Historic Clayton County
An illustrated history of the Clayton County area, paired with the histories of companies, families and organizations that make the region great.
An illustrated history of the Clayton County area, paired with the histories of companies, families and organizations that make the region great.
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HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
The Sesquicentennial History<br />
by Kathryn Kemp, PhD<br />
A PUBLICATION OF<br />
HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.
Thank you for your interest in this HPNbooks publication.<br />
For more information about other HPNbooks publications, or information about<br />
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HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
The Sesquicentennial History<br />
by Kathryn Kemp, PhD<br />
Commissioned by <strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc.<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network<br />
A division of Lammert Incorporated<br />
San Antonio, Texas
CONTENTS<br />
3 INTRODUCTION<br />
5 CHAPTER I<br />
19 CHAPTER II<br />
31 CHAPTER III<br />
47 CHAPTER IV<br />
59 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />
61 SHARING THE HERITAGE<br />
102 SPONSORS<br />
❖<br />
The state of Georgia used a lottery system to distribute lands acquired from Native Americans on several<br />
occasions. Qualified purchasers drew a number to discover what land they had purchased. Illustration by<br />
George I. Parrish, Jr. (1930-1992).<br />
103 ABOUT THE AUTHOR<br />
COURTESY OF CINDY PARRISH.<br />
First Edition<br />
Copyright © 2009 <strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network<br />
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing<br />
from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to <strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network, 11535 Galm Road, Suite 101, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790.<br />
ISBN: 9781935377054<br />
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2009930116<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>: The Sesquicentennial History<br />
author: Kathryn W. Kemp<br />
contributing writer for “Sharing the Heritage”: Brenda Thompson<br />
design: Vanessa Lively<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network<br />
president: Ron Lammert<br />
project manager: Violet Caren<br />
administration: Donna M. Mata, Melissa G. Quinn, Evelyn Hart<br />
book sales: Dee Steidle<br />
production: Colin Hart, Glenda Tarazon Krouse, Charles A. Newton, III,<br />
Joshua Johnston, Craig Mitchell<br />
PRINTED IN CANADA.<br />
2 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
INTRODUCTION<br />
In many ways, the story of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> is a story of transportation. In a place near the<br />
headwaters of the Flint River, long before Europeans came to America, two trails made by the native<br />
people crossed; later, after the arrival of the whites, those trails developed into roads, and a settlement<br />
appeared at the crossing. Railroads gave the town a new name and a new importance as it became a<br />
stop on the way to another product of railroad development, the city of Atlanta. A few years later the<br />
importance of that rail line made <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> the scene of one of the important conflicts of the Civil<br />
War, a fight that was pivotal in deciding the fate of Atlanta and, in turn, the conclusion of the war itself.<br />
Within decades, the invention of the internal combustion engine meant more change. Steady<br />
improvement of streets and highways accommodated these new forms or transportation—trucks,<br />
busses, and automobiles. When the United States created its first national system of highways, U.S.<br />
19 passed through the county on its way from Pennsylvania to Florida. Trucking became increasingly<br />
important to national commerce; many large trucking firms located facilities in the northeast portion<br />
of the county, conveniently close to the system of interstate highways built in the latter half of the<br />
twentieth century.<br />
In the earlier years of the century, local enthusiasm for automobiles led to the construction of a<br />
racetrack near the northern reaches of the county. The racetrack failed, but the racing surface<br />
remained, a perfect landing place for the earliest aircraft in the region. When the city of Atlanta won<br />
its position in the new Air Mail service network, it built the first municipal airport, Candler Field, in<br />
the location of the old, impromptu landing field. As air travel grew, the airport continued to expand,<br />
and now Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the busiest airport in the world, dominates<br />
the northernmost portion of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. The county is still a crossroads, but the travelers now<br />
come and go to and from destinations all over the globe.<br />
The story of the people who came to live around this ever-evolving crossroads is the theme of this<br />
book—it is about the people of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
❖<br />
Stately Oaks, an antebellum house<br />
located in Jonesboro, the <strong>County</strong> Seat<br />
of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, is open to the<br />
public. <strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong>, Inc., operates it along with<br />
several other historic sites in the city.<br />
PHOTO BY JIM KEMP.<br />
Introduction ✦ 3
❖<br />
Right: The busiest airport in the world<br />
is in northern <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
COURTESY OF THE ATLANTA HARTSFIELD-<br />
JACKSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.<br />
Below: The “Leans” baseball team<br />
played for Jonesboro about 1905; note<br />
the broken window.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES, VIRTUAL<br />
GEORGIA COLLECTION, VRG128.<br />
4 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
CHAPTER I<br />
The first people to live on the shores of the Flint River carefully placed rocks in its bed, forming a v-<br />
shaped channel that would lead fish into traps placed at its narrowest point. These rocks are still in<br />
place after 2500 years, mute evidence of the presence of the first dwellers in the land that would one<br />
day form <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Georgia. Archaeology reveals something of the life of these people, the<br />
predecessors of those who came to be called Creeks in historic times.<br />
Those “Creeks” were the survivors of several earlier populations of Native Americans, wiped out by<br />
exposure to a number of diseases unknown in the hemisphere before the arrival of the Europeans. These<br />
diseases spread even more rapidly than the European colonization did, killing so many native peoples<br />
that their long-established cultures collapsed. The survivors reestablished communities and carried on<br />
with their lives. A loose confederation of these groups spread over a large area of Georgia and Alabama.<br />
The English colonists who settled in Georgia called them “Creeks” because of their habit of living near<br />
streams; they called themselves the Muskogee.<br />
They lived in towns that centered on an open plaza, which was the location of ceremonial life. Each<br />
new year they celebrated the Green Corn Dance and buried the trunk of a large tree. After resting in the<br />
earth for three years the tree would be exhumed and the Creeks would burn out the center and fashion<br />
it into a canoe. One of their more important towns, Coweta, was situated on the Chattahoochee River<br />
about 100 miles southwest of today’s <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>; trails between their many towns crisscrossed<br />
their territory.<br />
The early Georgia colonists and the Indians lived near each other in an uneasy peace at first. Traders<br />
traveled among the Indians, at times living with them and even creating families. Because the Creeks<br />
reckoned their kinship through the female line only, they considered the children of the white traders<br />
and Indian women to be Indians. As a result of this custom some prominent Indian leaders had white<br />
fathers and family connections in both groups.<br />
❖<br />
About 500 B.C., Neolithic people<br />
placed stones in the Flint River to<br />
form a curved dam with a narrow<br />
central gap that could be opened and<br />
closed. The force of the water rushing<br />
through the gap swept the fish into<br />
their waiting traps.<br />
COURTESY OF CLAYTON COUNTY.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 5
❖<br />
Reproductions of typical Creek<br />
structures, located on the grounds of<br />
Stately Oaks Plantation, which is the<br />
site of an annual Native American<br />
Heritage Day.<br />
PHOTOS BY JIM KEMP.<br />
As the colony became established, the vast<br />
lands of the Indians presented an irresistible<br />
attraction. Like other Americans, Georgians were<br />
determined to move west. Under pressure, the<br />
Creeks surrendered great swaths of territory over<br />
the first two decades of the 1800s.<br />
One important loss of land came as the result<br />
of the Creek War. This conflict took place at the<br />
same time that the U.S. was fighting the British<br />
in the War of 1812. The Shawnee leader<br />
Tecumseh tried to build a grand alliance of<br />
tribes to resist the American westward<br />
movement. .He found some allies among the<br />
Creeks, notably a group known as the Red<br />
Sticks, who made war on the Americans in the<br />
Alabama and Georgia area. The government<br />
assigned Andrew Jackson, a popular leader in<br />
the new State of Tennessee and commander of<br />
its state militia, to pacify the region. Jackson<br />
made war on the Red Sticks, with the aid of<br />
Indian allies including Cherokees led by<br />
Pathkiller and Creeks under Big Warrior. Also<br />
serving under Jackson was William McIntosh,<br />
the son of a woman of the prominent Wind Clan<br />
of the Creeks whose father had been an<br />
American trader. The father also came from a<br />
prominent family; he was related to a future<br />
Governor of Georgia. Jackson defeated the Red<br />
Sticks but angered his Indian allies when he<br />
forced the surrender of twenty-three million<br />
acres of Creek land in Alabama and Georgia to<br />
the United States government. This land came<br />
not only from the defeated group, but also from<br />
those who fought at Jackson’s side. The general<br />
brushed aside their protests, but some of the<br />
Creek leaders vowed that they would never<br />
again surrender land. They promised death to<br />
any of their tribe who did.<br />
The Creek way of life changed greatly, as they<br />
adapted to the presence of the whites.<br />
Manufactured goods increasingly replaced hand<br />
crafted items and farming began to replace<br />
hunting and gathering. A few Creeks, such as<br />
McIntosh, became very well to do, with large<br />
land holdings worked by slave laborers. He kept<br />
up his relationship with Jackson, and joined<br />
him to fight in another campaign against the<br />
Seminoles in Florida. During this conflict<br />
Jackson took it upon himself to seize the<br />
Spanish colony of Florida and hand it over to<br />
the U.S. In a few years he would be president of<br />
the United States. McIntosh also continued to<br />
prosper as the owner of two plantations. He<br />
built an inn on one of these parcels of property<br />
at Indian Springs, in present day Butts <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Regarded by the government as a “chief” of the<br />
Creek nation, he participated in a series of<br />
negotiations that ultimately deprived the tribe of<br />
all the lands they had occupied in the state of<br />
Georgia. In reality the tribe did not recognize<br />
principal chiefs with the authority to dispose of<br />
its lands.<br />
On February 12, 1825, a few Creeks under<br />
the leadership of William McIntosh met with<br />
6 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
some representatives of the government at his<br />
new inn. They signed the agreement for the<br />
surrender of all remaining Creek land in Georgia.<br />
The Creeks were to receive acreage in the<br />
Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in<br />
exchange. The agreement enraged the traditional<br />
leadership of the Creeks. Remembering their<br />
pronouncements at the time of Jackson’s land<br />
grab, they took their revenge, raiding McIntosh’s<br />
plantation home in Carroll <strong>County</strong>, killing him<br />
and destroying everything that could not be<br />
carried away. However, their outrage changed<br />
nothing. The President of the United States<br />
agreed with critics that the Treaty of Indian<br />
Springs was improper, but he did not consider it<br />
worth the effort that would be needed to try to<br />
stop the Georgians who were determined to<br />
move west. Within a year the rest of the Creek<br />
lands in the state also were handed over and the<br />
Creeks who resisted were forcibly removed from<br />
the state. [A similar grim drama would be acted<br />
out a few years later, resulting in the infamous<br />
Trail of Tears expulsion of the Cherokee from<br />
northwest Georgia.]<br />
The state surveyed the newly acquired land and<br />
divided it into relatively small lots, on the principle<br />
that every citizen of the state should have an equal<br />
opportunity to claim acreage. A lottery distributed<br />
the 202.5 acre parcels. Every head of a household<br />
could draw and then claim the land by paying a<br />
$19.50 registration fee. Of course, some land lots<br />
were more desirable than others, and speculators<br />
were ready to buy from those who drew but<br />
actually had nointerest in occupying their prizes.<br />
The state divided the former Creek lands into<br />
several counties, including one called Fayette, and<br />
an extremely large county named Henry. Parts of<br />
these two counties would form <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
some years later.<br />
These lands were part of the wild west of the<br />
early nineteenth century, where pioneer settlers<br />
carved farmsteads out of the wilderness. They<br />
followed the long-established Indian trails,<br />
which ran in an east-west direction with shorter<br />
north-south links connecting them; the trails<br />
often became established roadways. The settlers<br />
named one of the short north-south links<br />
Strawn’s Road; it connected McIntosh Road to<br />
the south with Rock Bridge Road to the north.<br />
These were the thoroughfares that brought the<br />
first settlers to the lands that would one day<br />
become <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
THE TRAIN COMES TO TOWN<br />
Farmers made the great majority of the settlers<br />
who bought land in the newly created Henry and<br />
Fayette Counties in the years after the Creek<br />
❖<br />
Left: Although most Creeks were<br />
forced out of Georgia, a remnant<br />
remained. Their descendants<br />
participate in annual Native<br />
American Heritage celebrations on the<br />
grounds of <strong>Historic</strong>al<br />
Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc.’s<br />
Stately Oaks historic house.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON<br />
COUNTY, INC.<br />
Below: In 1821 the Creek Nation<br />
ceded a large strip of land that<br />
would come to include the future<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
BY THE AUTHOR.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 7
❖<br />
Above: This abandoned mill, once<br />
powered by the waters of the Flint<br />
River, was destroyed by fire in 1985.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Bottom (from left to right):<br />
William Thames settled in the area of<br />
Fayette <strong>County</strong> that was destined to<br />
become part of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. A<br />
veteran of the War of 1812 and<br />
pastor of Tanner’s Church, he also<br />
operated a saw and grist mill on the<br />
Flint River. Born in 1796, he lived<br />
until 1892.<br />
COURTESY ELAINE THAMES AND HISTORICAL<br />
JONESBORO/CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Sirena Thames Hodnett was the<br />
daugter of William Thames.<br />
COURTESY HELEN HONEA KNIGHT AND<br />
HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
removal. They cleared land, built homes and<br />
planted crops—usually cotton or grain. Every<br />
place also planted a good deal of corn, which<br />
would have served as a source of meal for human<br />
consumption but also was the “fuel” needed to<br />
run mule-drawn farm equipment. Few of their<br />
places were large enough to be called<br />
“plantations.” Most are better described simply as<br />
“farms,” although many of the region’s farmers<br />
employed some slave labor. Nor did the pioneer<br />
settlers limit themselves to farming. Any<br />
enterprising individual whose lands included a<br />
suitable stream could gain additional income by<br />
operating a grist mill.<br />
The greater part of these settlers came from<br />
Virginia and the Carolinas, rather than from<br />
coastal Georgia and were English or Scots-Irish<br />
in origin. They cleared land and built cabins<br />
with the felled trees. A second step of<br />
establishing a home might be the construction<br />
of a second cabin along side the first, with the<br />
two joined by a sheltered “dog-trot” where the<br />
inhabitants would enjoy the use of the daylight<br />
while sheltered from sun and rain. Clapboards<br />
would eventually disguise the rough originals,<br />
but a few old Georgia houses still conceal<br />
within their walls the humble cabin that was<br />
their genesis.<br />
Where settlement developed, towns soon<br />
formed. One of the earliest settlements in the<br />
future <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> was named Leaksville,<br />
apparently after an early settler, Robert Leak. We<br />
find his name on the board of trustees of the first<br />
school in the area, the “Leaksville Academy,”<br />
along with Jack and Thomas Wilburn, John<br />
Chislum, and Columbus Watson. The village had<br />
developed at the crossing of two Indian trails that<br />
become wagon roads. One was variously known<br />
as the Whitehall or Griffin road; the other began<br />
as the Strawn Road. Running between the<br />
Fayetteville area and Decatur, a portion of the<br />
latter remains, still known as Stagecoach Road. In<br />
addition to the Academy, Leaksville enjoyed a<br />
tavern and a Baptist Church. The identity of the<br />
place as “Leaksville” evidently was not settled,<br />
because the first post office opened in 1842<br />
bearing the name “Singleton.”<br />
Early settlement progressed gradually until the<br />
newly developing railroad system penetrated the<br />
territory. As rails began to link the larger<br />
settlements within the state, the Central of Georgia<br />
built a line from Savannah to Macon and, in 1836,<br />
the Monroe Railroad and Banking Company set<br />
out to extend a line onward from Macon<br />
northwestward to Forsyth. It managed to go as far<br />
as the crossroads village of Leaksville/Singleton<br />
Sarah Matilda Hodnett Waddy, known<br />
as “Sallie,” granddaughter of <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> pioneer William Thames.<br />
COURTESY HELEN HONEA KNIGHT AND<br />
HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
8 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
efore going bankrupt in 1843. Daniel Taylor<br />
bought out its assets and renamed the new line the<br />
Macon and Western in 1845. After this brief<br />
