City Names on the Bottom of Coca-Cola Bottles

One of our Coffee Group participants brought in a 6-pack of Coca-Cola bottles this morning and told of a game he and his buddies played as teenagers while they drank their bottled Cokes. The winner was determined by who held the bottle with the name of the most distant City moulded into the bottom of the bottle. The picture shows the bottom of one of the bottles with “York Nebr” shown. Our discussion produced more questions than answers. A bit of Google research convinced me that there is more information available on Coca-Cola than what I’m willing to pursue. And, I wasn’t able to find answers to the simple questions of: What is the significance of the name of the City embossed??; Where were the bottles  actually produced??; and, are they done in-house by the Company or by contract??. I did learn in my brief research that while Coke was first bottled in 1894, the Curved Bottle was approved in 1915. By 1923 6-packs were introduced and in 1928 bottled Coke overtook Fountain sales. The packaging of Coca-Cola has gone through many iterations over the years but to most of us, the old 100 year old design is the classic. We have visited the Coca-Cola Display in the Atlanta, GA Underground and have some mementos from there. We also have a clear plastic, square, 0.5 liter bottle of Classic Coke. It has a plastic cap with the message: “Bottled under authority of the Coca-Cola Company by a Member of the CCE Bottling Group, Atlanta, GA. We think some of the kids left it here on one of their visits but are not sure. The bottle label mentions a Harry Potter contest for free Coke  which expired in 2002. It is still full but the contents of a little miniature bottle that we bought in the Underground gift ship have completely evaporated.