Earl R. Dean designed the famous contour Coca Cola bottle.

In 1915, Harold Hirsch

Harold Hirsch

Harold U. Hirsch played football at the University of Georgia from 1900 to 1901, studied law at Columbia University and was the general counsel for The Coca-Cola Company for more than thirty years....

, a lawyer for the Coca-Cola Company, came up with a plan to launch a national competition in which bottle manufactures across the country would be asked to design a distinctive bottle – a bottle which a person could recognize even if they felt it in the dark, and so shaped that, even if broken, a person could tell at a glance what it was.

The bottle manufacturer that won this competition was the Root Glass Company

The Root Glass Company

The Root Glass Company in Terre Haute, Indiana, was one of Coca-Cola's bottle suppliers. It was Earl R. Dean, Root Glass Company's bottle designer, who designed the famous contour Coca-Cola bottle. In the mid 1930s, Chapman J. Root, the company's president, sold the Root Glass Company to...

 of Terre Haute, Indiana

Terre Haute, Indiana

Terre Haute is a city and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, near the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a population of 170,943. The city is the county seat of Vigo County and...

. Inspired by a picture of a cocoa pod which was found in an encyclopedia at the Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library

Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library

Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library is located in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was built in 1906 by the Modern Construction Company of Terre Haute. The building is in the Beaux Arts architectural style....

, Earl R. Dean made a pencil sketch of the pod. From this sketch, Dean designed the contour bottle prototype

Prototype

A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...

. The prototype never made it to production since its middle diameter was larger than its base. According to Dean, this would make it unstable on the conveyor belts. Dean then equalized the middle and bottom diameters and the Contour Coca-Cola Bottle was born.

External links

• theContourBottle.com A tribute to Earl R. Dean - Facts about the creation of Coca-Cola's Contour bottle
• The Contour Bottle - MySpace
• Chapman J. Root Biography