hiatus, within a year’s time the new railroad<br />
reached Atlanta—now a center of railroad activity<br />
that had not existed when the line had begun<br />
construction in Macon.<br />
The creation of the Macon & Western led to<br />
the transformation of the little crossroads<br />
settlement at the Singleton Post Office. Samuel<br />
Goode Jones, a civil engineer, had been in charge<br />
of the construction of the failed Monroe railroad.<br />
When bankruptcy brought a pause in the line’s<br />
progress, Jones became a resident of the town.<br />
While waiting for the railroad’s problems to be<br />
solved, he applied his skills to the improvement<br />
of his surroundings by laying out a street plan.<br />
The residents showed their respect and<br />
appreciation by renaming their town<br />
Jonesborough. The simplified modern spelling<br />
was adopted many years later for efficiency’s sake.<br />
No longer a mere crossroads, Jonesboro had<br />
become a real town. The scattered settlers of the<br />
region began to see it as a focal point. Stores<br />
appeared on the principal street, known as<br />
“Broadway.” The new railroad ran down its center<br />
and trains paused at a wooden depot, a bit to the<br />
north of the present depot location.<br />
On a warm Sunday morning in July 1845 the<br />
first train, carrying a load of salt, rolled through<br />
Jonesboro. The congregation of the Flint River<br />
Baptist Church abandoned their pastor, still in<br />
mid-sermon. According to an eyewitness account<br />
in the Jonesboro News,<br />
We all rushed pell mell up to Jonesboro to<br />
see the train. When we arrived, we saw a redshirted<br />
Irishman switching around with an<br />
engine with two driving wheels on each side,<br />
about the size of the front wheel of a carriage; the<br />
engine was minus brakes and could only be<br />
stopped by placing chunks of wood in front of the<br />
wheels. The writer thought he would give the<br />
world if he could just run that engine like that<br />
red-shirted Irishman.<br />
The engine gave a long whistle about the<br />
time we arrived and caused many runaways.<br />
Poor Bill Long’s horse threw him and caused<br />
him to be laid up for several hours; he<br />
came around all right that evening and was<br />
carried home….<br />
Other towns along the line also became official<br />
“stops” for the new railroad. “Lovejoy’s Station”<br />
was south of Jonesboro, and to the north, the<br />
trains paused at “Morrow’s Station,” then “Quick<br />
Station,” which is now in Forest Park, and finally<br />
at “Rough & Ready.”<br />
When Lovejoy Station developed as an early<br />
stop on the old Macon and Western line, the<br />
nearby town was known as Fosterville. The<br />
Lovejoy name, which appears about 1850,<br />
probably derived from James Lovejoy, one of<br />
several prosperous planters who lived in the<br />
area. It was the location of a strong position held<br />
by Confederate forces against the onslaught that<br />
destroyed the town of Jonesboro. The scene of<br />
the Battle of Lovejoy’s Station once included the<br />
substantial earthworks that frustrated attacks by<br />
Federal forces, but is now largely occupied by<br />
residential development. After the fall of<br />
Atlanta, General Hood’s forces regrouped there<br />
❖<br />
Above: Pioneers began with simple log<br />
houses. This log kitchen was relocated<br />
to the grounds of Stately Oaks<br />
Plantation in Jonesboro. The fireplace<br />
is of modern construction.<br />
PHOTO BY JIM KEMP.<br />
Below: Early Settlers of <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong>—a partial list.<br />
SOME EARLY SETTLERS OF CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
A. Y. Adamson, G. W. Adamson, N. C. Adamson, Patrick H. Allen, Thomas<br />
Byrne, Abner Camp, W. W. Camp, William Carter, W. Y. Conine, James B.<br />
Cooke, James Daniel, James Davis, Stephen G. Dorsey, James H. Chapman,<br />
John Chislum, Phillip Fitzgerald, Elijah Glass, J. J. Hanes, John M. Hine,<br />
Andrew L. Hint, James B. Key, Luke Johnson, Thomas Johnson, Robert Leak,<br />
Zachariah Mann, James McConnel, Thomas Moore, R.E. Morrow, A. J.<br />
Mundy, John Stanley, Moab Stephens, J. B. Tanner, and Peter Y. Ward,<br />
Columbus Watson, Jack Wilburn, and Thomas Wilburn<br />
Chapter I ✦ 9
❖<br />
Above: Published in 1893, the<br />
boundary lines shown on this map do<br />
not conform exactly to those on more<br />
official maps, but it clearly shows the<br />
major towns and their relationship to<br />
the railroads of the day.<br />
MAP BY WALTER H. GRANT, THE CLAYTON<br />
COUNTY ANNUAL NO.1, (1893). COURTESY OF<br />
THE CLAYTON COUNTY MAIN LIBRARY<br />
GENEALOGY COLLECTION.<br />
Top, right: The Talmadge-Crawford<br />
Plantation, located in Lovejoy, which<br />
was where the Confederate forces<br />
regrouped after being forced out<br />
of Atlanta.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Right: Before the development of Forest<br />
Park, this area of the county was rural.<br />
Several generations of the Kennedy<br />
family lived on a farm close to the<br />
present day Farmer’s Market; William<br />
T. Montgomery Kennedy and his wife<br />
Mary “Molly” Herrin Kennedy hold<br />
two of their grandchildren.<br />
COURTESY OF ELAINE THAMES.<br />
at the Crawford-Talmadge Plantation.<br />
Although the town has been recognized<br />
as a named place since the earliest days<br />
of the railroad, it was not incorporated<br />
as a city until 1970.<br />
In the years between 1827 and 1843,<br />
the state had issued thirteen land lot<br />
grants in the general area of present-day<br />
Morrow, which takes its name from an<br />
early settler, Radford E. Morrow. Among<br />
his many interests, he owned a thousand<br />
acre plantation and operated a mill,<br />
which was situated on “Lake Harbin,”<br />
which gave its name to a still-existing street. The<br />
wealthy planter lived in a twelve-room house<br />
with four white columns, located near the<br />
present Morrow City Hall at the corner of<br />
Morrow Road and Georgia Highway 54. The<br />
house was destroyed during the fighting in the<br />
area during the Civil War. However, the area<br />
close to the railroad stop continued to develop<br />
into a small settlement, serving farmers in the<br />
area who grew cotton and tobacco. The “Red<br />
Store,” a general merchandise establishment<br />
founded during Reconstruction, did business<br />
until 1952.<br />
Quick Station, the next stop on the line into<br />
Atlanta, was located at a village then called Astor.<br />
Before the Civil War, there had been a “Hardshell”<br />
Baptist church in the area, which left behind the<br />
Elam Church Cemetery. Astor had a one-room<br />
school house and only a few residents at the turn<br />
of the twentieth century, when the Central of<br />
Georgia railroad bought two hundred acres of<br />
land close to the Astor stop, which they renamed<br />
Forest Station. The railroad laid out streets and<br />
sold off residential lots. This took place at a time<br />
when residential suburbs, served by streetcars,<br />
had begun to appear on the outskirts of larger<br />
American cities. Evidently the railroad had this<br />
trend in mind when it created a development<br />
called Forrest Park; one inducement to<br />
purchasers with interests in Atlanta was the<br />
promise of the “Accommodation Train” that soon<br />
acquired the nickname, “The Dummy.” The<br />
creation of Forrest Park (in 1952 the city charter<br />
adjusted the spelling of the name to Forest Park)<br />
can be understood as an early step in the<br />
suburbanization of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. However, it<br />
is not purely residential. The modern Atlanta<br />
Farmer’s Market is within the boundaries of<br />
Forest Park.<br />
The colorful name of the last stop before<br />
Atlanta was “Rough and Ready.” The name did<br />
not describe the character of the town, but was<br />
chosen to honor Zachary “Old Rough and Ready”<br />
Taylor, a hero of the Mexican-American War of<br />
1845; he also was briefly President of the United<br />
States, but died a few weeks after his<br />
inauguration. The colorful name vanished from<br />
the maps when its residents incorporated in 1949<br />
and opted for the more elegant name “Mountain<br />
View.” Because of its close proximity to the everexpanding<br />
airport, the area became<br />
uninhabitable as a residential location; the town<br />
has vanished.<br />
Nineteenth-century Georgians centered much<br />
of their lives around the church, so the<br />
appearance of churches in Jonesboro reflects the<br />
growth of a true community. The Ebenezer<br />
Church relocated to Jonesboro, becoming the<br />
Jonesboro Methodist Church in 1845; for the<br />
next decade it provided the town’s cemetery. One<br />
of the earliest local congregations, the Flint River<br />
Baptist Church, met from 1825 to 1859 in the<br />
area of Hynds Spring before moving to<br />
Jonesboro. The Philadelphia Presbyterian Church<br />
kept its place several miles north of town, but in<br />
1879 the Jonesboro Presbyterian church came<br />
10 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
into being. Episcopalians in Jonesboro were<br />
part of the Parish of St. Philip in Atlanta; one of<br />
its original vestrymen was a Jonesboro resident,<br />
Guy Lewis Warren. The Episcopal Diocese of<br />
Georgia established a missionary station in<br />
Jonesboro, but the area’s Episcopalians—and the<br />
lone Catholic family—traveled by train into<br />
Atlanta to attend services.<br />
The railroad line where Lovejoy, Jonesboro,<br />
Morrow and other villages were emerging ran<br />
close to the border between Fayette and Henry<br />
Counties. Important business needed to be<br />
transacted at county seats some distance away, so<br />
citizens on both sides of this line began a<br />
campaign for the creation of a new county that<br />
would better serve their needs. In response a<br />
legislative act of November 30, 1858, joined a<br />
portion of Henry <strong>County</strong> to a smaller part of<br />
Fayette to create the new <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. Its<br />
name honors the memory of Augustin Smith<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong>, who was a distinguished Georgia jurist<br />
and member of Congress although he had no<br />
particular personal association with the new<br />
county. He had died in Athens, Georgia. In<br />
January, 1859, the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> government<br />
was established. The citizens chose James F.<br />
Johnson as their first state Senator and Elijah<br />
Glass as the first Representative. Jonesboro,<br />
named as the county seat, incorporated on<br />
December 13 of the same year, under the<br />
leadership of six commissioners: Dr. James B. Key,<br />
Sanford D. Johnson, Guy Lewis Warren, Joshua J.<br />
Hanes, William H. Sharp, Robert Holliday and<br />
James Alford. The county built a courthouse,<br />
facing the railroad, near the depot. This building,<br />
now a Masonic Hall, has survived the years and<br />
now has its address on McDonough Street.<br />
Although the old Leaksville Academy had long<br />
vanished, the town boasted several schools for its<br />
white children, (Sources variously claim seven to<br />
ten schools and number the children at more than<br />
650.) One hundred twenty-two of the children<br />
were enrolled in the <strong>Clayton</strong> High School, which<br />
was organized by Allen D. Candler, a future<br />
governor of the state. Commercial establishments<br />
lined Broadway, the central street of the town.<br />
There was no bank, but one merchant, Thomas<br />
Byrne, allowed local planters and merchants to<br />
store their cash in his large safe until they were able<br />
to take the train to Atlanta to make their deposits.<br />
Colonel James F. Johnson established a cotton gin<br />
(which passed through several hands in the<br />
following years). A tannery belonging to Radford<br />
Morrow was located somewhat behind the site of<br />
the present 1898 courthouse; other commercial<br />
undertakings included a carriage factory, a steampowered<br />
saw and grist mill, a hotel and livery<br />
stable, and numerous general merchants.<br />
Craftsmen of every sort plied their trades in the<br />
county; blacksmiths, carriage makers, stonecutters<br />
and masons, carpenters, woodworkers, and<br />
painters, and boot and shoe makers. There were<br />
clerks and clergymen, lawyers and physicians,<br />
including one who specialized in a “water cure.”<br />
Surprisingly, the town also was the home of a<br />
distiller. It was owned by the Reverend William<br />
Moseley, organizing minister of the First (formerly<br />
Flint River) Baptist Church, although he kept the<br />
❖<br />
Left: Drawn in 1867, eight years after<br />
the General Assembly created <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> out of parts of Henry and<br />
Fayette Counties, this map represents<br />
the county shortly after the Civil War.<br />
“Map of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.”<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES, COUNTY<br />
MAPS COLLECTION, RG 3-9-66.<br />
Above: Three unidentified <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> Masons posed for this<br />
photograph about 1849.<br />
COURTESY OF GEORGIA ARCHIVES, VANISHING<br />
GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLT010.<br />
FIRST CLAYTON COUNTY OFFICIALS<br />
Robert K. Holliday, clerk, Superior Court; A. J. Hayes, clerk, Inferior<br />
Court; James McConnell, ordinary (now called probate judge); William<br />
Gunter, tax receiver; Jefferson Kirkland, tax collector; B. W. Bonner, surveyor;<br />
and James H. Waldrop, sheriff. (His cousin, James L. Waldrop also lived in<br />
Jonesboro, and the two were frequently confused for one another in written<br />
sources.) <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>’s first state senator was Colonel James F. Johnson,<br />
and its first representative in the General Assembly was Elijah Glass.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 11
ANTEBELLUM<br />
ENTREPRENEURS<br />
Patrick H. Allen, James B. Betts, William O. Betts, Britton W. Brasell, Jabez<br />
Brasell, Phillip H. Brassell, Andrew J. Brown, James E. Brumblo, Thomas<br />
Byrne, The Reverend Joshua S. Callaway, Joseph Camp, Allen D. Candler,<br />
Stephen Carnes, John M. Chapman, William H. Chapman, Aaron E. Cloud,<br />
D. Columbus, S. B. Crawford, James Davis, Milligan B. DeVaughn, G. W.<br />
Dobbs, John M. Dorsey, John C. Ellington, K. C. Ellington, L. M. Farmer,<br />
Thomas Fayette, Samuel Fuller, David Hanes, James Hanes, W. H. Hilliard,<br />
Robert Holliday, Robert K. Holliday, Nathaniel G. Hudson, L. C. Hutcheson,<br />
William Jackson, J. F. Johnson, J. H. Johnson, Sanford D. Johnson, Jacob F.<br />
Lasseter, William C. Lee, James L. Lovejoy, A. J. McBride, W. J. Morris, Wilson<br />
L. Morris, Colonel Radford E. Morrow, James H. Morrow, William W. Neal,<br />
George M. Nolan, Quine R. Nolan, Seth W. Parham, Samuel G. Pegg, John B.<br />
Powell, Henry Sanders, A. F. Sears, J. W. Smith, W. Smith, D. Y. Tomlinson, E.<br />
M. Tomlinson, E. S. Tomlinson, T. M. Tomlinson, Allen W. Turner, Dr. J. A.<br />
Turner, Richard H. Waters, Henry Widener, George S. Williamson<br />
offending equipment on property he owned in<br />
Spalding <strong>County</strong>. The Sons of Temperance<br />
organization sought to prevent his election to the<br />
state Senate on those grounds, but Moseley’s<br />
argument was that morality was a private and<br />
individual matter that could not be legislated. He<br />
firmly supported the separation of church and<br />
state.<br />
To be sure, Jonesboro was no longer a “wide<br />
spot in the road,” but had become a proper town,<br />
with a bright future in view as the center of a<br />
thriving agricultural community; many of those<br />
who operated businesses in the town also were<br />
farmers. However, of the total population of the<br />
county, slightly more than one-quarter were<br />
slaves. There was one free man of color living in<br />
the area.<br />
In the first half of the nineteenth century,<br />
agriculture in Georgia always entailed the use of<br />
slave labor. In some parts of Georgia, huge<br />
plantations used workers by the hundreds, but<br />
this was not the case in the Piedmont area, where<br />
the soils were less productive. Certainly, none of<br />
the households in <strong>Clayton</strong> had the gigantic work<br />
forces that the popular imagination—and<br />
Hollywood—mistakenly think of as typical of<br />
southern plantations. The custom of the time set<br />
the owner of about 20 or more slaves as<br />
substantially well-to-do. Lists compiled from tax<br />
and census records for 1860 reveal that in the<br />
years immediately before the civil War most of<br />
the county’s 171 slave owners controlled fewer<br />
than five persons, with only 15 individuals falling<br />
in the category of the “large” holder of 20 or<br />
more. The greatest number of slaves held by<br />
individuals in this list was in the hands of<br />
planters S. B. Gay (39) and S. G. Dorsey (38).<br />
From historical sources, we learn that it was not<br />
unusual for ordinary owners to do field work<br />
along with enslaved farmhands from time to<br />
time. This would have been closer to life in the<br />
real <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> than in its Hollywood<br />
counterpart in the movie Gone with the Wind.<br />
WAR BETWEEN THE STATES<br />
As farmers and townsmen met in Jonesboro’s<br />
stores and taverns, talk turned increasingly to<br />
issues that threatened to split the nation. These<br />
included conflicts relating to slavery, issues of<br />
taxation, and a profound disagreement over<br />
constitutional principles regarding the sovereignty<br />
of the states vis-à-vis the national government.<br />
Although slavery had existed in all of the<br />
original colonies, geographic and economic<br />
conditions did not promote its continued use in<br />
the northern regions, so it virtually disappeared<br />
in those states. Meanwhile, the increasing<br />
production of cotton intensified the use of<br />
slave labor in the South. On the whole,<br />
Northerners paid little attention to the “peculiar<br />
institution,” and in point of fact, the American<br />
textile industry purchased its raw materials<br />
from Southern producers. However, a small but<br />
vociferous abolition movement slowly gained<br />
ground, and the anti-slavery cause obtained<br />
additional support from the “Free Soil” advocates<br />
of the middle west. They feared the expansion<br />
of slavery into new territories because they did<br />
not want to compete economically with<br />
enterprises operated with unpaid workers. Thus<br />
on both economic and cultural grounds, the<br />
agrarian South and the urban North became<br />
increasingly polarized.<br />
Other differences were political. For the first<br />
half of the Nineteenth Century, Southerners had<br />
effectively held their own in national politics.<br />
They won the right to expand slavery into any<br />
territory, and made it possible for each new<br />
state added to the Union to choose to legalize<br />
slavery within its borders. After 1850, United<br />
States Marshals were required to assist in<br />
12 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
eturning escaped slaves to their owners. On the<br />
other hand, Southerners resented certain<br />
national policies such as the use of import taxes<br />
to protect American producers from their<br />
foreign competitors. Such taxation increased<br />
prices for American consumers of manufactured<br />
goods, and tempted other nations to retaliate<br />
with their own tariff barriers, which would<br />
