Coca-Cola (owned by JTL Corporation and BCI Holding Corporation) to form Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (CCE). In December 1991, Coca-Cola Enterprises merged with the Johnston Coca-Cola Bottling Group, Inc. The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the Biedenharn Candy Company in 1894. The proprietor of the bottling works was Joseph A. Biedenharn. The original bottles were Hutchinson bottles, very different from the much later hobble-skirt design of 1915 now so familiar. It was then a few years later that two entrepreneurs from Chattanooga, Tennessee, namely Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead, proposed the idea of bottling and were
Sneath Glass Company employee William Chapman, working under the supervision of Ray Pruden, was granted a patent for the glass mailbox in 1921. Ray Pruden was superintendent of the factory, assuming that title after Henry Crimmel’s stroke. William Chapman was a well-known glass blower who also secured a patent for an ash tray. Employees of the company also patented other products, including a drawer pull, a caster for furniture, a newspaper receptacle, and a chick feeding fount. Years later, the glass mailbox was shown in "Popular Mechanics" magazine. Sneath Glass continued making glassware for kitchen cabinet manufacturers such as Hoosier and Sellers, and