Chapman Shaw Root; Former Coca-Cola Bottling Firm Chairman

Chapman Shaw Root, 65, former chairman of the country’s largest Coca-Cola bottling company and the grandson of the industrialist who designed the Coca-Cola bottle in the early 1900s. Root headed Associated Coca-Cola Bottlers from 1951 until 1982. The company had plants in Pennsylvania, Florida, New York and New Jersey. In 1982, he sold his majority interest in the bottling company to the parent company of Coca-Cola for $417.5 million. Last October, Forbes magazine listed Root as the 389th wealthiest man in America with a net worth of $290 million. In 1966, he formed the Root Co. as parent company of his expanding financial holdings. At the time of his death, Root also owned such businesses as the Daytona Hilton and radio stations in Florida. Root was the grandson of Chapman J. Root, founder and owner of Root Glass Co., the firm that designed and patented the distinctive Coke bottle. That design led Chapman J. Root to acquire several Coca-Cola bottling franchises which later became the Terre Haute-based Associated Coca-Cola Bottlers. In Ormond Beach, Fla., on Monday of undisclosed causes.