threaten the export-based Southern economy.<br />
Furthermore, in spite of a generally strong<br />
Southern political position, changes in the<br />
nation’s demographics continued to shift the<br />
weight of the electorate toward non-Southern<br />
areas. Looming in the future was the possibility of<br />
a national government no longer responsive to<br />
Southern interests—not just with regard to<br />
slavery, but also on points such as the tariff.<br />
Southerners foresaw the possibility that these<br />
shifts in political power might lead to a national<br />
abolition of slavery, the ruin of their economic<br />
arrangements and the end of their customary<br />
ways of life.<br />
These disputes point to a more profound,<br />
fundamental disagreement over the very nature<br />
of the “more perfect union” created by the<br />
ratification of the Constitution in 1787. One<br />
faction of Americans held that the union, once<br />
created, was permanent and indivisible. Others<br />
held that although the states were the building<br />
blocks of that union, they had preserved their<br />
right to self-determination. In general, this was a<br />
North-South division of opinion and it was this<br />
point of controversy that came to be tested when<br />
the Southern States determined to claim their<br />
right to secede from the Union. Heated<br />
discussion of all of these matters was heard<br />
throughout the South, in state capitals as well as<br />
country towns such as Jonesboro.<br />
The election of 1860 saw the division of the<br />
Democratic Party into northern and southern<br />
factions that each nominated Presidential<br />
candidates. The Republicans, who previously<br />
nominated strongly abolitionist candidates,<br />
turned to Abraham Lincoln because he had<br />
expressed relatively moderate views for the future<br />
of slavery in the U.S. Furthermore, some<br />
Southerners formed a new Constitutional Union<br />
party that hoped to defend traditional Southern<br />
interests while preserving national unity. A<br />
majority of electoral votes in the resulting fourway<br />
contest brought victory to the Republicans,<br />
although only about forty percent of the popular<br />
vote went to Lincoln.<br />
The election results would have arrived in<br />
Jonesboro quickly, via the telegraph that always<br />
came along with the new railroads. The<br />
Republican Party may have thought of Lincoln as<br />
a moderate; Southerners saw him differently. To<br />
a great many of them, the Republican victory<br />
was the last straw. As secession movements<br />
swept the South, Georgia’s governor called for a<br />
convention in Milledgeville to consider the<br />
possibility of Georgia’s leaving the Union. At<br />
first, support for the proposal was not<br />
overwhelming. In the recent election, slightly<br />
fewer than half of all Georgians had voted for the<br />
Southern Democratic candidate, which meant<br />
that they would support secession, while over<br />
forty percent had supported the Constitutional<br />
Union Party, which opposed secession. (A small<br />
number voted for the Northern Democratic<br />
candidate; it could go without saying that<br />
❖<br />
Surviving portion of a map showing<br />
“Parts of Fulton, Fayette, <strong>Clayton</strong>,<br />
and Campbell counties, Georgia,<br />
made from surveys and information<br />
at Topographical Engineering Office,<br />
Department of the Cumberland,<br />
before Atlanta, Ga. August 23rd<br />
1864.” Principal roads are colored in<br />
red, by hand. Also visible are pencil<br />
notes made for use of the Federal<br />
forces in the campaign to destroy the<br />
railroads that supplied Atlanta from<br />
the south.<br />
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,<br />
GEOGRAPHY AND MAP DIVISION, CIVIL WAR MAPS.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 13
❖<br />
Above: Every Southerner did not favor<br />
secession, but when the decision was<br />
final, they put aside their differences.<br />
Two men take part in the annual reenactment<br />
of the Battle of Jonesboro.<br />
COURTESY OF CLAYTON COUNTY CONVENTION<br />
AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Below: These men reenacting the<br />
Battle of Jonesboro resemble the<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> volunteers who<br />
joined the Confederate forces to<br />
defend their homes.<br />
COURTESY OF CLAYTON COUNTY CONVENTION<br />
AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Lincoln was not on the ballot.) <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
opinion broke on similar lines in the presidential<br />
vote, and the county’s two delegates to the<br />
secession convention represented opposite<br />
positions. James F. Johnson voted for secession<br />
while Radford E. Morrow was opposed.<br />
However, after the convention voted in<br />
January 1861 to adopt an Ordinance of<br />
Secession, <strong>Clayton</strong> residents accepted the<br />
decision and prepared for war. Certain citizens of<br />
the county, possibly looking toward the future,<br />
had already organized a militia called the<br />
“<strong>Clayton</strong> Volunteers” in 1859. Members were<br />
exempted from patrol, road, and jury duty,<br />
according to the petition for recognition that they<br />
presented to the Superior Court of the county. At<br />
the actual outbreak of hostilities, the men of the<br />
county formed other military units, including the<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Invincibles, the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
Dragoons, and the Estes’ Guards. Other local<br />
men joined units organized in nearby areas or<br />
entered the military as individuals. By the end of<br />
the war virtually every able-bodied man in the<br />
county saw service.<br />
Deep in the South, Georgia was the<br />
breadbasket of the Confederacy; furthermore, the<br />
new city of Atlanta had begun to develop as one<br />
of the few Confederate manufacturing centers.<br />
These two factors made the region a significant<br />
military objective. However, the first years of the<br />
war touched <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> only indirectly. Men<br />
marched away to fight while women did their<br />
best to keep things going at home. Radford E.<br />
Morrow, the prosperous planter who gave his<br />
name to the next stop after Jonesboro on the<br />
railroad to Atlanta, owned a tannery and served<br />
as a government contractor producing shoes and<br />
other leather goods for the Confederate military.<br />
As was true of much of rural Georgia, <strong>Clayton</strong>’s<br />
greatest contribution to the war was fighting men<br />
and food supplies.<br />
Over the years between 1861 and 1864, the<br />
overmatched Southern economy and<br />
outnumbered military proved unable to stop the<br />
advancing Federal forces. William Tecumseh<br />
Sherman’s implacable campaigning brought the<br />
armies of Ohio, the Cumberland, and Tennessee<br />
into Georgia in the summer of 1864. As the battle<br />
lines moved southward, the city of Atlanta<br />
14 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
fortified its boundaries and prepared for the<br />
coming siege. The Confederate leadership<br />
replaced their commander in the area with<br />
General John Bell Hood, a Texan. General<br />
Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee and began a<br />
two-month campaign to take the city.<br />
Several rail lines now radiated from the center<br />
of Atlanta. Federal Forces cut off the Georgia<br />
Railroad breaking the link to Charleston, South<br />
Carolina. The remaining lifeline of the beleaguered<br />
city ran to the south. The Macon and Western<br />
Railroad passed from Atlanta to the town of East<br />
Point, then through the heart of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
and onward, all the way to Florida. At East Point,<br />
the Atlanta and West Point line branched away to<br />
the southwest, toward Alabama. These lines<br />
funneled Confederate supplies and troops into the<br />
heart of the besieged city.<br />
General Sherman recognized that taking East<br />
Point, where the two lines joined, would cut off<br />
the city’s last sources of supply. In July he ordered<br />
a cavalry raid against that key railroad<br />
intersection and other areas south of the city of<br />
Atlanta. The Confederates put up a vigorous<br />
defense of the region. A battle at Ezra Church<br />
resulted in the capture of five hundred Federal<br />
troops and one of their commanders, Major<br />
General George Stoneman.<br />
The Federal forces also moved against the<br />
railroad line that cut through <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Confederate Brigadier General Francis A. Shoup<br />
described the action in his journal. “The<br />
enemy…hurried on striking the Macon and<br />
Western Railroad about four miles and a half<br />
below Jonesborough.” Confederate forces were<br />
dispatched to resist; and “…within three hours…<br />
a telegram was received reporting their arrival at<br />
Jonesborough.” Faced with resistance, “….the<br />
enemy abandoned his work of destruction and<br />
retired…the damage to the road is but slight.”<br />
About a mile and a half of tracks and a mile of<br />
telegraph wire had been destroyed. Shoup<br />
cheerfully quoted Confederate General Wheeler’s<br />
dispatch from Newnan, “We have just completed<br />
the killing, capturing, and breaking up of the<br />
entire raiding party….”<br />
Although the Federal forces damaged the<br />
Atlanta and West Point tracks near the Alabama<br />
❖<br />
Left: Confederate forces successfully<br />
rebuffed the first Federal attempts to<br />
take the railroads in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Scene from the annual reenactment of<br />
the Battle of Jonesboro.<br />
COURTESY OF CLAYTON COUNTY CONVENTION<br />
AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Below: The small pencil rectangle<br />
near the printed “Jonesboro” symbol<br />
probably represents the depot, a key<br />
objective for the Federal forces.<br />
Detail from “Parts of Fulton, Fayette,<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong>, and Campbell counties,<br />
Georgia, made from surveys and<br />
information at Topographical<br />
Engineering Office, Department of the<br />
Cumberland, before Atlanta, Ga.<br />
August 23rd 1864.”<br />
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,<br />
GEOGRAPHY AND MAP DIVISION, CIVIL WAR MAPS.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 15
❖<br />
Above: Military camp with supply<br />
wagons near area of present-day<br />
Forest Park, 1864.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLT049-84.<br />
Below: Rough and Ready survives on<br />
the tattered edge of a Federal map<br />
used in the movements through<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. “Parts of Fulton,<br />
Fayette, <strong>Clayton</strong>, and Campbell<br />
counties, Georgia, made from surveys<br />
and information at Topographical<br />
Engineering Office, Department of the<br />
Cumberland, before Atlanta, Ga.<br />
August 23rd 1864.”<br />
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,<br />
GEOGRAPHY AND MAP DIVISION, CIVIL WAR MAPS.<br />
border, a greater effort would be<br />
required to deprive Atlanta of its<br />
railroad lifeline. Sherman was<br />
persistent; his next attempt began<br />
on August 18. Major General<br />
Judson Kilpatrick led twenty-five<br />
hundred Federal cavalry around<br />
the western side of Atlanta and<br />
down into <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, falling<br />
upon a poorly defended<br />
Jonesboro. They ripped out a<br />
section of tracks and set the station<br />
and several nearby buildings ablaze. High winds<br />
spread the flames, destroying about two-thirds of<br />
the town. The Federal forces then started a<br />
second attack, on Lovejoy’s Station, but were<br />
frustrated by well entrenched Confederates and<br />
were turned back. They circled back by way of<br />
McDonough to the Federal position in Decatur,<br />
where their commander pronounced the<br />
Jonesboro adventure a success. However,<br />
Kilpatrick’s triumphant return was dampened<br />
within a matter of days, when trains from the<br />
south once again were seen steaming into the city.<br />
General Sherman ratcheted up his plans of<br />
attack. He began on August 26, by moving the<br />
bulk of his forces back across the Chattahoochee,<br />
giving Confederate commander Hood the<br />
impression that the invading army was retiring to<br />
regroup and resupply. In fact, only the XX corps<br />
remained to guard the crossing over the river,<br />
while the rest of Sherman’s forces executed a<br />
grand wheel around the western side of Atlanta.<br />
On August 28 and 29 Union forces wrecked the<br />
West Point Railroad in the area of Red Oak and<br />
Fairburn; on the afternoon of the following<br />
day they drove into the heart of <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> toward Jonesboro. Confederate General<br />
Hood first learned of troop<br />
movements below the city in<br />
reports of a skirmish close to<br />
the city, in the area of Rough<br />
and Ready station. He<br />
mistakenly concluded that the<br />
main attack would be directed<br />
at that place and also<br />
underestimated the size of the<br />
Federal force. Hood’s errors of<br />
judgment, a lack of accurate<br />
intelligence and poor<br />
organization combined to<br />
weaken the Confederate defense fatally. The<br />
Confederate commander did dispatch two Corps<br />
by train to Jonesboro, where the battle was<br />
joined. These defenders fought courageously, but<br />
they lacked supplies and equipment.<br />
A Union sharpshooter watched the town<br />
of Jonesboro from a position high in a tree.<br />
Lt. Fish, who was “on my tree at 7 am” spent<br />
the entire day there, observing and periodically<br />
reporting. He saw the Confederates building<br />
a second line of earthworks while three<br />
regiments of infantry moved in to reinforce the<br />
defenses of the town. Two trains steamed toward<br />
Macon, and as fighting went on, he watched a<br />
herd of beef cattle moving through the town.<br />
From his perch in the tree he guided<br />
a battery of napoleon guns to find the range<br />
of the Confederate works and force their<br />
defenders away.<br />
Intense fighting marked the day. The<br />
Confederates attempted unsuccessfully to take<br />
the fight to their adversaries, at one point<br />
charging up towards a fortified position on the<br />
crest of a ridge where they came within pistol<br />
shot distance before being driven back. Later in<br />
the day hand-to-hand combat could only delay<br />
the Union advance. Much activity took place in<br />
the area of the two-story Warren House. One of<br />
the few large structures that survived early raids<br />
on Jonesboro, the large white house was highly<br />
visible in the area of the final battle; at various<br />
times it was a headquarters for both the<br />
Confederate and Union forces. As night fell, the<br />
Confederates found themselves nearly<br />
surrounded; under cover of darkness, they<br />
moved southward from Jonesboro to the<br />
strong point at Lovejoy; the Battle of Jonesboro<br />
was over.<br />
Loss of the railroad forced General Hood to<br />
abandon Atlanta. The Union forces near Lovejoy<br />
did not pursue their adversaries at this point,<br />
but marched back through Jonesboro to claim<br />
their prize. On September 2, Atlanta’s Mayor<br />
Calhoun officially handed over the city to the<br />
Union commander.<br />
Having taken his objective, General Sherman<br />
was determined that the railroad would not be<br />
quickly repaired this time. Regiments lined up<br />
along the tracks and lifted miles of rails from the<br />
roadbed. Then they pulled out the ties, piled<br />
then up and set them afire. In these fires, they<br />
16 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
heated the rails until they could be twisted<br />
around trees or posts to make “Sherman’s<br />
hairpins.” Even this destruction was not<br />
enough—the occupying army also cut through<br />
the road bed itself and booby-trapped the cuts<br />
with artillery shells hidden in piles of brush.<br />
General Sherman wired Washington, “Atlanta<br />
is ours and fairly won.” He then proceeded to<br />
make that possession complete by expelling the<br />
city’s residents, writing to the Confederate<br />
commander, General Hood:<br />
GENERAL: I have deemed it to the<br />
interest of the United States that the citizens<br />
now residing in Atlanta should remove,<br />
those who prefer it to go south and the<br />
rest north…. For [those who choose to go<br />
south] I can provide transportation by cars as<br />
far as Rough and Ready, and also wagons;…. it<br />
will be necessary for you to help the families<br />
from Rough and Ready to the cars at Lovejoy’s.<br />
… If this proposition meets your views I will<br />
consent to a truce in the neighborhood of Rough<br />
and Ready,…”<br />
Sherman deflected protests from General<br />
Hood and from the Mayor of the city:<br />
“You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm<br />
as against these terrible hardships of<br />
war. They are inevitable….” At the Rough and<br />
Ready station (adjacent to the present-day<br />
airport), wagons picked up the civilian refugees<br />
and hauled them to the new “terminus” of<br />
the rail line about forty miles to the south at<br />
the town of Griffin. Thus <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
witnessed one of the last, sad scenes in the<br />
battle for Atlanta, as the citizens of the captured<br />
city set out on the search for sanctuary, farther<br />
to the south.<br />
Sherman’s men, following their practice of<br />
ruthless foraging, passed through <strong>Clayton</strong> one<br />
last time as they moved out on their “March to<br />
the Sea.” In Jonesboro troops commanded by<br />
Union General Kilpatrick encountered<br />
Confederate cavalry under the command of<br />
General Alfred Iverson. They carried on a<br />
running battle all the way to Lovejoy where<br />
entrenched Confederate forces resisted before<br />
being forced further to the south. Kilpatrick’s<br />
forces did not pursue them further, but turned<br />
toward Savannah to take their part in Sherman’s<br />
campaign through Georgia.<br />
As this struggle had raged about him, one<br />
young Confederate feared that a military loss<br />
might also cause the loss of his deeply cherished<br />
connection to the Sigma Chi fraternity, which he<br />
had joined while a student at the University of<br />
Virginia. The fraternity had its origins in Ohio,<br />
and secession seemed likely to separate its<br />
southern members forever. Harry St. John<br />
Dixon determined to take action:<br />
In the ruin at hand my sentiment was to preserve<br />
the lofty principles typified by the White<br />
Cross. I know that I had no authority to establish<br />
a chapter of Sigma Chi outside a college, or at<br />
all; but, isolated as we were, I thought I should<br />
raise the standard and fix a rallying point. By so<br />
doing, we should preserve the order, whether we<br />
failed or not in our struggle for independence.<br />
Dixon and a few other members of the<br />
fraternity gathered in an abandoned building<br />
on September 17 to create the Constantine<br />
❖<br />
Above: A portrait of Harry St. John<br />
Dixon during his service in the<br />
Confederate military.<br />
COURTESY OF THE SIGMA CHI<br />
INTERNATIONAL FRATERNITY.<br />
Below: Built by G. A. Warren in 1840,<br />
the Warren House served as a field<br />
hospital for the wounded of the 52nd<br />
Illinois Regiment of Dilworth’s<br />
