The Story Of How This One Small Town In Florida Became Unbelievably Rich Will Leave You In Awe
Victoria W
Author
Quincy is a small city of around 7,000 people located near Tallahassee. It seems like a pretty ordinary small town at first, with a charming historic downtown. You probably wouldn’t guess, however, that this sleepy little town was once the richest town (per capita) in the entire country.
The story goes that the town banker, “Mr. Pat” Munroe, had a gut feeling that Coca-Cola was so refreshing that it was basically recession-proof, and so he encouraged many townspeople to buy stock in the company when it went public in 1919. Obviously, the stock skyrocketed, and the $40 investments he encouraged would now be worth over $6 million. You can see evidence of the Coca-Cola millionaires in the nicely renovated downtown, especially the large Coca-Cola mural on the side of Padgett’s Jewelers.
The story has become a local legend, growing over the years, but most of the stockholders were surprisingly secretive about their newfound wealth. Supposedly anywhere from 20 to 60 families became Coca-Cola millionaires, but there’s really no way to tell. Most of the lovely historic homes in the area were actually built with riches from the tobacco industry.
Maybe there weren’t really as many folks who bought Coca-Cola stock as rumors suggest, or perhaps they took Mr. Pat’s advice and never, ever sold it.
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Have you heard anything about the interesting history of this Florida town? Do you have any other good stories from Florida history?
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