A concrete slab in Alton Park holds the demolished remains of a thriving business that supplied bottles, especially for soda, throughout the South. At one time, more of the traditional contour, or hobble-skirt, Coca-Cola bottles were made there than anywhere else.
Charles Rief’s Chattanooga Bottle and Glass Manufacturing Co. began making beer bottles in 1901 for his Chattanooga Brewing Co. and its original product, Liebotschaner beer. His English glass blowers at the plant soon crafted whiskey, soda and proprietary medicine bottles as well as flasks. By 1920, the Alton Park facility and a newly acquired plant in Tallapoosa, Ga., made prescription, beer, mineral, patent, proprietary and soda bottles in flint, green and amber colors.
With the advent of Prohibition in 1920, Chattanooga Bottle continued to advertise beer bottles, apparently for the latest fad: cereal beverages or near-beer.
Its main customer had become the Coca-Cola Co. although it also supplied bottles for NeHi, Nu Grape and a variety of other soft drink enterprises – as well as Mason jars for canning.
Various shapes and colors of the bottles as well as different stoppers and caps evolved over the years. In 1915-16 Coca-Cola adopted the famous hobble-skirt (contoured or curvy female profile) bottle, which gave the syrup company uniformity with its drink bottles.