Brigade. According to some accounts<br />
it was a grisly scene immediately after<br />
the battle, with amputated limbs and<br />
corpses heaped in the yard. Soldiers<br />
being treated in the house wrote<br />
their names on some of the interior<br />
walls; some of these remain in an<br />
upstairs room.<br />
Chapter I ✦ 17
❖<br />
Left on their own, Southern women<br />
had to adjust to harsh conditions<br />
during and immediately after the war.<br />
History lovers who recreate the battle<br />
of Jonesboro each year do not forget<br />
the contributions of these women to<br />
the war.<br />
COURTESY OF CLAYTON COUNTY CONVENTION<br />
AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Chapter and initiate a few new members,<br />
fabricating the fraternal badge from a silver<br />
dollar. The Constantine Chapter functioned<br />
only briefly before the stresses of reconstruction<br />
led to its dissolution, although a monument<br />
commemorating the chapter has been placed in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
The Federal strategy to destroy the last<br />
sources of supply for the Confederate army left<br />
the county destitute. One eighty-year-old<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> woman, who had been in her<br />
early teens at the time of the battle and<br />
subsequent occupation of the county, told her<br />
story to her son, Robert O. Huie. When word<br />
arrived of the imminent arrival of the troops<br />
who were beginning the historic “March to the<br />
Sea,” the mother of the family at first thought<br />
to escape. Two servants who had remained<br />
with her hitched up a wagon, but as the<br />
loading proceeded she became so overwhelmed<br />
that she fainted. When she was aroused,<br />
she calmly changed her mind, had the<br />
wagon unloaded, determined to stay in<br />
her home. Behind locked doors and windows,<br />
the mother and children watched as the<br />
first columns of troops passed by without<br />
pausing. The next night, however, “half a<br />
dozen big, rough fellows” intruded into<br />
the house. The young girl was frightened but<br />
one of the men reassured her, “Sissy, we won’t<br />
hurt you,” and stood guard over her while the<br />
other men looted the house. The following day,<br />
her mother stopped some passing Union officers<br />
to complain of the incident; a guard was posted<br />
at her door for as long as troops remained<br />
encamped in the area. The Federal soldiers<br />
came to the family’s well for water and gave the<br />
mother and children a few small gifts of coffee,<br />
sugar, rice and crackers before going on their<br />
way. The father of the family had been away in<br />
the army, and Mrs. Huie remembered the day of<br />
his return:<br />
And finally Father came—weary and footsore,<br />
his clothes in tatters, almost barefoot, face<br />
emaciated but lighted with a happy smile. I shall<br />
never forget that day. Years seemed to be<br />
magically lifted from Mother’s shoulders, though<br />
when she first beheld the gaunt, pathetic sight<br />
approaching with dragging footsteps, she could<br />
not restrain a few tears.<br />
In honor of the occasion we sacrificed the last<br />
fowl on the place and feasted on chicken pie. Our<br />
hearts welled up in gratitude to the kind<br />
Providence that had preserved him, while so<br />
many of our friends came home with empty<br />
sleeves, or artificial limbs, and many did not come<br />
back at all.<br />
I am now 80 years of age, but I remember<br />
those dark days almost as well as the events of<br />
last year.<br />
Other Confederates who survived the<br />
struggle also made the long journey back to<br />
home and family. The descendants of James T.<br />
Thames recount the family story that when he<br />
returned to this house he did not enter, but<br />
called out for his wife and asked her to bring<br />
soap, matches, and a clean change of clothes to<br />
a little stream near their home. He was so dirty<br />
and infested with lice that he did not want to<br />
enter his home until he had bathed and burned<br />
the garments he had worn through the last<br />
campaigns of the war.<br />
In the county seat of Jonesboro only a<br />
handful of structures survived. Some who left<br />
as refugees never returned, but the citizens<br />
of the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> who remained now<br />
faced the task of rebuilding their lives under<br />
military occupation.<br />
18 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
CHAPTER II<br />
The war left <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> in ruins. The county seat, Jonesboro, lost all but a handful of<br />
structures. The railroad that had run down the middle of Broadway through the town’s business<br />
district was destroyed, along with the depot that had served it. The businesses that lined this main<br />
street had all been burned as had the county courthouse. Many families, displaced by war, never<br />
returned, although a few established planters began to rebuild their fortunes and to diversify their<br />
interests by investing in various other businesses.<br />
Surviving Confederate veterans turned homeward to face the task of rebuilding their lives and<br />
fortunes faced forging a new relationship with the labor force. This process was shaped by a federal<br />
agency, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the<br />
Freedmen’s Bureau. Congress created the bureau to assist the newly freed slaves in dealing with the<br />
system of wage labor and in solving some other social problems. Bureau agent J. L. H. Waldrop<br />
represented the agency, opening his office in Jonesboro; his service represents the tactful approach of<br />
the early leadership of the Bureau. Waldrop was actually a Confederate veteran and a citizen of the<br />
town, appointed with the goal of making relations between the Bureau and local citizens run more<br />
smoothly. From his base, he served <strong>Clayton</strong>, Fayette and Campbell counties. Waldrop dutifully<br />
reported in writing to his superiors in Atlanta and Washington, so Freedmen’s Bureau records<br />
preserve many examples of his activity. In one case, the bureau created a system of apprenticeship<br />
for certain African-American children who were placed with persons who were expected to look after<br />
their welfare. In July 1867, Waldrop reported that “W. C. Lee is a responsible man & was kind to his<br />
servants & would comply with his Obligation….” Waldrop himself accepted custody of an 11-yearold<br />
orphaned black child named James Williams, agreeing to care for him humanely and see to his<br />
education. When the boy reached adulthood he petitioned the court to change his surname to<br />
Waldrop, which evidently testifies to his guardian’s care for his well-being.<br />
Promotion of education was one of the most important activities of the Freedmen’s Bureau.<br />
Waldrop organized a freedmen’s school in Jonesboro, obtaining a plot of ground and filing requests<br />
for lumber and nails. According to a summary in the Freedmen’s Bureau records, which now may be<br />
seen in the National Archives, Waldrop “States that the title to the land is good, the amt. already<br />
expended is $50/00. no. of Pupils 75 board can be obtained at $12.50 per month the freedpeople<br />
❖<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> farmers returned to<br />
their customary activities soon after<br />
the war. The loading dock of this gin<br />
house (note the cotton baskets) was at<br />
the corner of Main and College Streets<br />
in Forest Park.<br />
COURTESY VANISHING GEORGIA, GEORGIA<br />
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, OFFICE OF<br />
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 19
❖<br />
Above: J. L. H. Waldrop was a young<br />
Confederate veteran when he served<br />
as a Freedmen’s Bureau agent, with<br />
an office in Jonesboro. He held this<br />
position only briefly, but remained a<br />
respected citizen of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
This portrait was made about 1910.<br />
COURTESY OF JOE MOORE.<br />
Right: The Johnson-Blalock House on<br />
Main Street in Jonesboro, one of the<br />
few surviving antebellum buildings in<br />
the county, was a field hospital for the<br />
casualties of battle of Jonesboro. The<br />
ten-room white clapboard house, built<br />
by General Assembly member J. F.<br />
Johnson, is one of the last residential<br />
structures near the Main Street<br />
business district. In the year 2000, the<br />
87-year-old Mrs. Sam Blalock, who<br />
had moved into the house as a young<br />
bride, told an interviewer that heating<br />
the large house had been a challenge.<br />
“We used to burn 25 tons of coal and<br />
shovel 50 tons of ashes.” She recalled<br />
life on Main Street in earlier times:<br />
“The grocery store delivered the food<br />
to your house. We never locked the<br />
doors and the owner’s son put the<br />
milk and meat in the icebox.”<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
20 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Proposes to raise that amount or more if<br />
necessary.” In other communications, he<br />
struggled with the task of finding a suitable<br />
teacher for this school. However, the presence of<br />
a school for African-American children was too<br />
much for some residents of the area, and the<br />
building was burned. Even though citizens of<br />
Jonesboro offered a reward for the arrest of the<br />
arsonists and also offered help to provide a<br />
temporary schoolhouse, a Freedman’s Bureau<br />
official in Atlanta sniffed that “…I know that<br />
many…at heart rejoice of it.”<br />
Critics of the Bureau’s administration<br />
questioned the loyalty of civilian agents who were<br />
natives of Southern states, claiming that they<br />
tended to favor white citizens of the counties<br />
where they served. The law required that salaried<br />
employees of the Bureau must swear an oath<br />
attesting to their past loyalty to the US; of course,<br />
Confederate veterans such as Waldrop could not<br />
qualify for this oath. At first, the native<br />
Southerners who served as local agents for the<br />
Bureau were allowed to receive their<br />
compensation through a system of fees paid for<br />
their services, such as the reviewing of labor<br />
contracts involving freedpeople. When the<br />
practice of collecting these fees was stopped by<br />
the Bureau, men such as Waldrop, ineligible for a<br />
salaried position, were forced out of the Bureau.<br />
Their replacements seem to have been neither<br />
better nor worse than the native Georgians who<br />
now looked elsewhere for a living. As for<br />
Waldrop, he went on to rebuild his life as a wellrespected<br />
and successful citizen of Jonesboro.<br />
As daily existence settled into a peaceful<br />
mode, a few buildings began to appear on<br />
Broadway, the principal street of Jonesboro. A<br />
new granite depot, located somewhat to the<br />
south of the ruins of the first, took its place in<br />
1867 as a major stop on the line of the<br />
reconstructed railroad. Although the tracks ran<br />
along the original right of way through the<br />
business district, they no longer were level with<br />
the surface of the street as they had been before<br />
Sherman’s troops ripped them out. The new<br />
roadbed was raised and thus divided Broadway<br />
into two parallel thoroughfares. These acquired<br />
the new names of Main and McDonough Streets,<br />
and the old name fell out of use.<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> built a new courthouse on the<br />
foundations of the one destroyed in the battle. An<br />
Atlanta architect was paid the fabulous sum of<br />
$25 for the plans and the local firm of Mansfield<br />
and Chapman put up the building as well as a<br />
one-story jail, finishing the task in 1871. This<br />
same concern constructed several of the buildings<br />
that formed the revived business district of<br />
❖<br />
Top, left: Jonesboro depot as it appears<br />
from the railroad tracks today. It is<br />
now the location of the “Road to Tara”<br />
museum and the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
Convention and Tourist Bureau, which<br />
provided this image.<br />
Top, right: The restored railroad bed<br />
divided downtown Jonesboro’s business<br />
district, changing Broadway into the<br />
parallel Main and McDonough Streets<br />
on opposite sides of the tracks.<br />
PHOTO BY JIM KEMP.<br />
Below: Rebuilding after the end of the<br />
war, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> built a new<br />
courthouse on the foundations of the<br />
one that was destroyed in the fighting<br />
around Jonesboro.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 21
❖<br />
Above: A typical nineteenth-century<br />
school. Students of the Bethel School<br />
posed in 1894 with their teacher<br />
Minnie Travis and two of her friends.<br />
COURTESY OF VANISHING GEORGIA, GEORGIA<br />
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, OFFICE OF<br />
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.<br />
Bottom, left: James E. England,<br />
“licensed to exhort” in 1869 and<br />
“licensed to preach” in 1873 was<br />
pastor of Jonesboro Methodist Church<br />
at the turn of the century.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES,<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLT040-84.<br />
Bottom, right: Commerce returned to<br />
Jonesboro in the years following the<br />
Civil War; the City Drug Store sold<br />
everything from kerosene to perfume.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Jonesboro, mostly on the Main Street side of the<br />
railroad. They used bricks manufactured from red<br />
clay found within the city of Jonesboro; the exact<br />
location of the “brickyard” is not recorded, but it<br />
was somewhere on Smith Street.<br />
By the decade of the 1870s, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
had about fifty-five hundred residents, twothirds<br />
of them white. Its children attended 25<br />
schools (19 for whites). Baptists and Methodists<br />
maintained most of the churches, but the<br />
Presbyterians and Lutherans each had one<br />
congregation. The Georgia Department of<br />
Agriculture called Jonesboro the area’s market<br />
town. It also was the location of a furniture<br />
factory and a plough factory. In the county, ten<br />
flour and corn mills kept busy. Stephen Dorsey,<br />
a prosperous planter both before and after the<br />
war, produced an excellent peach brandy. A<br />
newspaper, the <strong>Clayton</strong> Times, began publishing<br />
in 1870.<br />
Travelers stopping at Jonesboro had a choice<br />
of hotels. One of these, the Coleman House on<br />
Main Street, formerly known as the Planters’<br />
Hotel, belonged to Daniel L. Coleman. Also on<br />
that street, Mrs. Julia Turner operated the Turner<br />
House. A carriage factory, which was located<br />
near McDonough Street on a lot that is now part<br />
of the 1898 courthouse grounds, was converted<br />
to make yet another hotel.<br />
About 1880 the county added a second story<br />
to the 1869 jail building. The renovation is still<br />
visible as a subtle change in the bricks in the<br />
22 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
exterior walls of the structure, which now<br />
houses a museum under the supervision of the<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc.<br />
organization. The post-war courthouse served<br />
from 1869 until 1898, when a new courthouse<br />
rose on the site of the former Milligan DeVaughn<br />
home, on the McDonough side of the railroad<br />
adjacent to the Jonesboro business district. This<br />
handsome building, located on “Court House<br />
Hill,” underwent extensive restoration more<br />
than a century after its construction and still<br />
serves—along with a modern building on Tara<br />
Boulevard—as a center of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
government. After the new courthouse opened,<br />
the 1869 building became the Jonesboro<br />
Presbyterian Church as well as the home of the<br />
Jonesboro Lodge No. 87, Free and Accepted<br />
Masons. There is a nice symmetry to this<br />
change, since the county had borrowed an older<br />
Masonic Hall to hold court before the first<br />
courthouse was constructed and again after it<br />
was destroyed in 1864. The building still serves<br />
Lodge No. 87. Throughout the county recovery<br />
continued but, in spite of the reshaping of the<br />
town, Jonesboro continued to show the scars of<br />
war, even at the turn of the century, when a few<br />
burned-out ruins still were visible.<br />
In spite of its past troubles, Jonesboro was a<br />
lively place, with a sort of “wild-west” quality to<br />
some aspects of its life. Before the eventual<br />
victory of prohibition supporters, the county<br />
seat possessed a number of establishments<br />
selling strong drink. Some were merely grocery<br />
or general stores that carried liquor and wines,<br />
but other establishments offered liquor by the<br />
drink and provided havens where some of the<br />
men of the county might pass the time with<br />
cards and billiards. Descriptions of life in the<br />
immediate post-war years suggest a frontier<br />
atmosphere on Broad Street, which ran parallel<br />
to Main Street and was the location of several<br />
establishments that retailed alcohol. The records<br />
connected with a fatal shooting draw the<br />
picture: Christmas Eve revelers passed from<br />
place to place along this street when a quarrel<br />
arose in a back-room tavern—complete with<br />
billiard table—behind the McConnell & Elliot<br />
grocery store. A person named Thomas O’Neal<br />
quarreled with Joseph M. Anthony, the son of a<br />
prominent local family, and then shot him—all<br />
of this in the presence of the town marshal, J. O.<br />
Hightower. With the aid of other men on the<br />
premises, Hightower immediately arrested<br />
O’Neil. A local physician, also present in the<br />
establishment, tried in vain to save young<br />
Anthony. The assailant was convicted of the<br />
murder, but his ultimate fate is unknown.<br />
According to some reports, election times in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> were fraught with violence to<br />
the extent that some families put their children<br />
to sleep on the floor, to avoid the danger of a<br />
stray bullet entering the house. J. O. Hightower<br />
also served as county sheriff during the years<br />
from 1873 to 1877. During one election<br />
campaign he was assaulted as he stood talking<br />
❖<br />
Above: The historic courthouse<br />
building was restored after a century<br />
of use, and is now supplemented by a<br />
modern building on Tara Boulevard.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Below: James Osgood and his wife<br />
Matilda became well-known<br />
Jonesboro citizens. Osgood and his<br />
wife’s brother Absalom Harris were<br />
partners in the Jonesboro<br />
Manufacturing Company.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 23
❖<br />
Right: Long-time residents of <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong>, George and Sallie Waddy<br />
lived on Fayetteville Road in<br />
Jonesboro. Shown are (from left to<br />
right) William Paul Chambers, Nellie<br />
Mae Waddy Chambers, Bessie Waddy<br />
Thames, Sarah Meade Waddy Turner,<br />
Sarah “Sallie” Matilda Hodnett<br />
Waddy, George Eubanks Waddy,<br />
[unknown], Minnie Lois Waddy.<br />
COURTESY OF HELEN HONEA KNIGHT AND<br />
HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Below: Hightower and his family<br />
founded and operated several<br />
concerns including the Jonesboro<br />
Manufacturing Company early in the<br />
