John T. Lupton II (July 23, 1926 – May 16, 2010) was an American heir to a Coca-Cola bottling fortune, businessman and philanthropist.Dean W. Arnold, ''Old Money, New South: The Spirit of Chattanooga'', 2006, p.

/ref>Jack Lupton, Chattanooga philanthropist, dies at 83
'' WRCB'', May 17, 2010Stephen Miller
He Had Lightning in a Bottle and Revitalized Chattanooga
'' The Wall Street Journal'', May 18, 2010Philanthropist Jack Lupton Dies At 83
'' The Chattanoogan'', May 16, 2010Jack Lupton obituary
'' Chattanooga Times Free Press'', May 18, 2010Monica Mercer
Lupton will holds few clues
''Chattanooga Times Free Press'', June 10th, 2010

Biography

Early life

His grandfather was John Thomas Lupton, founder of the

Dixie Coca-Cola Bottling Company Plant The Dixie Coca-Cola Bottling Company Plant, also known as Baptist Student Center, or Baptist Collegiate Ministry at Georgia State University, is a historic building at 125 Edgewood Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia. Built in 1891, it was the headquarte ...

, later known as the JTL Corporation, Coca-Cola's largest bottler. His father, Thomas Cartter Lupton, was the founder of the

Lyndhurst Foundation The Lyndhurst Foundation is a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based grant-making foundation organized in 1938 by Coca-Cola Bottling Company magnate Cartter Lupton. The Lyndhurst Foundation was the first private foundation in Tennessee, and it focuses on ...

. He had a brother, Joe Henderson, and a sister, Elizabeth Lupton Davenport. He was born on July 23, 1926, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and attended the Baylor School, where he was captain of the swimming team as well as a letterman in varsity football, basketball and baseball. He served in the United States Navy during the Second World War and spent a year in the Pacific Ocean as a radioman. He enrolled at the University of North Carolina, where he majored in business administration.

Career

In 1946, he worked as a loader of the bottle-washing machine at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in

Macon, Georgia Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in the U.S. state of Georgia. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is located southeast of Atlanta and lies near the geographic center of the state of Geo ...

. He worked for

Dixie Yarns Dixie, also known as Dixieland or Dixie's Land, is a nickname for all or part of the Southern United States. While there is no official definition of this region (and the included areas shift over the years), or the extent of the area it cover ...

for a couple of years, but returned to the family business when his father fell ill in 1956. He sat on the Board of Directors of Coca-Cola from 1956 to 1982. When his father died in 1977, he inherited the family business, JTL Corp., and quadrupled the business by acquiring bottlers in Florida, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and elsewhere. In 1986, he sold the bottling company to Coca-Cola Enterprises for US$1.4 billion. He was one of the candidates to become the first Chairman of Coca-Cola Enterprises, but was turned down. An avid golfer, he was Chairman of the Arnold Palmer Golf Company and helped finance the Honors Course near Ooltewah, Tennessee north of Chattanooga. He provided funding to create the Tennessee Golf Foundation and the

Golf House Tennessee Golf House Tennessee is the name given to an ante-bellum house in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee that serves as home of the non-profit "Tennessee Golf Foundation". It houses the offices all of the state's golf associations. The historic hous ...

. He also started the Miller-Reid Advertising Agency. He was a member of the Augusta National Golf Club.

Philanthropy

After his father's death in 1977, he took over the Lyndhurst Foundation and focused on primary health care, elementary and secondary education, and arts and cultural activities. With the foundation, he donated to the

Tennessee Riverwalk The Tennessee Riverwalk is a 13-mile (21-km) Foreshoreway, riverside path which parallels the Tennessee River from the Chickamauga Dam to downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is part of the Tennessee Riverpark System featuring the Tennessee Riverp ...

. In 2001, he donated $25 million to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He also raised $50 million for the Tennessee Aquarium. He also donated to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. A man who rarely gave interviews to the press, Lupton spoke with reporter Bill Dedman of The Chattanooga Times in 1986 about how he was a different kind of community philanthropist than his father, sponsoring the open community planning process then called Chattanooga Venture. "I've never had any skepticism about the community, about the river, or about the riverfront project. ... The biggest problem that Chattanooga has ever had, they've all buttoned it up at night and went home to their little bitty conclaves and nobody communicated with anybody--including him e points at his father's photographand his cohorts. They wanted to keep this place a secret. They didn't want anybody knowing about what a nice little deal they had here."Bill Dedman
Jack Lupton talks about a city and its destiny
''The Chattanooga Times'', January 27, 1986

Personal life

He married Alice Probasco in 1948, whose grandfather, Harry Scott Probasco (1858-1919), founded the American National Bank (now part of

Regions Financial Corporation Regions Financial Corporation is a bank holding company headquartered in the Regions Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The company provides retail banking and commercial banking, trust, stockbrokerage, and mortgage services. Its banking subsidia ...

) and father, Scott L. Probasco, Sr. (1890-1962), a trust company that became part of the SunTrust Banks. She is Scott L. Probasco, Jr.'s sister. They resided in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, a suburb of Chattanooga, and attended the Church of the Good Shepherd. They had a son, Thomas Cartter Lupton II of

Sullivan's Island, South Carolina Sullivan's Island is a town and island in Charleston County, South Carolina, Charleston County, South Carolina, United States, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, with a population of 1,791 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The town ...

, and three daughters, Alice Lupton Smith of Lookout Mountain, TN, Katherine Lupton Juett of Dallas, Texas and Margaret Lupton Gerber of Memphis, Tennessee. He was a member of the Mountain City Club, an invitation-only private club in Chattanooga. After suffering from a debilitating stroke, he died in 2010. His will included real estate in Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida and at least $20 million in cash.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lupton, John T., II 1926 births 2010 deaths Businesspeople from Chattanooga, Tennessee American businesspeople Coca-Cola people University of Tennessee at Chattanooga people 20th-century American philanthropists