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The company got its start in 1886 in a three legged iron pot over an open fire in the back yard of Confederate veteran John S. Pernberton, who was struggling to survive as a druggist and blender of patent medicines.  He had already tried with little success to market a cough mixture, a hair dye and liver pill, and over the next two years he did little better with Coke.  So he sold his formula for $1,750.  Under new management, Coca-Cola prospered.  It was a national product when Robert Woodruff, age 33, took over as president in 1923.  Today, Coca-Cola has become possibly the best-known commercial product under the sun, with world-wide sales now running at more than 2 billion dollars a year and 175 million drinks a day.  Atlanta’s devotion to Coca-Cola is such that the city zoo’s two elephants were once named Coca and Cola. - “Atlanta:  Too Busy For Hate”

Reader’s Digest, June 1975, page 138