twentieth century.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
with a group of men on Main Street. The<br />
attacker—who was never charged, or even<br />
named—cut his throat, nearly killing him.<br />
Physicians treated him in a nearby store because<br />
he was too traumatized to be moved. He<br />
recovered, and according to a family friend, he<br />
grew his “side whiskers” to cover the scar.<br />
However, he remained silent about the incident.<br />
The most well-remembered “true crime” story<br />
from <strong>Clayton</strong>’s past resulted in the <strong>County</strong>’s only<br />
execution, the 1881 hanging of the convicted<br />
murderer Tom Betts. In October of the previous<br />
year, Betts lay in wait for Judge Hilliard Moore, an<br />
elderly cotton planter who was carrying the cash<br />
proceeds of the sale of the years’ harvest as he<br />
returned home. Betts smashed the Judge’s head<br />
with a wooden maul and fled the scene, but the<br />
crime was discovered shortly after. A search party<br />
formed, but it was Sheriff Archer who spotted<br />
Betts walking along the railroad tracks and took<br />
him in custody. The assailant was promptly tried,<br />
convicted and sentenced to death; just as<br />
promptly the death sentence was confirmed on<br />
appeal. <strong>County</strong> officials conducted the public<br />
execution in the manner of the times. According<br />
to an account published in the Griffin Daily News,<br />
the convicted man had undergone a religious<br />
conversion while in prison. Seated on his own<br />
coffin, wearing a black suit, slouch hat and<br />
slippers, he was taken in an open wagon through<br />
a crowd of onlookers, to a scaffold that had been<br />
built on the edge of town. Sheriff Archer held his<br />
arm and escorted him up the steps. Betts asked<br />
the Sheriff, “How long have I got?” and was<br />
allowed half an hour to speak. In an address timed<br />
as taking twelve and one-half minutes, he<br />
confessed that he had “led a wicked life.” “I<br />
tracked off after that old man, Moore, and hurled<br />
him off into eternity without time. The Devil had<br />
me in his arms…. I have indulged in whiskey and<br />
bad women all my life, and have come to this<br />
rope.” He warned his listeners to “examine and<br />
see what your soul is worth…. Turn today,<br />
24 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
tomorrow maybe to late.” With that he offered,<br />
“May God save you all in Heaven…is my prayer.”<br />
Another more refined face of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
in the Gilded Age shows an appreciation of<br />
education and culture. Before the Civil War,<br />
Allen Candler (who was known as “Colonel”<br />
Candler after his service in the war) had<br />
conducted <strong>Clayton</strong> High School in Jonesboro,<br />
located on a street called “Academy.” He left the<br />
school in the care of his sister Maggie when he<br />
went to serve in the Confederate military. This<br />
service brought him full circle—he fought in the<br />
battle of Jonesboro, suffering a severe wound<br />
that cost him an eye. The war also forced the<br />
school to close, but when peace returned,<br />
Candler attempted to open a new school. A<br />
group of trustees—many of them from the<br />
board of the earlier school—acquired a site. A<br />
series of financial transactions related to the<br />
older school and monies due to Colonel Candler<br />
ensued. However the project halted when the<br />
State of Georgia instituted, for the first time, a<br />
system of public education. Two schools, one<br />
for white children and one for blacks, were<br />
built. Candler, who also was involved in<br />
agriculture, manufacturing, and the railroad<br />
industry, liquidated his interests in <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> and relocated to Gainesville, where he<br />
began a distinguished career in state politics,<br />
ultimately serving as governor of the state.<br />
However, in 1879, Middle Georgia College, a<br />
private boarding school, appeared in Jonesboro,<br />
on Academy Street close to the site of Candler’s old<br />
High School, and Academy Street soon became<br />
known as College Street. Jonesboro Baptist Church<br />
provided a good part of the land, for a<br />
consideration of only $5, “for the promotion and<br />
advancement of white children only,” and with an<br />
additional proviso that the land would revert to the<br />
church if it were no longer used for educational<br />
purposes. A two-story wooden building fronted by<br />
four columns housed the school.<br />
A Confederate veteran, Professor George<br />
Cleveland Looney, and a Mrs. C. D. Downey<br />
operated Middle Georgia College. Looney had<br />
conducted other schools and was co-author of a<br />
widely used textbook, Southern Arithmetic<br />
(1858). The school offered primary, preparatory,<br />
and collegiate programs of study as well as<br />
music training and a separate Department of Art<br />
and Modern Language, which required an<br />
additional tuition fee. An advertisement<br />
promised a money-back guarantee to “Any<br />
gentleman or lady…who tries any department<br />
of Middle Ga. College and finds it below first<br />
class in its dignity and its workings….”<br />
These ladies and gentlemen studied a typical<br />
curriculum of humanities, music, art, science,<br />
and mathematics. Courses in Latin were<br />
available. Two hundred students enrolled<br />
during the first year. There was no dormitory<br />
but Professor Looney and his wife provided<br />
boarding for some of those who came from out<br />
of town, while other students stayed in nearby<br />
private homes.<br />
Looney remained in his position only a few<br />
years before relocating to a suburb of Atlanta,<br />
where he founded Cox College for women and<br />
the Georgia Military Academy (now Woodward<br />
Academy). Mrs. C. D. Crawley conducted the<br />
school briefly. She was succeeded by Professor<br />
George Pollock and his wife Pearl Couch Pollock.<br />
❖<br />
Religion became increasingly<br />
important to Southerners in the postwar<br />
years. Baptist doctrine requires<br />
complete immersion, which often took<br />
believers out of doors to find a<br />
suitable body of water. In this case,<br />
the congregation of the Rock Baptist<br />
Church gathered at a pool between<br />
Rock Spring and Tan Creek. The rite<br />
is performed by Pastor Bledsoe as<br />
candidates dressed in white await<br />
their turns.<br />
PHOTO (C. 1891) COURTESY OF VANISHING<br />
GEORGIA, GEORGIA DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND<br />
HISTORY, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 25
❖<br />
Right: Rebuilt after a fire destroyed<br />
the original structure, this Middle<br />
Georgia College building later became<br />
Jonesboro High School. When it also<br />
burned the school relocated and the<br />
First Baptist Church reclaimed the<br />
land that it had previously donated<br />
for educational purposes. The area is<br />
now part of the large grounds still<br />
occupied by the church.<br />
COURTESY VANISHING GEORGIA, GEORGIA<br />
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, OFFICE OF<br />
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.<br />
Below: After the Middle Georgia<br />
College ceased to function, parents<br />
could send their sons to Georgia<br />
Military Academy.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
At the turn of the century fire destroyed the<br />
original building, which was replaced by a<br />
somewhat grander structure with towers at the<br />
two front corners. Over the years the academic<br />
program of Middle Georgia declined, and it<br />
became simply the public high school for the<br />
Jonesboro area. Families seeking more advanced<br />
studies for their children sent them elsewhere to<br />
preparatory schools or hired private tutors. The<br />
second building also burned, and the high<br />
school was rebuilt in another location.<br />
Following the terms of the original agreement,<br />
the land then reverted to the Baptist Church and<br />
is now part of that church’s large campus. Some<br />
years after Middle Georgia College ceased<br />
operations in Jonesboro, Ebenezer College in<br />
Cochran adopted the name Middle Georgia<br />
Junior College and in 1929 resurrected the old<br />
name of Middle Georgia College. It is now a unit<br />
of the University System of Georgia.<br />
As time moved on, life in the county acquired<br />
more amenities. Residents of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
might attend concerts of Professor Holstead’s<br />
brass band or recitals presented by music<br />
teachers Julia Waldrop and her niece. They could<br />
take part in a debating society and they could<br />
read about all of these events in the Jonesboro<br />
News, founded by Reverend Aaron E. Cloud.<br />
Students at Middle Georgia also presented<br />
musical programs, and their commencements<br />
were quite elaborate. A health spa, the Hygenic<br />
Institute (later moved to Fayetteville) offered the<br />
“water cures” typical of such facilities, which<br />
were widely popular during the period.<br />
The Jonesboro News of January 1881<br />
remarked on the calmer demeanor of the<br />
<strong>County</strong> during the Christmas season, although<br />
they did admit to “a number of the ‘boys’ about<br />
three sheets in the wind and ready for frolic.”<br />
However, nothing untoward occurred, while<br />
several pleasant social events marked the<br />
season. Baptist and Methodist churches<br />
decorated Christmas trees and on Christmas Eve<br />
night, gifts were distributed. A “sociable” at the<br />
Turner House and a “hop” at the Court House<br />
entertained participants. Mrs. Ellen Vaughn’s<br />
party was the “crowning success” of the season:<br />
“Here were gathered all the gallantry and beauty<br />
of the city, and the hours sped on golden wings<br />
till the party, wearied with enjoyment, were<br />
preparing to depart when they were agreeably<br />
surprised by the arrival of a splendid supper…”<br />
They dined in Mrs. Vaughn’s tasteful parlor<br />
before retiring for the evening. On Christmas<br />
morning, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> awoke to find snow.<br />
“The young men rolled each other in the streets,<br />
the young ladies pelted indiscriminately big,<br />
little, old, and young, whenever opportunity<br />
afforded, while the children shouted with glee<br />
the results; and he who escaped without getting<br />
a quantity of the frozen mass down his spinal<br />
column might deem himself fortunate.”<br />
Although Jonesboro, as the county seat, was<br />
a center of activity, other areas also experienced<br />
26 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
❖<br />
Top: This is the most recent of a series<br />
of structures built by the church in the<br />
area of the school building.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Middle: The Jonesboro News was<br />
published for several years, but few<br />
copies have survived.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Bottom, left: The fashionably<br />
dressed Walter Gray Hightower left<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> to pursue a career in<br />
the theater.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Bottom, right: The extensive Middle<br />
Georgia commencement exercises in<br />
June 1888 included presentations in<br />
the form of “recitations,” and<br />
“dialogs,” with titles such as “The<br />
Mother’s Darling,” “Not Guilty,” “The<br />
Naughty Boy,” and “Diffidence;’” a<br />
tableau of “The Four Seasons;”and<br />
a musical presentation on the<br />
hand organ.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 27
❖<br />
Above: Joseph Hampton Thames<br />
posed with several women of his<br />
family (far left). These women along<br />
with (from left to right) Mary Viola<br />
Kennedy, Eleanor Huie, and Mrs. J.<br />
Osgood Hightower exemplify the welldressed<br />
lady of the turn of the century.<br />
GROUP PHOTO AND VIOLA KENNEDY PHOTO<br />
COURTESY OF ELAINE THAMES; HUIE PHOTO BY<br />
LENNEY STUDIO, ATLANTA, COURTESY VANISHING<br />
GEORGIA, GEORGIA DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND<br />
HISTORY; HIGHTOWER PHOTO COURTESY<br />
HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Below: The Estes family posed for this<br />
family portrait on a narrow bridge<br />
near their mill in Rex.<br />
COURTESY OF VANISHING GEORGIA, GEORGIA<br />
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, OFFICE OF<br />
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.<br />
development in the latter half of the century.<br />
For example, Rex has existed for a very<br />
long time. Beginning as a stop on the old<br />
Stagecoach Road that linked Decatur and<br />
Jonesboro. Touch Hollingsworth built the<br />
Hollingsworth Flour Mill in the area soon after<br />
the settlement began. The brothers W. C. and F.<br />
F. Estes purchased the mill that is presently seen<br />
at the side of Rex Road in 1887; they renamed it<br />
Estes Mill. The mill complex included a waterpowered<br />
cotton gin that the Estes family<br />
adapted to use in their business of producing<br />
grain cradles. When mechanical harvesters<br />
ended the demand for grain cradles, the<br />
equipment was again adapted to grind corn<br />
meal. The mill changed hands several times in<br />
the recent past, and was briefly an antique shop;<br />
a plan to locate a restaurant there never reached<br />
fruition. Today the Rex Mill, one of the last<br />
remaining water-powered mills in the county,<br />
may be in danger of demolition because of the<br />
need to replace another relic of times gone by, a<br />
one-lane bridge.<br />
Riverdale was begun on lands donated by<br />
Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Rivers, who hoped to<br />
encourage business development in the area.<br />
There had been scattered settlement in the<br />
area of the present town even before the<br />
Civil War, but a change began when the<br />
railroad line from Atlanta to Fort Valley<br />
opened in 1887. Monroe Huie, a local farmer,<br />
provided wood for the train, and others soon<br />
followed suit. Trains stopped for wood, and on<br />
the return trip they hauled in loads of fertilizer.<br />
28 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
This small local trade in wood and fertilizer was<br />
the first business activity in the area. Further<br />
growth depended on creating a main stop for<br />
the railroad, but this would require land for its<br />
depot, sidetracks and worker housing. The<br />
Rivers’ gift of the necessary land made the train<br />
stop and the resulting development of the town<br />
possible. Business activity and the emergence of<br />
a small town led to the establishment of a post<br />
office with the designation “Riverdale” in honor<br />
of the family whose gift had made it possible. In<br />
1908, when G. M. Huie, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>’s<br />
representative in the General Assembly,<br />
introduced incorporation legislation, the town<br />
name was made official. In the twentieth<br />
century the <strong>Clayton</strong> General Hospital was<br />
located there. Its present-day successor, the<br />
Southern Regional Health System, includes a<br />
number of facilities, including the 406-bed<br />
Southern Regional Medical Center hospital.<br />
Politics in the years after the end of<br />
Reconstruction rapidly fell under the<br />
domination of the Democratic Party. State laws<br />
made voting very difficult for African<br />
Americans, who had been the main support of<br />
the Republican Party. These same laws also<br />
tended to push poor whites from the voting<br />
rolls. Soon the political life of the state was<br />
entirely in Democratic hands. However, late in<br />
the century a new, grass-roots challenge to<br />
Democratic dominance came with the<br />
appearance of the Farmer’s Alliance movement.<br />
This organization of small farmers from the<br />
South and Midwest demanded currency<br />
inflation, easier credit, and a variety of other<br />
reforms, some quite radical. They supported<br />
candidates for state and national office, first<br />
running on the Democratic tickets. In 1892 a<br />
handful that had been thus elected to Congress<br />
organized the Populist Party, under the<br />
leadership of a Georgian named Tom Watson.<br />
This party existed only a few years, but while it<br />
lasted made itself noticed all over the country,<br />
partly because it included a number of colorful<br />
orators. One Populist speaker, however, met his<br />
match in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> at the hands of John<br />
M. Mundy, one of a large clan of long-time<br />
residents of the area. (A family business has left<br />
❖<br />
Top, left: In 1939 Leon Hancock<br />
perched on the roof while Henry<br />
McElroy, A. O. Bowles (railway agent<br />
and stationmaster), and M. Vassa<br />
McConnell (postmaster) posed<br />
between the double entrances of the<br />
train depot at Riverdale.<br />
COURTESY OF VANISHING GEORGIA, GEORGIA<br />
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, OFFICE OF<br />
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.<br />
Above: John M. Mundy was a devoted<br />
Democrat who could out-talk a<br />
populist orator.<br />
Left: About 1894 the Odd Fellows of<br />
Riverdale met at the Pleasant Grove<br />
Methodist Church. One of these<br />
men is Eugene Mitchell, father of<br />
Margaret Mitchell.<br />
COURTESY OF VANISHING GEORGIA, GEORGIA<br />
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, OFFICE OF<br />
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.<br />
Chapter II ✦ 29
❖<br />
Above: The Kennedy family posed at<br />
the entrance to their farm house on<br />
Kennedy Road.<br />
COURTESY OF ELAINE THAMES.<br />
Right: Solid examples of the citizenry<br />
of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Luke, Jasper and<br />
John (rear), and Jim and Thomas<br />
Martin Brown (front) posed at Old<br />
Orr Station.<br />
COURTESY OF VANISHING GEORGIA, GEORGIA<br />
DIVISION OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY, OFFICE OF<br />
THE SECRETARY OF STATE, CLT74-84.<br />
its mark in the street name, Mundy’s Mill.) A<br />
staunch Democrat, Mundy attended a Populist<br />
rally—uninvited—and demanded a chance to<br />
be heard. The orator agreed, with the proviso<br />
that he would be allowed to rebut the Democrat<br />
after he finished. This was his mistake, because<br />
Mundy knew the habits of his audience of<br />
farmers very well. He plunged into his oration,<br />
giving it all he had, for as long as it took the sun<br />
to sink to the horizon. When he relinquished<br />
the platform to his Populist opponent, most<br />
of the audience had departed. Farmers don’t<br />
stay up late at night, even to hear a very<br />
good speech.<br />
By the end of the century, <strong>Clayton</strong> was being<br />
drawn into the orbit of Atlanta. Railroad<br />
transportation made it possible to live in the<br />
county and work or do business in the city.<br />
Walter H. Grant, in his <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Annual<br />
published in the fall of 1893 extolled the virtues<br />
of the area: “Here you get pure air, wholesome<br />
food and the same advantage of a free school [as]<br />
in the largest cities.” He also pointed out that<br />
“quarterly [railroad] tickets can be purchased at<br />
such a reasonable price that there is very little<br />
difference in living in the suburbs and residing<br />
in…the county.” Grant admitted that the local<br />
farms “are generally thin” but pronounced the<br />
local farmers so skillful, diligent and persistent<br />
