Move to Monroe
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.
He and his wife had a large mansion and gardens designed for them. The Biedenharn home in Monroe is now a tourist attraction, operated as the Biedenharn Museum and Gardens at 2000 Riverside Drive. It is visited by 25,000 to 30,000 persons per year. The original Biedenharn home is furnished as it was during the years when the Biedenharns' daughter, Emy-Lou, a contralto opera singer prior to World War II, resided there until her death in 1984.[4] In addition, the house has an area of soft drink exhibits, and a Bible Museum with rare books. It also hosts rotating exhibits.[6]
In 1925, Joseph and his son Malcolm Biedenharn, together with other entrepreneurs, purchased a crop-dusting business. They added eighteen planes, making it the largest privately owned fleet in the world.[4] That company eventually developed as Delta Air Lines. It operated from Monroe before moving to the larger regional city of Atlanta. Until the late 1990s, a Biedenharn family member always sat on the Delta board.[4]
After the death of his son Malcolm, Biedenharn named a grandson, Henry A. Biedenharn Jr. (1919–2010), as the president of the Ouachita Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Joseph Biedenharn died in the fall of 1952 in Monroe at the age of eighty-five.[7]
In 1962, Emy-Lou Biedenharn published a memoir of her father, a decade after his death.[5] In 1971, she established the Emy-Lou Biedenharn Foundation as a charitable organization in the city.
Henry A. Biedenharn Jr., a Monroe native who served in World War II as a United States Navy flight instructor, also became affiliated with Biedenharn Realty Company, Inc., the Harn and Biedco corporations, the Ouachita National Bank, Premier Bank, and Bank One. He participated as well in the foundation established by his aunt, Emy-Lou Biedenharn.[8] In 1940, he wed the former Dorothy "Doll" Hudson (1921–2017), a socialite also from Monroe. The couple had four children.[9]
The Biedenharn family is known for its philanthropy: "Just look around our community—there's an Emy-Lou Biedenharn Recital Hall at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, there are at least three student scholarships at ULM, and we've got the ballfields in West Monroe. The individual family members also have been very charitable,' said Ralph Calhoun, executive director of the museum and gardens.[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. A lot of things grew from those businesses ... that provided a lot of jobs for a lot of people." Cooper also noted that Emy-Lou Biedenharn left her own cultural legacy to the city.[4]
