Asa Griggs Candler - Life and Career

Life and Career

Candler was born in Rome, Georgia. He started his business career as a drugstore owner and manufacturer of patent medicines. In 1887 he bought the formula for Coca-Cola from its inventor John Pemberton and several other shareholders for $2,300 ($59.5 thousand today). The success of Coca-Cola was largely due to Candler's aggressive marketing of the product. Candler made millions of dollars from his investment, allowing him to establish the Central Bank and Trust Corp., invest in real estate, and became a major philanthropist for the Methodist Church. He gave $1 million plus a land gift to Emory University, at that time a Methodist college, for the school to move from Oxford, Georgia, to Atlanta. This gift was influenced by Asa's younger brother, Methodist Bishop Warren Akin Candler, who became president of Emory. Candler also gave millions to what would later become Emory Hospital. The school's original library which now houses classrooms and a reading room is named for him, as well as endowed chairs in the school's chemistry department. He also donated the land for Candler Park.

In 1906 he completed Atlanta's then-tallest building, the Candler Building, whose intricately detailed 17 stories still stands at Peachtree and Auburn. In 1912 the Candler Building in New York opened.

Candler was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1916 (taking office in 1917) and ended his day-to-day management of the Coca-Cola Company. As mayor he balanced the city budget and coordinated rebuilding efforts after the Great Atlanta fire of 1917 destroyed 1,500 homes. In 1919 he gave most of the stock in The Coca-Cola Company to his children, who later sold it to a group of investors led by Ernest Woodruff. In 1922 he donated over 50 acres (200,000 m2) of his Druid Hills holdings to the City of Atlanta for what became Candler Park. Candler suffered a stroke in 1926 and died on March 12, 1929. He is buried at Westview Cemetery in southwest Atlanta.