that they were “some of the most productive in<br />
the state.” He added that <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> “is a<br />
prohibition county and perfect harmony prevails<br />
in every section of the county.” As a result, the<br />
county had changed dramatically. He urged<br />
readers to “…count the large number of men<br />
who are now good, sober, honest citizens, who<br />
ten or fifteen years ago were almost worthless.”<br />
This odd bit of praise might not have<br />
flattered everyone who heard it, but there was<br />
no doubt that the “wild west” quality of <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> life in the post-war years had steadily<br />
moderated during the Gilded Age of American<br />
history. Although the county had begun the<br />
slow process of becoming an Atlanta suburb, it<br />
remained a place of small towns and farms as it<br />
moved into the twentieth century.<br />
30 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
CHAPTER III<br />
As the county passed from one century to the next, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> changed slowly but<br />
constantly. The population grew, businesses and public institutions increased and modernized, and,<br />
while it continued to be largely agricultural, the county was pulled more closely into the orbit of the<br />
city of Atlanta. Many areas of community life reflected these changes.<br />
An example of this urbanizing trend is the town of Forest Park, which began its life as a village called<br />
Astor. Before the Civil War, there had been a “Hardshell” Baptist church in the area, which left behind the<br />
Elam Church Cemetery. Astor had a one-room schoolhouse and only a few residents at the turn of the<br />
century when the Central of Georgia railroad bought two hundred acres of land in an area of a stop called<br />
Forest Station. The railroad laid out streets and sold off residential lots. This took place at a time when<br />
residential suburbs, served by streetcars, had begun to appear on the outskirts of larger cities. Evidently<br />
the railroad had this in mind when it created a development called Forrest Park; one inducement to<br />
purchasers with business in Atlanta was the promise of service from the “Accommodation Train” that soon<br />
acquired the nickname of “The Dummy.” The creation of Forrest Park (in 1952 the city charter adjusted<br />
the spelling of the name to Forest Park) can be understood as an early step in the suburbanization of<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. The Atlanta Farmer’s Market is within the boundaries of Forest Park.<br />
❖<br />
J. J. Evans Grocery Store in Forest<br />
Park during the last quarter of the<br />
nineteenth century; Frank Pickett,<br />
third from the left, holds a mail bag;<br />
seventh from the left, W. I. Bartlett, in<br />
shirtsleeves, stands in front of a post.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES,<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLT43-84.<br />
COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE<br />
In the previous century, the county lacked a bank of its own. A local merchant offered the use of<br />
his safe to his neighbors on the occasions when they possessed unusually large amounts of cash.<br />
Unless a person went to the banks in Atlanta, credit had been a matter of private relations. For<br />
example, Alfred (A. C.) Blalock operated a general merchandise store on Main Street, selling<br />
everything from plows to coffins, with a livery stable in the rear. He followed the common practice<br />
Chapter III ✦ 31
❖<br />
Above: In 1926 the Harris Brothers<br />
Grocery Store, on Main Street in<br />
Jonesboro, had recently purchased a<br />
glass-fronted refrigerated display case.<br />
Standing behind the case are Addie<br />
Wallis (Mrs. Harvey Harris), and the<br />
Harris brothers, Oliver and Harvey.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES,<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLT31-84.<br />
Right: One of the great pleasures of<br />
rural life was to cut open a<br />
watermelon under the shade of a tree<br />
on a hot summer day.<br />
COURTESY OF ELAINE THAMES.<br />
of offering credit to his customers and also made<br />
small loans. Blalock used his own system of<br />
bookkeeping, recording transactions in his<br />
pocket diary. Most were for small sums, and<br />
some have notations of 8 or 12 percent—<br />
evidently the interest rate; he also entered a date<br />
for the transaction and a due date.<br />
In a logical extension of the loans he made to<br />
local farmers and townspeople, Blalock organized<br />
the Bank of Jonesboro in 1903. His family<br />
remembered that beyond providing this useful<br />
service, he had an eye for customer relations.<br />
Jonesboro residents who saw his long touring car<br />
parked in front of the bank knew that they could<br />
take a seat and ride with him on his weekly trip<br />
to Atlanta. After spending the day in the city,<br />
Blalock departed from the front of the Kimball<br />
House Hotel promptly at 4 o’clock, taking along<br />
all who wished to return to Jonesboro. This<br />
generosity brought good will for both the banker<br />
and the bank, which he operated for the rest of<br />
his life. In his will, he expressed the hope that the<br />
bank could continue: “Realizing the importance<br />
of the service as may be rendered to our town and<br />
county by a bank, it is my desire that the<br />
operation of the Bank of Jonesboro be<br />
continued…as long as practicable as may be<br />
judged by the support and appreciation accorded<br />
the same.”<br />
The executor of Blalock’s estate was his niece,<br />
Elizabeth M. Blalock, who became president of<br />
the bank, the first woman in Georgia to hold<br />
such a position. Her niece, Ida Huie Lenahan,<br />
published a recollection of her aunt that<br />
included a description of the bank’s operations.<br />
Miss Blalock, perfectly groomed and frequently<br />
dressed in velvet, would “sit at her desk<br />
crocheting and discussing money with the<br />
businessmen who came to see her.” Although<br />
she would coyly claim not to know much about<br />
business, she constantly studied professional<br />
publications and attended banking conventions.<br />
The bank advertisements promised, “This Bank<br />
welcomes the opportunity to make useful loans<br />
under sound banking requirements, which<br />
will help the borrower and the community<br />
and safeguard the deposit entrusted to its care.”<br />
The bank was small, with only two other<br />
full-time employees, so once a month on<br />
32 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
“Statement Day” she would organize her sisters,<br />
niece and nephew to get this important mailing<br />
out on time. She paid them each a silver dollar<br />
for the evening’s work. Later in the century<br />
other banks, including the Bank of Riverdale,<br />
owned by W. O. Camp entered the commercial<br />
life of the county.<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> had occasionally enjoyed the<br />
presence of some small newspapers—The News<br />
had been the last—but by the early twentieth<br />
century, it was no more. At the time, J. Ellis<br />
Mundy was a young lawyer, but as he told an<br />
interviewer, “I got ink on my fingers while I was<br />
at the University of Georgia, where I was the<br />
editor of the Red and Black.” The former college<br />
editor created the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> News and<br />
Farmer. A few years later he sold his interest in<br />
the paper when he was appointed assistant U.S.<br />
district attorney, and went on to pursue his<br />
interests in law and politics. The newspaper<br />
likewise flourished into the middle of the century.<br />
The surviving copies of the weekly <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> News and Farmer are snapshots of life in<br />
a county that still kept its rural character in spite<br />
of the looming presence of the city of Atlanta a<br />
few miles to the north. The largest advertisers<br />
usually appealed to farmers. Products such as<br />
“Natural Chilean Nitrate of Soda, the Natural<br />
Side Dressing” or “Chilean Potash” boasted their<br />
power to produce abundant crops. After the<br />
demise of prohibition, the makers of “Beer, the<br />
Beverage of Moderation” extolled the economic<br />
value of their product both to the local farmers<br />
and to the nation and announced that “Here Mr.<br />
Farmer is a big, new customer,” that was ready to<br />
purchase barley, hops, corn and rice.<br />
Mechanization had not entirely won the day;<br />
farmers still could study the ads for likely horses<br />
and mules.<br />
Several <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> citizens raised<br />
livestock, including cattle, hogs, and chickens,<br />
which they could sell at the Flint River stock<br />
and poultry market. But in addition to these<br />
fairly conventional pursuits, Jess Holbrook bred<br />
Shetland ponies and Floyd F. Davis raised<br />
several types of Guinea pig for sale to the State<br />
Department of Health among other customers.<br />
As the county became more urbanized, Alfred<br />
Huie, who raised beef cattle, had to contend<br />
with having his pastures cut by the development<br />
❖<br />
Above: In its earliest years J. Ellis<br />
Mundy took an active role in<br />
producing the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> News<br />
and Farmer.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Below: Modernizing agriculture meant<br />
adopting new crops. Will Mundy is<br />
seen in a field of soybeans.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM<br />
Chapter III ✦ 33
❖<br />
Above: With the best of intentions,<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> farmers were among<br />
those who planted kudzu to control<br />
erosion. No one anticipated the vine’s<br />
uncontrolled spread over the Southern<br />
countryside.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Right: Employees of Carnes Bagging<br />
Company posed with W. E. Carnes,<br />
manufacturer of re-rolled bagging and<br />
re-bundled ties used to cover cotton<br />
bales, such as those in the photograph.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
of Tara Boulevard. To accommodate movement<br />
of the cattle from one side to the other, large<br />
culverts were installed under the roadway to<br />
provide an “underpass” for the cattle.<br />
In the years after WWII, county farmers and<br />
livestock producers took interest in scientific<br />
management and conservation. Under the<br />
guidance of the county agent they planted cover<br />
crops, improved pastures, and undertook<br />
reforestation, terracing, and crop rotation. In the<br />
same spirit that led to the creation of the GI Bill,<br />
a plan assisted returning veterans in becoming<br />
modern farmers, using the latest scientific<br />
methods. A report on the county’s agricultural<br />
life affirmed, “Conservation of soil, water and<br />
our natural resources affects our health,<br />
standard of living in … our community, county,<br />
state and nation.” Unfortunately, hindsight leads<br />
us to shake our heads in dismay when we see<br />
that one “scientific” project to control soil<br />
erosion involved planting 12 acres in “kudzu<br />
crowns.” In February 1949, the newspaper<br />
asked, “Why not make plans to set kudzu this<br />
season, and let it start work in controlling<br />
erosion, producing feed, thereby getting some<br />
returns from idle unproductive acres?” We now<br />
understand that if kudzu worked to prevent<br />
erosion, it has also swarmed over every unused<br />
plot of ground in the South, climbing telephone<br />
poles and smothering trees and abandoned<br />
buildings. But it was one of the few missteps<br />
made on the farm front in that time.<br />
At this same time, the Atlanta Farmer’s<br />
Market, located in the city’s West End since 1939,<br />
began to outgrow its facilities. In January 1959 it<br />
moved to a new location in Forest Park. The<br />
operators of the market like to call their 150 acre<br />
facility the “World’s Largest Roadside Fruit and<br />
Vegetable Stand” and county residents enjoy<br />
shopping there for fresh produce and flowers.<br />
However, there is a good deal more to the facility:<br />
it is a center for commercial produce transactions<br />
involving chain grocery stores, brokers, packers,<br />
repackers, farmers, and retailers. Ninety tractor<br />
trailer loads per day come to the Farmers’ Market,<br />
which never closes.<br />
Being engaged in agriculture did not mean<br />
that the county was in any way backward. As<br />
the century moved forward, living in the<br />
country no longer meant being isolated. A<br />
newer telephone system began service on June<br />
28, 1939. Later, Southern Bell Telephone<br />
Company established a Rural Development<br />
project, to extend service beyond closely settled<br />
areas such as Jonesboro, where they already<br />
handled 847 telephones. Postal service<br />
improved; in 1950 the Highway Post Office<br />
carried mail between Columbus and Atlanta by<br />
bus, serving Jonesboro as it went.<br />
34 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
In the first part of the twentieth century, most<br />
stores in the county dealt in a combination of<br />
groceries and farming necessities, such as feed,<br />
seed, laying mash, coal, and other agriculture<br />
products: C. E. McKown in Forest Park sold<br />
“Grocery Bargains” along with laying mash, seed<br />
Irish potatoes, good house brooms, and men’s<br />
and boy’s hats, all colors. However, some stores<br />
could specialize in food: Rodgers Store,<br />
managed by J. L. Jenkins, regularly offered sales<br />
and specials, such as the 19¢ Sale that offered<br />
catsup, Colonial milk, Silver Label coffee, juice<br />
and Loveley-Jel at a bargain price.<br />
At mid-century, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> residents<br />
who wanted to go out to eat had several choices.<br />
There was “Good Home Cooking” at Mrs.<br />
Buchanan’s Café; Smitty’s Café also served<br />
“Home Cooking – Short Orders, Everything the<br />
best at reasonable prices” and was prepared to<br />
cater “parties and banquets on short notice.”<br />
The county now had drugstores, furniture stores<br />
and car dealerships; Wayne’s 5¢ - 10¢ – 25¢<br />
Store and Najjar’s Department Store, “The Store<br />
of Values,” which offered clothing and shoes.<br />
However, the newspaper also carried a column<br />
of advertisements from Atlanta merchants<br />
dealing in everything from furnaces to<br />
eyeglasses. <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>’s economy, tied by<br />
the railroad to Atlanta from the beginning,<br />
became more and more interconnected with the<br />
metropolis to the north.<br />
The Works Progress Administration, a New<br />
Deal government program to create jobs,<br />
produced a guide to the state, which reported<br />
that “Jonesboro (905 alt., 1065 pop.), seat of<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>...has sawmills, a bagging and<br />
tire plant, a coffin works, and a cotton gin.”<br />
Hastings Nursery, 1513 acres in extent,<br />
produced vegetable and flower seed and roses;<br />
extensive plantings of evergreens, shrubs acres<br />
of canna marked its frontage along the highway.<br />
The plant that had, since 1918, produced<br />
bagging material (used to wrap cotton bales)<br />
continued in operation to the middle of the<br />
century, when it was noted of the Carnes<br />
Bagging Company, “Regular employment is<br />
given to approximately 25 colored employees,<br />
many of them never having worked any other<br />
place.” Planters Gin & Mfg Co. (E. J. Swint<br />
manager) published advertisements of the days<br />
in the fall that the gin would be in operation and<br />
took another ad on December 1 to announce<br />
that ginning had ended. In the 1950s the plant<br />
processed a thousand bales a year. When the<br />
cotton had been ginned, A. A. Huie’s Jonesboro<br />
Warehouse would buy and store it, with no<br />
charge for picking up the bales.<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> also was the location of the<br />
Low Temp Refrigeration Company, which<br />
manufactured “all types of stainless steel kitchen<br />
and restaurant equipment,” and the Estes-<br />
Wolcott Company, which had begun in the<br />
previous century making grain cradles, and now<br />
produced first quality wooden lawn furniture.<br />
COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES &<br />
ENTERTAINMENT<br />
From its beginning, churches played a central<br />
role in the <strong>Clayton</strong> community. In addition to<br />
serving as centers of spiritual support, every<br />
church in the county offered organizations and<br />
activities to interest the various members of their<br />
congregations. Jonesboro Baptist Church offered<br />
a number of “Circles” for members. In 1939 a<br />
Missionary Circle met to hear presentations on<br />
topics such as “the Great Commission and the<br />
Orient,” “Palestine today,” “China today” and<br />
“Japan today.” Other Circles sponsored orphans<br />
and contributed support to missionary efforts.<br />
Like many churches, it offered a Vacation Bible<br />
school for children. In the summer of 1950<br />
nineteen teachers worked with 139 children.<br />
Although this was the largest of the area<br />
congregations, a similar level of activity could be<br />
found in churches throughout the county.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Miss Amah Lee Rutherford,<br />
Worthy Matron 1948-49, Jonesboro<br />
Chapter #174, Order of the<br />
Eastern Star.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Below: In their centennial year,<br />
Jonesboro’s Masonic Lodge No. 87<br />
built a “hut” for the use of Boy<br />
and Girl Scout troops in the<br />
Jonesboro area.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Chapter III ✦ 35
❖<br />
The Confederate Cemetery on<br />
McDonough Street holds the remains<br />
of an indefinite number of men who<br />
fell at the Battle of Jonesboro; some<br />
burials are unmarked. One is this<br />
unusual grave, decorated with sea<br />
shells. The significance of these shells<br />
is not specifically established;<br />
however, in English tradition, shells<br />
may signify resurrection.<br />
COLOR PHOTO BY JIM KEMP; GRAVE PHOTOGRAPH<br />
FROM JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF<br />
THE CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Jonesboro churches expressed deep concern<br />
for the well-being of the younger generation.<br />
The Women’s Society of Christian Service of<br />
Jonesboro Methodist Church joined with the<br />
Wesleyan Service Circle to sponsor a debate by<br />
the young people: “Resolved: that the churches<br />
of this community are largely responsible for the<br />
lives of the youth of this community.” Typical of<br />
the activities for young people provided by<br />
Jonesboro churches was a Youth Fellowship<br />
hour held in September of 1950 at the first<br />
Baptist Church. The program centered on<br />
devotional music and featured as guest preacher<br />
Trammell Buckalew, the son of their former<br />
pastor, Reverend C. C. Buckalew. His message<br />
was “most inspiring and tied in beautifully with<br />
the Fellowship Hour.”<br />
Church revivals were more than a break from<br />
daily routines; they were front-page news. The<br />
June 23, 1939, News and Farmer ran a<br />
photograph of the Rev. John H. Williams under<br />
the headline “Presbyterian Revival Begins Next<br />
Sunday.” The Presbyterians of the county had<br />
arranged for his appearances a year in advance,<br />
and declared that anyone who heard him once<br />
