Additional offices were opened in Denver, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; Richmond, Virginia; Los Angeles, California; and Havana, Cuba.
 
The Pure Food and Drug Administration began a court battle to establish that Celery-Cola contained dangerous levels of cocaine and caffeine in [[1910]]. The successful suit and resulting negative publicity forced the business to close that year. Mayfield launched a new venture, the Koke Company of America, the following year in St Louis. The Coca-Cola Company sued him in [[1914]] for Trade Mark infringement and won its appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court in [[1920]]. Mayfield launched the Mayfield Beverage Company, also in St Louis, shortly afterward, marketing his soft drinks as "Dope", reviving Celery-Cola, and adding "Cherri-Kick" to the line. The company, renamed "Celery-Cola Corporation of America" was successful through the 1920s, but did not survive the [[Great Depression]].
 
==References==
* Smith, Dennis I. (March 26, 2006) "[http://www.southernbottles.com/Pages/Mayfield/Mayfield.html Celery-Cola and James C. Mayfield]" SouthernBottles.com - accessed February 26, 2011

Latest revision as of 14:27, 26 February 2011

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