From Chattanooga’s signature aquarium on the downtown waterfront to the exclusive Honors Course in Ooltewah, John T. “Jack” Lupton left his mark across his hometown over the past two decades.
The Lookout Mountain philanthropist who once headed Coca-Cola’s biggest bottling empire died Sunday at age 83. But those who worked with Mr. Lupton said Monday the legacy of how he used his family’s fortune will live on.
“I don’t think there is any doubt that what we have called the renaissance of Chattanooga came about because Jack Lupton made a decision that he wanted to invest in changing this community, and he really did,” said former Chattanooga City Council member Mai Bell Hurley, a longtime civic leader and fundraiser who worked on Lupton-backed projects such as Chattanooga Venture, Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise and the RiverCity Co. “Beyond the aquarium and other facilities he helped to get built, his biggest legacy may be how he changed the spirit of our city.”
After selling his Coca-Cola bottling business for $1.2 billion in 1986, Mr. Lupton turned his attention to helping rebuild Chattanooga after the city’s economic and population downturn in the early 1980s.
Spurred by ideas from a task force headed by his then-son-in-law Rick Montague, Mr. Lupton helped lead an effort to revitalize downtown and the waterfront. After meeting with then-Gov. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., initial plans for a $5 million aquarium on the waterfront quickly grew into what became the world’s largest freshwater aquarium.