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Welcome to 2023, a new year of sharing with you some of the fascinating individuals buried at Crown Hill! As it turns out, Crown Hill Cemetery has many ties to one of the trendiest destinations currently on the Indianapolis scene, the Bottleworks District, located in the heart of historic neighborhoods on Massachusetts Avenue. We’ll explain those ties in this newsletter, most notably those of the Yuncker brothers and their Coca-Cola Bottling Plant, plus our Arborist highlights Winter Tree Architecture and our Plant a Tree program.
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Coca-Cola Bottleworks, circa 1935
Photo credit: Roadtrippers
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Dr. John Stith Pemberton sold the first glass of Coca-Cola on May 8, 1886, at the soda fountain in Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia. In its beginnings, he could only supply nine glasses of the beverage a day, but as its popularity grew, the company went through many permutations until it was being bottled and distributed by many territorial franchises across the country. The Indianapolis franchise, started in 1904, was acquired by the Yuncker brothers in 1915 when they purchased the Coca-Cola Bottling Works of Indianapolis.
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By 1950, it was the largest Coca Cola Bottling plant in the world with 260 employees who produced 2.25 million bottles of Coke a week.
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Leo and James Yuncker
Photo credit: Bottleworks District Flyer
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Leo E. Yuncker was born in 1874 in Loudonville, Ohio, one of 11 children. He moved to Indianapolis as a boy to work in the former When Clothing store. He worked in several other Indianapolis firms before going into business in 1907 with his brother, James Yuncker, founder of Yuncker Bottling Works, one of several soft drink companies in Indianapolis.
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Historic photo of the Coca-Cola Bottleworks
Photo credit: Bottleworksindy/Instagram
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After acquiring the Indianapolis Coca-Cola bottling franchise in 1915, the brothers ended the Yuncker Bottling Works Company in 1929 and put all their efforts into their Coca-Cola Bottling Company with plans to expand on the property at 860 Massachusetts Avenue, purchased in 1920.
In the early 1930s, the first section of the new plant on Massachusetts Avenue was completed, including a two-story terra cotta-clad building ornamented with geometric fountains and flowers. The main entrance of the trapezoidal building featured a two-story lobby with a circular staircase, terrazzo floor, and a brass-medallioned ceiling. The southwest entrance featured a long marble-topped counter and bright polychrome mosaics. Even the factory portion of the building and the one-story garage area had many Art Deco details on the stair rails and doorknobs.
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Winter is the best time of year to see and appreciate the beauty and complex architecture found in the structure of trees. Over thousands, if not millions of years, each tree species has evolved a unique architecture in an attempt to efficiently utilize their leaves to produce energy, their limbs to store and transfer energy, and their trunks and roots to store energy and support their entire canopies while adapting to changing climates and weather patterns.
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This resting season is the best time to contact the arboretum director about tree planting in 2023.
Add to the natural beauty and canopy of the city by planting a tree at Crown Hill. Our arborist will work with you to select a tree and advise you of the best location for your tree to grow. We will order, transport, plant, and care for your chosen tree. You will receive a certificate that will include the tree species and exact location in the cemetery. Please contact us, and we will be happy to assist you!
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Thanks to our corporate partners!
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