Joseph Augustus Biedenharn (December 13, 1866 – October 9, 1952) was an American businessman and confectioner credited in the summer of 1894 with having first bottled the soda fountain drink, Coca-Cola, at his wholesale candy company building in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

As he expanded this business, he created a model of bottling-distributor franchises and built his company through this state, as well as Louisiana and Texas.

The Biedenharn family has had a philanthropic tradition in both Vicksburg and Monroe, making major contributions to historic, educational, recreational and charitable purposes.

Biedenharn's father and uncle owned a two-story brick building in downtown Vicksburg, which housed Herman's shoe store on one side and his son Joseph's candy company on the other.

Though Coca-Cola had been invented in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia by the pharmacist John S. Pemberton, it was not sold in bottles until Joseph Biedenharn developed the new procedure.

[4] Biedenharn had been advised by his father to "go into the nickel business", meaning to offer soft drinks for five cents each.

[5] Subsequently, Biedenharn and his brothers Will, Harry, Lawrence, Herman, Ollie, and Albert, and sister Katy acquired franchises to bottle Coca-Cola in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

[3] In 1913, Joseph Biedenharn moved with his family to Monroe in Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana, where he purchased a small bottling plant to produce Coca-Cola.

The Tallulah Coca-Cola Bottling Plant operated by Joe Biedenharn, built in c.1930 and c.1940 in Madison Parish, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[8][non-primary source needed] In 1962, Emy-Lou Biedenharn published a memoir of her father, a decade after his death.

[4]Alana Cooper, executive director of the Monroe-West Monroe Convention and Visitors Bureau, told the Monroe News-Star that her city might be a much different community if the Biedenharns had never moved there: "Large corporations were formed in the area and they grew into national companies and that's because he and his family were smart businesspeople.