The 1880s were also important years for African-Americansin the city. The freedmen's schools established by northern religious andphilanthropic groups in the aftermath of the Civil War had grown into importanteducational institutions for the city and the region. Clark-Atlanta University,Spelman College, and Morehouse College all built impressive, red-brickresidential and classroom buildings on Atlanta's west side. Today thesebuildings form the core of the Atlanta University Landmark Historic District.The most prominent structure is Fountain Hall, built in 1882 with its seven-storycentral clock tower, on another thousand-foot ridge just west of the downtown.

African-Americans joined with white civic leaders to promotethe Cotton States and International Exposition held at Piedmont Park in1895. Race-leader Booker T. Washington delivered an address at the openingceremony in which he pointed out the difficulties facing African-Americansin the South and advocated work within the racial arrangements of the regiontoward economic advancement. Washington's speech is known today as theAtlanta Compromise. It avoided a direct assault on legalized segregationand accepted social separation, arguing only that blacks and whites couldmove forward together economically.

One Atlantan who did so was Alonzo Herndon, who was onhis way to becoming the city's first African-American millionaire. Herndonwas the proprietor of several barber shops, whose white patrons came tohave their hair cut and their faces shaved by black barbers. When he openedhis new Herndon Barbershop at 66 Peachtree Street in 1902, he built a clienteleof the city's white elite with an interior decorated with elaborate crystalchandeliers, gilded mirrors, and fine fittings.

Almost 40 percent of Atlanta's citizens were African-Americanin the late nineteenth century, but, because of the system of legal segregation,they were unable to exercise their most basic civic responsibilities andwere barred from all but the most menial jobs. Those who did prosper—asministers, educators, and businessmen—did so within the segregated sphereof the city. W.E.B. DuBois, the founder of the National Association forthe Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), came to what was then calledAtlanta University in 1899, where he used his position on the faculty tochart the progress of African-Americans and to attack the color line thatinhibited further advancement.

Despite adversity, black Atlantans were making economicprogress. In 1894, E. R. Carter's book, The Black Side, documentedthe success of many African-Americans in Atlanta. The Negro Building atthe Cotton State Exposition in 1895 heralded the progress of black southerners.And W.E.B. DuBois's 1903 study, The Souls of Black Folk, offereda paean to the high aspirations of African Americans.

In 1887, a thirty-year-old storekeeper named James C.Mayfield, along with E. H. Bloodworth and A. C. Murphy, became partnerswith Dr. John S. Pemberton in a patent medicine venture in Atlanta, Georgia.Dr. Pemberton was the inventor of several popular nostrums, including Extractof Stylingia, Globe Flower Cough Syrup, French Wine of Cola, and Coca-Cola.

Early in 1888, Pemberton completed the sale of Coca-Colato a group headed by George Lowndes. But this was not before Mayfield hadbeen taught how to manufacture the Coca-Cola syrup, along with Pemberton'sother medicines. The Pemberton Medicine Company sold a fountain drink calledYum-Yum in the Spring of 1888, later calling their beverage simply Kola,or Koke.

Pemberton died in August 1888, and the business was carriedon by Mayfield and Bloodworth. In 1893, they sold all but their Kola formulato T. J. Eady, a real estate speculator. Eady formed the Wine Coca Companyand hired J. C. Mayfield as general manager. Together Eady and Mayfieldbecame involved in several real estate ventures and formed the GuarantyLoan and Savings Bank.

In 1895, Mayfield bought Bloodworth's interest in theKola formula left them by Pemberton. With his wife Diva he bottled thebeverage for Atlanta's Cotton States Exposition. His wife divorced himin 1896 and began selling her own kola formula. Diva Mayfield, later knownas Diva Brown, became Mayfield's fiercest competitors.

In 1899, Mayfield formed the J. C. Mayfield ManufacturingCompany in Birmingham, Alabama. Along with partner Henry L. Brittain, hesold his extracts to bottlers across the United States, Canada, Mexico,and South America. In 1900, Mayfield established an office at Saint Louis, and the next year moved his home office to Nashville, Tennessee, in abuilding adjoining Diehl and Lord's bottling works.

In 1901, Mayfield invested in oil wells in Kentucky andTennessee, leaving his extract business in the hands of his three sonsStephen, Joseph, and Carl. At one time Mayfield owned over thirty producingoil wells.

In 1905, the company became the Celery-Cola Company, withhome offices in Birmingham, Alabama. James C. Mayfield was president andgeneral manager while his sons led the sales force. Carl traveled the Westfrom Texas to Colorado, Stephen traveled Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas,and Joseph traveled the Midwest up to the Great Lakes.

By 1907, Mayfield boasted offices in Denver, Dallas, Richmond,St. Louis, Los Angeles, Birmingham, and Havana, Cuba. Hundreds of bottlerswere using Mayfield's extracts for Vig-O, Peppo-Ade, Pepsin-Ola, and Celery-Cola.The number of bottlers selling Celery-Cola was steadily increasing.

Meanwhile, Mayfield's ex-wife Diva Brown was travelingthe South selling her Kola formula for varying prices to independent bottlers.She claimed her formula was the "original" Coca-Cola formula, basedon her ex-husbands' association with Dr. Pemberton. She established herown beverage in Birmingham in 1909, the My-Coca Company. My-Coca was soldwell into the 1920's in the South and Midwest.

Mayfield's dreams of success were shattered in 1910, whenthe Pure Food and Drug Administration took his company to court. The Governmentclaimed that Celery-Cola contained cocaine and caffeine in quantities dangerousfor human consumption. The Coca-Cola Company thought it so importantto avoid having a precedent set against the Celery-Cola Company that Coca-Colalawyers were sent to assist in the defense. The eventual decision againstthe Celery-Cola Company and subsequent bad publicity caused the companyto close in 1910.

