George W. Woodruff, Coca-Cola Director for 49 Years, Dies at 91

ATLANTA — George W. Woodruff, a Coca-Cola Co. director for 49 years who made major gifts to education and medicine in Georgia, died of pneumonia Wednesday. He was 91.

Woodruff, who died at Emory University Hospital, was the last of a generation of an Atlanta family famous in American business. With the death of his brother Robert at age 95 in 1985, George Woodruff became the last living child of the late Ernest Woodruff, who as president of Trust Co. of Georgia headed a consortium that purchased the Coca-Cola Co. in 1919.

Forbes magazine estimated George Woodruff’s wealth at $200 million in 1984.

He was a director of Coca-Cola from 1936 to 1985, but never was an officer of the company. From 1930 to 1959, he headed Continental Gin Co., a Birmingham, Ala., cotton gin maker that his father had purchased.

The Woodruff brothers, Robert and George, gave Emory University $105 million in 1979.

Woodruff also made large gifts to five other institutions--Agnes Scott College, Georgia Tech, Mercer University, Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in North Georgia and Westminster Schools in Atlanta.