would certainly return for the rest of his series<br />
of sermons. The meetings were held in the<br />
Jonesboro school.<br />
Smaller congregations were equally vigorous.<br />
Pastor M. L. Gilbert of the Congregational<br />
Holiness Church made “trips in his station<br />
wagon every Sunday morning to bring carloads<br />
of neighbors” to his small white concrete<br />
church. The thirty-three members of the Church<br />
of God managed to buy a bus, organize the<br />
choir, raise $300 for missions and give support<br />
to an orphan’s home. Noah’s Ark Methodist<br />
Church, Flint River Baptist Church, Bethel<br />
Baptist Church all continued to serve small<br />
congregations. The Mount Zion Baptist Church,<br />
which had been organized in the middle of the<br />
Nineteenth Century, listed 328 members.<br />
Other organizations also absorbed the<br />
interest of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> residents. For<br />
example, the county contained four Masonic<br />
lodges—Jonesboro’s historic Lodge No. 87 had<br />
been joined by lodges at Riverdale, Forest Park<br />
and Rex. The Jonesboro lodge occupied and<br />
maintained (as it continues to do, up to the<br />
present) the historic 1869 courthouse, which<br />
requires careful upkeep. They celebrated their<br />
Centennial in 1949, and at that time<br />
constructed a “hut” for the use of the Boy Scouts<br />
and Girl Scouts. Jonesboro chapter #174 of the<br />
Order of the Eastern Star supported a variety of<br />
worthy causes. In 1950 they presented a<br />
fundraiser, “Aunt Silly: The Famous Comedy<br />
Success” that included musical performances<br />
by members.<br />
The United Daughters of the Confederacy<br />
Jonesboro Chapter continued that organization’s<br />
historic mission of caring for the Confederate<br />
Cemetery in Jonesboro. The UDC also met<br />
regularly to hear presentations on topics such as<br />
“The Siege of Vicksburg,” “The Life of Thomas<br />
Jefferson,” “The Prison Life of Jefferson Davis,”<br />
or “Andersonville Prison.” Every meeting<br />
included Bible verses and inspirational poetry.<br />
36 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Among the most active groups, the Jonesboro<br />
Women’s Club donated to worthy causes, served as<br />
a clearinghouse for good used clothing, saw that<br />
all of its members registered to vote and<br />
established a permanent $100 scholarship for a<br />
girl in the senior class of Jonesboro high. An<br />
annual music program featured performances by<br />
members of the Jonesboro school faculty. The<br />
women’s organization helped organize the Friends<br />
of the Library, which set out to raise funds for a<br />
building to be raised on a lot purchased by the<br />
Library Board on Smith Street. The Garden<br />
Division Committee sponsored a flower show.<br />
They also planned to beautify the city park<br />
grounds by landscaping and providing tables,<br />
benches, and an outdoor fireplace.<br />
The Women’s Club also started two children’s<br />
clubs, one for children ages 8 through 12 called<br />
the “Fun Club,” which met at the high school on<br />
Wednesday afternoon to swim, hike, and play<br />
outdoor and indoor games. The second club, the<br />
“Swing Inn” was for young people 13 through 20.<br />
They met on Thursday evenings either in the<br />
school lunchroom or the athletic building.<br />
Activities included square dances, picnics, and<br />
indoor games. “All in all wholesome recreation<br />
was enjoyed, one night each week.” They also<br />
had a record player.<br />
At the time of WWII and after, the <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> Chapter American Red Cross helped<br />
servicemen, veterans, and their families obtain<br />
financial assistance, extension of leaves and<br />
provided other services. They sponsored visits by<br />
The Blood Mobile Unit, and supported projects at<br />
several regional hospitals. The Red Cross, the<br />
Department of Public Welfare and the Jonesboro<br />
Community Chest provided financial assistance<br />
to the needy.<br />
One entertaining feature of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> life<br />
was a fondness of civic organizations for<br />
“Womanless Weddings” as fundraising events. A<br />
cast of male performers dressed up in fantastic<br />
feminine garb to enact the farce. In 1950 the Girl<br />
Scouts presented a cast of local gentlemen: “The<br />
grand finale will be the wedding procession and<br />
ceremony. The delicate 300-pound bride will float<br />
on the strong arm of her 90-pound father” attired<br />
in lace and accompanied by bridesmaids garbed<br />
in satin; the “ladies” presented a “vision out of this<br />
world…as they proceeded to the altar, where “the<br />
snappiest snazziest of grooms” awaited his<br />
“bride.” Members of these mock nuptials included<br />
folks named Aunt Hominy Grit, Prissy<br />
❖<br />
Above: In a photograph made in<br />
1951, Mrs. Mary Archer Barnette,<br />
Librarian, posed with Mrs. Ella C.<br />
Romeo, the first person who<br />
registered when the library opened<br />
on June 6, 1941.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Below: About 1940 a PTA group in<br />
Forest Park staged this “Womanless<br />
Wedding” to raise money for a school<br />
gym. The “bride” was Wop [sic]<br />
Starr, brother of Senator Terrell Starr.<br />
Other members of the wedding were<br />
Tommy Thomas, ring bearer; Grady<br />
Lindsay, the baby; and Lowell S.<br />
Terrell, bridesmaid.<br />
PHOTO BY CHARLES T. HADAWAY, COURTESY OF<br />
THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES, VANISHING GEORGIA<br />
COLLECTION, CLT057-84.<br />
Chapter III ✦ 37
❖<br />
Above: John Word West’s Fair of I850<br />
sought to educate as well as amuse.<br />
Jonesboro boosters included materials<br />
from his museum in their “Champion<br />
Hometown” entry in 1950.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Below: John Word West collected large<br />
items such as buildings, farm<br />
equipment and vehicles.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Pincushion, the Skinflint family, and Miss Muddie<br />
Ricefield. Among the many “guests” were<br />
Governor and Mrs. Talmadge, Nelson Eddy and<br />
Gene Autry—or anyway, people who claimed to<br />
be these celebrities!<br />
The county fair—a staple of country life<br />
throughout the nation—was a high point in the<br />
year and demonstrated the importance of<br />
agriculture to the area. Although livestock and<br />
farm machinery were mainstays, there was a lot<br />
more to see. Sponsored by the Exchange Club, a<br />
typical fair would feature displays from schools<br />
all over the county, including Bethel, Forest<br />
Park, Lovejoy, North <strong>Clayton</strong>, Jonesboro,<br />
Mountain View, Riverdale, Bast, <strong>Clayton</strong>, and<br />
others. The Women’s Department would show<br />
fine needlework, quilts and spreads. In 1950 the<br />
organizers promised, “There’ll be nothing left<br />
undone to make this our biggest Fair, and we<br />
ask your cooperation. The <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Fair<br />
belongs to the people of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, and we<br />
should do our BEST. Plan now to give these four<br />
days over to the investigation and recreation.<br />
Develop the FAIR habit. It’s your Fair, so be<br />
there.”<br />
Of course, everyone loves the movies.<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> residents visited the Tara<br />
Theater to watch Buck Jones in “The Stranger<br />
from Arizona,” or to shed a tear for “Boys’ Town”<br />
which was billed as “The Greatest Heart Drama<br />
of The Year.” The theater first had a flat floor<br />
with an “operating room” (projection booth) at<br />
the rear, but the management later added a<br />
sloping floor with 200 seats for white patrons<br />
and a “gallery” that would accommodate 50 to<br />
75 black patrons. The renovation added a central<br />
box office at the front of the building and located<br />
the “operating room” above it. Theatergoers<br />
enjoyed this facility only a few years before fire<br />
consumed the structure in 1942. Undaunted, the<br />
management rebuilt, installing cushioned seats<br />
and all the “necessary equipment to maintain a<br />
first class theater. ”By 1950, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> had<br />
three theaters—the Tara, Forest Park Theatre,<br />
and Roosevelt Drive-in.<br />
The Fair of 1850, created by history teacher<br />
John Word West, had one foot in history and<br />
one in entertainment. It included a small lake<br />
for fishing, picnic areas and an outdoor fireplace<br />
suitable for use by large groups. The Fair also<br />
provided space for a local swap meet and for a<br />
girls’ summer camp and visitors found a<br />
playground area for children near the entrance.<br />
The centerpiece of the Fair was the large<br />
main building where its ever-increasing,<br />
miscellaneous collections were on view. It also<br />
provided a space to be used by visiting school<br />
classes, who were thrilled by a lecture that<br />
ended with the firing of a flintlock gun. Displays<br />
included high-wheel bicycles, antique<br />
agricultural equipment, two hundred guns and<br />
pistols, walls “…covered with distinctive<br />
historic pictures and the windows adorned with<br />
deer antlers.” There was an antique racing sulky<br />
and a gig (small carriage). West was inspired by<br />
John D. Rockefeller’s project at Williamsburg<br />
and Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village so he did<br />
not limit the collection to smaller items; for<br />
example, an 1850 gin house was moved several<br />
miles onto the grounds. He collected mostly<br />
from North Georgia, but as time went on, it<br />
seems that nothing was without interest to the<br />
38 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Fair of 1850. In 1950, it acquired one pair of<br />
spring scales made by an English soldier of the<br />
war of 1812; a copper arrowhead found in a<br />
mound near Moundsville, Ohio; a coin bearing<br />
the face of Alexander the Great, found in Egypt,<br />
and a stone face from Babylon “broken out of<br />
the wall beside the lion den into which Daniel<br />
was cast.” West died in 1961 after<br />
unsuccessfully attempting to interest the state in<br />
taking over the Fair. In 1966 the organizers of<br />
Westville Village, a living history museum,<br />
purchased the assets of the now-defunct Fair of<br />
1850 and incorporated them into their new<br />
location in Stewart <strong>County</strong>.<br />
EDUCATION<br />
& SCHOOLS<br />
The first documentation of community life in<br />
the future <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> was the Leakesville<br />
Academy. Although this school did not<br />
continue, Allen Candler’s academy operated in<br />
the years before the Civil War ended its<br />
existence. After the war, the county briefly had a<br />
Freedman’s school, which was followed by the<br />
newly created public schools, with separate<br />
facilities for whites and blacks. Middle Georgia<br />
College thrived for a time, and eventually<br />
became Jonesboro High School. In Forest Park,<br />
students attended the Forest Grove School and<br />
the Howard School. However, the old style of<br />
nineteenth-century schooling gave way to some<br />
new ideas in the twentieth century.<br />
Under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, public<br />
education expanded in Georgia; the schools in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> reflected the agricultural focus of the<br />
county. According to Professor J. T. Wheeler,<br />
professor of teacher training and education at the<br />
University of Georgia, canning had an educational<br />
as well as an economic value. Therefore, a canning<br />
plant operated for the benefit of the public at<br />
Jonesboro High School. In June 1939, R. R.<br />
Caswell, vocational teacher, reassured the readers<br />
of the News and Farmer that the construction of a<br />
new plant would not prevent the usual activities<br />
from proceeding. He urged everyone wanting to<br />
use the facility to bring freshly prepared vegetables<br />
and reassured them, “The plant will be operated on<br />
a non-profit basis. You will only pay for the actual<br />
expense of canning your products.” The program<br />
continued for some years. In 1943 the <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> News and Farmer carried an announcement:<br />
“…the Jonesboro canning plant will open on June<br />
15 for the regular canning season” and went on to<br />
give details of the schedule of operation. Plenty of<br />
cans at 5 or 6 cents each would be available, “Each<br />
person who brings it to be canned must prepare his<br />
or her own food and pack it in the can.”<br />
Boys in the high school in Jonesboro joined<br />
the Future Farmers of America; they studied<br />
scientific farming, with a hands-on approach.<br />
The results of their efforts were on display at<br />
every <strong>County</strong> Fair. In 1949 they organized a “pig<br />
chain.” In this system, a boy began with a sow<br />
and a litter of piglets. He would give one pig to<br />
another boy in the chain who would raise and<br />
breed it. The second boy could then repay his<br />
friend with a piglet from his own litter and pass<br />
on another to the next boy in the “pig chain.”<br />
Beginning with five Hereford hogs, the Future<br />
Farmers of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> owned seventy-five<br />
animals in a short time.<br />
❖<br />
Top: Decorations transformed the<br />
lunchroom of Jonesboro High School<br />
into a ballroom for a Junior-Senior<br />
dance in the early 1950s.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY, INC.<br />
Above: The Jonesboro High School<br />
Concert Band.<br />
Chapter III ✦ 39
❖<br />
Top, right: As late as 1940, Morrow<br />
seemed quite small, giving no hint of<br />
the extensive commercial development<br />
that would soon be enclosed within its<br />
city limits.<br />
DETAIL FROM MAP OF CLAYTON COUNTY,<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES, MAP<br />
COLLECTION, CMF0701.<br />
Above: Captain Eddie Rickenbacker,<br />
top WWI flying ace and president of<br />
Eastern Airlines, survived a plane<br />
crash in Morrow.<br />
At this point, about one thousand<br />
schoolchildren studied in the grammar and high<br />
schools under a faculty made up of thirty<br />
“adequately trained” men and women. In 1950<br />
Jonesboro High School was constructing a new<br />
building, and was admitted to the Southern<br />
Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.<br />
The curriculum included forty-one courses in<br />
“all interest fields.”<br />
Students with an interest in music, for<br />
example, could participate in several bands or a<br />
glee club. Grammar school students marched in<br />
a Drum and Bugle Corps. More than a hundred<br />
students received instruction on piano, band<br />
instruments, or violin, and in voice. The PTA<br />
helped by providing instruments, and the<br />
Exchange Club helped with uniforms.<br />
The schools fielded interscholastic athletic<br />
teams; the Jonesboro High School football team<br />
were Regional 3C Champions in the 1949-1950<br />
season. Two hundred fifty children were taught<br />
to swim in the following summer.<br />
MORROW<br />
The village of Morrow formed around the<br />
depot that served the neighborhood of the onethousand-acre<br />
plantation founded by Radford<br />
Morrow. In 1941 the crash of an Eastern Airlines<br />
twin-engine DC-3 into a pine thicket in the<br />
southeastern corner of then-unincorporated<br />
Morrow thrust the town onto the front page.<br />
Seven persons died, and among the survivors<br />
was Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, the top WWI<br />
flying ace and president of the airline. When<br />
Morrow residents opened their newspapers to<br />
read accounts of this major news event they were<br />
chagrined to find their town characterized as a<br />
“whistle stop.” Civic pride moved them to seek<br />
incorporation as a city, which was accomplished<br />
in 1943. The population remains small (between<br />
five and six thousand), but no one could deny<br />
the importance of Morrow today. Within its city<br />
limits, along Mt. Zion Road, lie some of the more<br />
important retail shopping areas of the county,<br />
including the Southlake Mall. Morrow also is the<br />
location of the Performing Arts Center, a large<br />
auditorium operated by <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
Schools. Presently under development, “Olde<br />
Morrow” will present a collection of historic<br />
houses that have been relocated to a site adjacent<br />
to the Southlake Mall. When this project is<br />
completed, visitors will enjoy shopping and<br />
dining in a charming, nostalgic atmosphere.<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State University in Morrow began in<br />
1968 as the two-year <strong>Clayton</strong> Junior College.<br />
Citizens of the county subsidized construction<br />
with a $5 million bond issue. Changes in its<br />
name reflect its steady growth. In 1986, as<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State College, it began offering<br />
baccalaureate degrees; it received university<br />
status in 1996. Its present name was approved<br />
in 2005. It offers undergraduate degrees in<br />
various fields of Arts and Sciences, Professional<br />
Studies, Information and Mathematical Studies,<br />
Business, and Nursing and has recently added a<br />
graduate program with Master’s degrees in<br />
Liberal Studies, Nursing, Health Administration<br />
and Business Administration. CSU was a<br />
pioneer in the use of computer technology in<br />
education; all students are required to own<br />
laptop computers and classrooms are equipped<br />
with projection equipment and wireless internet<br />
access. The campus, heavily planted in pines,<br />
features a lake and several small ponds that are<br />
home to a flock of waterfowl, including a pair of<br />
swans. True to its tradition, <strong>Clayton</strong> State<br />
University continues to serve a constituency of<br />
“commuter” students but it also has added oncampus<br />
housing for a steadily increasing<br />
student body.<br />
Spivey Hall, located on the <strong>Clayton</strong> State<br />
University campus is one of the finest small<br />
concert halls in the United States and is the<br />
home of the 79-rank, 3-manual, 4,413-pipe<br />
Albert Schweitzer Memorial Organ. Spivey Hall<br />
was the inspiration of real estate entrepreneur<br />
40 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Walter Spivey and his wife Emilie. Mrs. Spivey<br />
had enjoyed the Lyceum, a program of cultural<br />
offerings at <strong>Clayton</strong> Junior College so she and<br />
her husband concluded this would be the ideal<br />
location for a first-rate performance venue. They<br />
arranged for a location overlooking the lake and<br />
organized the Walter and Emilie Spivey<br />
Foundation to finance the project, giving<br />
somewhat more than half of the cost of the hall’s<br />
construction. Walter Spivey died in 1984 but<br />
his wife carried on with the project. While<br />
Spivey Hall was in planning, Mrs. Spivey, herself<br />
a musician, insisted on hiring the best acoustical<br />
engineers to design the auditorium. Sadly,<br />
Emilie Spivey did not live to see the opening trio<br />
of concerts in 1990 that featured violinist Itzhak<br />
Perlman, pianist André Watts and bass Samuel<br />
Ramey. The result of Emilie Spivey’s vision is an<br />
intimate four-hundred-seat hall, where the high<br />
quality of the acoustics delights audiences and<br />
