Which newspaper carried Coca-Cola's first-ever advertisement?

Coca-Cola’s first-ever advertisement appeared in the Atlanta Journal.

The advertisement ran in 1886, the year Coca-Cola was created in Atlanta by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton. It promoted the drink as a new soda-fountain beverage and used the memorable description “Delicious! Refreshing! Exhilarating! Invigorating!”

Coca-Cola was first sold at Jacob’s Pharmacy on May 8, 1886, for five cents a glass. Early marketing also presented it as a “temperance drink,” an appealing message during a period when temperance movements were influential. The product was initially promoted partly as a patent medicine and was claimed to help with ailments including headaches and indigestion.

The Atlanta Journal is sometimes confused with the later Atlanta Constitution or with Coca-Cola’s many nationally famous advertising campaigns. The company’s first outdoor painted wall advertisement came later, in 1894, in Cartersville, Georgia. Coca-Cola’s advertising history eventually expanded into iconic Santa Claus imagery, celebrity endorsements, slogans, television commercials and global campaigns, but its first newspaper promotion was a local Atlanta ad.