The first Coca-Cola vending machines appeared in 1929, made by the Glascock Brothers Manufacturing Company.
They weren’t the upright, coin-operated coolers we think of today — they were simple ice-cooled chests where you dropped a nickel into an honor box and grabbed a 6½-oz bottle.
By the late 1930s, companies like Vendo, Vendorlator, and Cavalier began producing coin-mechanized coolers that would only release a bottle after payment. These early machines were still ice-cooled but soon evolved into refrigerated units in the 1940s, paving the way for the iconic red upright Coke machines of the 1950s.