In 1911, Mayfield formed the Koke Company of America,in Saint Louis. Using trademark rights purchased from several bottlers,Mayfield revived the Kola formula he had used years before and began sellingextracts under the names Koke and Dope. The Coca-Cola Company suedthe various Koke Companies in 1914 for Trademark infringement. The caseended in the Supreme Court of the United States in 1920, with a decisionin favor of the Coca-Cola Company.

Undaunted, James C. Mayfield formed the Mayfield BeverageCompany in 1920. He continued to sell his kola beverage under the nameDope. He also revived his Celery-Cola and added a drink called Cherri-Kick.Mayfield's success continued and his beverages once more were sold fromcoast to coast.

The company became the Celery-Cola Corporation of Americain 1929, but was unable to outlast the depression of the 1930's.

Few bottles over the years actually had the name Celery-Colablown in the glass. Most bottlers simply used paper labels to identifythe product. The few embossed Celery-Cola bottles often are scarce to rare.the Hutchinson bottles are all rare, with Charleston, West Virginia, beingthe rarest. The crown tops run from common, like the clear Birmingham,Alabama, to rare like the Havana, Cuba, and the Quinton, Alabama.

Discipline and Efficiency
Washington was born Booker Taliaferro, a slave,in rural Virginia. His mother, Jane, was the plantation's cook; his fatherwas a white man whose identity he never knew. Washington worked as a servantin the plantation house until he was liberated by Union troops near theend of the Civil War. After the war, his family moved to Malden, WestVirginia, where they joined Washington Ferguson, also a former slave,whom Jane had married during the war.

To help support the family, Washington worked first ina salt furnace, then in a coal mine, and later as a houseboy in the homeof General Lewis Ruffner, who owned the mines. Here, he came underthe influence of Viola Ruffner, the general's wife, who taught him a respectfor cleanliness, efficiency, and order. During this time, and despite oppositionfrom his stepfather, Booker attended a school for blacks while continuingto work. At school, he gave himself the last name Washington for reasonsstill debated by historians.

In 1872 Washington left Malden, traveling on foot to Virginia'sHampton Institute, which had opened only a few years earlier as a schoolfor blacks. Its white principal, General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, wasthe son of missionaries to Hawaii and a commander of black Union troopsduring the war. The South's freed blacks, Armstrong believed, needed apractical, work-based education that would also teach character and morality.Hampton offered not only agricultural and mechanical classes but trainingin cleanliness, efficiency, discipline, and the dignity of manual laboras well...

National Prominence
Although Tuskegee earned him a measure of popularity,Washingtondid not become a national leader until he spoke, in September 1895, atthe Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.Over the previous several years, relations between the races had steadilydeteriorated. The South had codified its discriminatory Jim Crow laws,and violence, especially lynching, was common. Earlier in the year, FrederickDouglass, the acknowledged leader of blacks North and South, died, andno clear successor had yet emerged. Washington was the only black speakerchosen to address the mixed-race crowd in Atlanta.

Formerly farmland, this historic park's grounds were partof the Battle at Peachtree Creek during the Civil War, during the timeof General Sherman's attack on Atlanta. Originally, the land was designedand laid out for the Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895.Throughout are works of sculpture, including David Hammond's 1987 FreeNelson Mandela. The 189-acre park is also home to the Atlanta BotanicalGardens and Lake Clara Meer.

History Articles
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[PHOTO]  The men of Independent Hose Racing Company, who gave theCity of Martins Ferry the greatest trophy it ever possessed.

     Hose-racing with hand-drawn reels was a popular sport in the late1800’s. Firemen in the town departments practiced strenuously to achievethe speed and endurance necessary to fight fire successfully. Before longthey were turning drudgery into a means of amusement as they raced againsttheir neighbors, then against teams in the area, and eventually competedin meets drawing teams from other states.
     Martins Ferry water system, complete with pumping station andwater lines in town, went into operation in 1887. Now that water was easilyavailable, Dr. D. W. Darrah organized a fire department, equipped withone hose reel pulled by rope.
     Bellaire’s well-organized department held a firemen’s conventionthat summer and invited the new department to enter the hose-racing competition.The young men of Hose Company No. 3 took the reel down, marched in theparade, and entered competition in their street clothes. They startledeveryone by winning, running 233 1/2 yards (more that twice the lengthof a football field), laying 200 feet of hose and connecting the nozzlein 36 1/2 seconds.
     Cheered by their success, the racers organized the IndependentHose Racing Team, open to anyone in the fire department. Under Dr. Darrah’ssupervision they trained like athletes. Drinking was forbidden in a daywhen it was almost universal.
     Their next spectacular achievement came at a state-wide competitionheld at Sandusky on July 4, 1891. Here they ran 231 1/2 yards, laid 100feet of hose and connected the nozzle in 29 seconds, a time which the judgesrefused to believe until they had inspected the equipment for secret devices.The usual winning time was 32 to 35 seconds. The time of 29 seconds hasnever been equaled.
     As a result, the Independent Hose Racing team was invited tocompete at the Cotton States Exposition at Atlanta Georgia,in 1895. The men doubted their ability to raise the $3,000necessary for the trip, but the townspeople helped them to collect whatwas then a staggering amount. On October 11 the team ran 300 yards with750 pounds of weight (reel and 350 feet of hose) and attached the nozzlein 45 seconds. They might have done better, but the reel and hose werenew and stiff. The prize was the diamond studded belt, still on displayat City Hall, and $250 in gold. Billed as a World Championship becausethe teams were of such high quality, the race was the first and only oneof its kind.