Sprite Bottle

Coca Cola Company
ca. 1966

For the National Park Service’s 50th anniversary in 1966, Coca-Cola began a promotion encouraging public support for federal recreation areas. As part of the celebration and as publicity for what was then a new product, the company embossed the names of 36 different national parks and monuments on the bottom of Sprite bottles. While Coca-Cola’s in-house 1966 public relations magazine article correctly listed the park as Joshua Tree National Monument, the bottle is stamped “Joshua Tree National Park,” almost 30 years before its 1994 redesignation as a national park.

Glass. H 24.5, Dia 6 cm
Joshua Tree National Park, JOTR 29656