performers alike. Musicians as diverse as the<br />
great choral director Robert Shaw and Jazz<br />
pianist Ellis Marsalis praise Spivey Hall; Shaw<br />
declared that “Spivey Hall is to music what light<br />
is to painting,” and Marsalis said, “Spivey Hall is<br />
the most fantastic little performance hall I have<br />
played—ever!” In keeping with the educational<br />
mission of <strong>Clayton</strong> State University, Spivey has a<br />
strong program of music education, supporting<br />
The Spivey Hall Children’s Choir and Spivey<br />
Hall Young Artists. Music lovers from all over<br />
the greater metropolitan area come to the<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State campus to enjoy performances by<br />
musicians of international importance.<br />
The Archives of the State of Georgia is<br />
adjacent to the Southeastern Branch of the<br />
National Archives and both are close to<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State University. This pairing of two<br />
archives is unique, and their staffs frequently<br />
cooperate in providing programs for the public.<br />
Researchers of all varieties, from authors to<br />
genealogists come from all over the country to<br />
access the original records housed in the two<br />
neighboring archives.<br />
The Reynolds Nature Preserve in Morrow<br />
occupies a wooded site with trails winding<br />
around a large central pond. The earliest<br />
evidence shows that Robert T. S. Huie and his<br />
family lived there in the time of the Civil War.<br />
Their home was a two story, four-room house,<br />
which grew over the years with the addition of<br />
an attic and porches and additional living<br />
space. Nearby were barns, a corn crib, a spring<br />
house and two tenant houses. William<br />
Huie Reynolds acquired the property in 1920; a<br />
decade later the ponds that are the centerpiece<br />
of the Preserve were created. Reynolds, a<br />
lawyer, had a deep appreciation of the<br />
natural beauty to be found on these 130 acres<br />
of woodlands and wetlands; he gave it to<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> for the creation of a nature<br />
preserve. In 1979 a federal grant financed the<br />
construction of an interpretive center, piers,<br />
bridges and other improvements. The trustees<br />
have also expanded the Preserve to a total<br />
of 146 acres. It serves thirty-five thousand<br />
visitors a year, with programs and exhibits<br />
for children and adults. The four thousand<br />
children who come to the Nature Center each<br />
year can see native amphibians and reptiles and<br />
an observation hive of honeybees. There are also<br />
wheelchair accessible trails. The Huie/Reynolds<br />
❖<br />
Top: In a unique arrangement of<br />
federal and state research facilities,<br />
the Archives of the State of Georgia is<br />
adjacent to the National Archives and<br />
Records Center, Southeastern Branch.<br />
PHOTO BY JIM KEMP.<br />
Above: Visitors to the Reynolds<br />
Nature Preserve enjoy walking on<br />
trails surrounded by native Georgia<br />
plants. An interpretive center provides<br />
information on Georgia wildlife.<br />
PHOTO BY JIM KEMP.<br />
Chapter III ✦ 41
❖<br />
Top, right: The “Dummy” train<br />
provided commuter service on a line<br />
extending from Lovejoy to Atlanta.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES,<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLT055-84.<br />
Above: The uniform worn by Jack<br />
Lambert of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> indicates<br />
his position as a railroad conductor.<br />
Notice his watch chain; a man in<br />
this profession carried a highly<br />
accurate timepiece.<br />
COURTESY OF ELAINE THAMES.<br />
house is not open to the public, but the<br />
historic barn contains an assortment of antique<br />
farm implements.<br />
GOING<br />
PLACES<br />
Travel away from the county, and especially<br />
to neighboring Atlanta, became more<br />
convenient as modern methods of<br />
transportation developed. From the first days of<br />
the railroad, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> residents could<br />
catch the passenger lines to and from Atlanta. In<br />
1914 the railroad added passenger waiting<br />
rooms to the depot in Jonesboro.<br />
The commuter train, properly named the<br />
Jonesboro Accommodation, but known as “The<br />
Dummy,” shared the tracks, keeping a regular<br />
schedule of stops—about a mile apart—<br />
between Lovejoy and Terminal Station in<br />
downtown Atlanta. “Dummy” has a number of<br />
meanings relating to railroads, but the one that<br />
applies here is a passenger train with a small<br />
engine that runs on a short route; <strong>Clayton</strong>’s<br />
“Dummy” consisted of a small engine and three<br />
small cars, two for passengers and one for<br />
baggage. Four times a day, for thirty years, it<br />
traveled forward into the city and in reverse on<br />
the return trip, thus avoiding the necessity of<br />
turning around at each end of the route. In the<br />
earlier part of the century <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
families kept books of tickets on hand for<br />
convenience; students rode to school in<br />
Jonesboro on the train. However, improved<br />
roads and the growth of the automobile finally<br />
displaced the train; engineer H. K. Puckett took<br />
the Dummy on its last run in 1931.<br />
When automobiles and busses became more<br />
convenient, railroad passenger service began a<br />
long, slow decline. However, long-distance<br />
trains continued to provide a high level of<br />
service for many years. In the late thirties, the<br />
Central of Georgia offered coach service with<br />
“air-conditioned, air-cooled, steel coaches, toilet<br />
facilities, free drinking cups, smoking<br />
compartment, ladies’ lounge” all for 1 ½ cent a<br />
mile in the Southeast. However, in the 1950’s,<br />
some trains still stopped at the depot, but others<br />
only paused when flagged down. At that time<br />
about 20 freight and 12 passenger trains passed<br />
through Jonesboro daily.<br />
Before the Civil War, when the railroads were<br />
still developing, two long-distance roadways<br />
already led southward from Atlanta; they only<br />
nicked through the northwest and northeast<br />
corners of <strong>Clayton</strong>. The first passed through<br />
Fayetteville and the other through McDonough.<br />
Roads developed very slowly in Georgia, and<br />
paved roads remained scarce for a long time.<br />
With the exception of the Old Dixie Highway,<br />
which was paved in 1919, roads in <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> remained unpaved until 1940.<br />
Reporting on road work, the local newspaper<br />
optimistically commented that in good weather,<br />
Highway 54 was almost as good as a paved road.<br />
The Old Dixie Highway, which was US 41,<br />
left Atlanta and passed through Hapeville where<br />
GA 85 branched away southwest to Fayetteville;<br />
US 41 continued to Jonesboro and then<br />
followed the long established route to Lovejoy.<br />
This road was also part of US 19, which ran<br />
from northwestern Pennsylvania to Florida,<br />
bringing many tourists through the county.<br />
42 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Travelers driving to Florida in 1950 could<br />
stop at Aladdin’s Drive Inn to purchase gasoline<br />
at 19 1/2 cents per gallon, and pick up<br />
cigarettes, drinks, sandwiches and groceries.<br />
They could acquire some interesting items at the<br />
Pottery Gateway or the Town and Country<br />
Shoppe and go on to Harvey’s Candy Kitchen to<br />
order a shipment of fresh pecans for the folks<br />
back home. Finished with shopping, the tired<br />
tourists could rest at the Peach State “Autotel” or<br />
the Ranch Motel. But travelers would need to<br />
take care as they proceeded southward to the<br />
area of the Hastings overhead bridge where a<br />
“dead man’s curve” took at least half a dozen<br />
lives within a couple of years, until road<br />
improvements removed the hazard.<br />
When private automobiles were not within<br />
reach, public carriers were busy. In the mid-<br />
1930s, Ader Coach Lines departed Jonesboro<br />
eight times daily, four going north and four to<br />
the south. By the middle of the century, 35<br />
busses from the Greyhound and Trailways lines<br />
stopped at Bama’s Drug Store, which served as a<br />
depot. Across the street from the drug store, the<br />
Jonesboro Taxi Company provided both cab and<br />
bus passengers shelter during bad weather. The<br />
cab company reassured riders, “Only qualified<br />
drivers who have permits registered with the<br />
City Clerk are allowed to drive.”<br />
Although not yet enfolded into the full<br />
suburban embrace of Atlanta, connections<br />
between the city and <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> increased<br />
with the revolution in transportation. Many<br />
residents traveled to work in the city, which<br />
induced the county to accept the innovation of<br />
Daylight Savings Time. The newspaper groused<br />
that “So many of our people work in Atlanta<br />
that we are practically forced to accept the time<br />
change.” The Jonesboro City Council and the<br />
Methodist Sunday School had already accepted<br />
the system, although the editor still was “not<br />
impressed with this time change….”<br />
LAW<br />
& ORDER<br />
With the advent of a new century, law<br />
enforcement in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> began to need<br />
more than a sheriff or a town marshal to protect<br />
its citizens. In 1928 a special session of the<br />
<strong>County</strong> Commission created the <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> Police Department, consisting of four<br />
officers who reported directly to them. The force<br />
had been reorganized by 1939 when R. L. Winn<br />
of Jonesboro was named Chief. He and<br />
patrolman W. A. Humphreys of Forest Park<br />
were each provided with a telephone, and<br />
instructed to report to the <strong>County</strong><br />
commissioners but to cooperate with the sheriff.<br />
Their duties included inspection of roads and<br />
bridges, but also to see that “roadhouses, filling<br />
stations, tourist camps, etc.” operated according<br />
to the law. About a year later Winn left the force<br />
and was replaced by Sam Blalock. Howard<br />
Smith, who was Chief in the Fifties told an<br />
interviewer that in the early days of the force,<br />
the county “had honky-tonks running out of<br />
our ears,” which kept the officers busy. At about<br />
the time of Smith’s interview, two members of<br />
Jonesboro’s three-man police force (one was the<br />
Chief) posed with a new patrol car in front of<br />
their minuscule “station” on Main Street. The<br />
need for such a force was evident; traffic had<br />
become so heavy that the city had installed a<br />
four-way stop light on Main Street.<br />
Moonshiners gave steady employment to<br />
peace officers. One still was found in 1939 in<br />
the Flint River Swamp “not far from Mundy’s<br />
Mill.” Only a small quantity of “the distilled<br />
product” was found, but the raid uncovered one<br />
hundred gallons of beer. According to the<br />
❖<br />
Above: A few of the businesses that<br />
aimed to serve the travelers passing<br />
through <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> on the Old<br />
Dixie Highway.<br />
IMAGES FROM JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK,<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC<br />
LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Below: A physician in College Park,<br />
Robert Warren Colquitt Green served<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> in the Georgia House<br />
of Representatives; photo c. 1917.<br />
COURTESY OF HELEN HONEA KNIGHT AND<br />
HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON COUNTY, INC<br />
Chapter III ✦ 43
newspaper, the raid was in the nick of time, “In<br />
another day or two the still would have been in<br />
operation and it would have flooded the county<br />
with moonshine.”<br />
The presence of Atlanta put increasing<br />
pressure on the county’s police resources. In<br />
1939 the residents of the northern part of the<br />
county requested that the <strong>County</strong> Commission<br />
increase its police force and backed this with the<br />
helpful suggestion that there would be no<br />
expense involved because the additional arrests<br />
made by the expanded force would bring in<br />
enough revenue to offset the cost.<br />
In 1940, when the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
Commission voted to close the “Public Works<br />
Camp,” the editors of the News and Farmer<br />
reported that this facility, formerly known as the<br />
“Chain Gang,” had become very expensive for<br />
the county since the state had stopped making<br />
contracts with counties for road repairs.<br />
Therefore, the prisoners were returned to the<br />
custody of the state. The editors supported a<br />
possible plan to locate a state-financed camp in<br />
the county in the near future.<br />
CHALLENGES<br />
Along with the rest of the nation, <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> suffered through the struggles of the<br />
Great Depression. Although this financial crisis is<br />
associated with the 1929 market crash, problems<br />
appeared in rural regions a few years earlier. The<br />
first hint of trouble was an unexpected decline in<br />
the price of cotton, coupled with the arrival of the<br />
boll weevil. Yields reduced dramatically; an acre<br />
of land had yielded a bale of cotton, but after the<br />
arrival of the weevil, farmers needed eight to ten<br />
acres to make a single bale of cotton. Desperate<br />
and hopeful some farmers held on to their cotton,<br />
hoping for a price recovery, only to have it rot<br />
during the long wait in storage. Others sold at a<br />
loss. A four-month drought in 1925 turned<br />
farmlands to tinder as food and cotton crops<br />
dried up.<br />
Farmers fought the boll weevil with various<br />
poisons, dusting the plants with calcium arsenate<br />
powder or mopping the stalks with molasses laced<br />
with the poison. However the bugs were resistant<br />
to these methods and many years of research were<br />
necessary to bring them under control. According<br />
to an account by J. Ellis Mundy,<br />
There were no jobs. On the farm people were<br />
glad to work for fifty cents a day wages, but few<br />
there were who had the fifty cents to pay. Clothes<br />
were patched and later the patches on the<br />
patched clothes were patched. Fertilizer sacks<br />
and flour and feed sacks were salvaged to make<br />
underwear, shirts, and dresses. It was not<br />
uncommon to see lettering on a man’s shirt<br />
back…[or] a boy's pants….”<br />
Without income, unable to repay loans,<br />
farmers lost their land to foreclosure or sold—if<br />
they could find a buyer—for a few dollars an<br />
acre. Some simply surrendered their land to<br />
anyone who would agree to take over the debts it<br />
carried. The family farm was becoming a thing of<br />
the past in <strong>Clayton</strong>; where agriculture persisted,<br />
dairy farms and peach orchards began to displace<br />
cotton planting<br />
The Roosevelt administration’s “New Deal”<br />
policies brought some relief to hard pressed<br />
communities. The city of Jonesboro applied for<br />
extensive WPA improvements for their town.<br />
They wanted paved roads, one “from the school<br />
❖<br />
When the U.S. Highway cut through<br />
Arthur Huie’s pastures, an<br />
“underpass” accommodated moving<br />
the cattle from one side of the road to<br />
the other.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
44 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
uilding to the highway” and another “to the<br />
Courthouse.” Also in their request were<br />
sidewalks and curbs, water mains and fire plugs.<br />
The plan had preliminary approval in the fall of<br />
1939, and awaited approval from Washington.<br />
They expected that all of this would cost about<br />
$60,000, with the city responsible for only a<br />
small portion of the total.<br />
While <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> struggled through the<br />
problems at home, new dangers arose in other<br />
parts of the world. In March of 1939, the News<br />
and Farmer reported, “Hitler is again grabbing<br />
territory…. He is going to keep on until he gets<br />
what is coming to him.” The editor advocated<br />
preparedness as a deterrent, but was certain that<br />
other countries knew “we are not going over<br />
there to hunt trouble.” In September of that year<br />
the News and Farmer announced, “Germany<br />
invaded Poland last week in a war of greed.” It<br />
reported the declarations of war by England and<br />
France and President Roosevelt’s statement of<br />
American neutrality. The editors worried about<br />
rapidly rising food prices. They reported, “Some<br />
predict a long war with practically the entire<br />
world involved” but offered the possibility that<br />
the situation might be remedied by a revolution<br />
because “much unrest is noted in Germany.”<br />
War in Europe was front page news, but so was<br />
the success of a recent American Legion<br />
barbecue and the $25 prize won by the Future<br />
Farmers for the best grain demonstration in<br />
northwest Georgia.<br />
President Franklin Roosevelt took the<br />
threatening conditions in Europe seriously, and<br />
instituted a peacetime draft as a precaution. The<br />
News and Farmer reported on the work of the<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Selective Service Board. In the<br />
spring of 1941 they were “receiving calls for<br />
trainees from three to four times a month.’ The<br />
paper noted that “Bill” Whaley had volunteered<br />
for service and listed three white and two<br />
“colored boys” who had recently been called.<br />
They expected that by the end of the year all of<br />
those who had registered would be in training.<br />
When the war came, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, as it<br />
had in the past, provided agricultural products<br />
as well as fighting men. A Crop Corps formed of<br />
volunteer church workers, Boy Scouts, and<br />
school children occasionally assisted in<br />
harvesting the county’s crops, on one occasion<br />
picking seven bales of cotton. The newspaper<br />
proclaimed, “They are out to help harvest the<br />
crop which must be saved with the labor<br />
shortage. They have entered the fight at the<br />
home front.”<br />
Air raids probably were not much of a danger<br />
in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, but the News and Farmer<br />
printed a diagram of the Civilian Defense “New<br />
Air Raid Warning System” on its front page, on<br />
March 5, 1943. A steady blast meant enemy<br />
planes on the way, short or wavering blast meant<br />
“bombing expected,” and another steady blast<br />
meant that the enemy planes had left the area<br />
but might return.. “All Clear” message would<br />
come by radio or telephone.<br />
A system of ration stamps allocated food and<br />
fuel resources. Purchasers presented stamps<br />
when they bought goods such as gasoline, coffee,<br />
tires and fuel oil. <strong>County</strong> residents could study<br />
the detailed regulations in the newspaper: “Sugar<br />
ration stamp number 12 which becomes valid<br />
March 16, is worth five pounds but it must last<br />
through the end of May, a period of 11 weeks.<br />
Stamp 11, which is good for three pounds is<br />
good from Feb. 1 to March 15.” In another<br />
article, the editor affirmed that rationing is “only<br />
a small part of the supreme sacrifice being made<br />
by the boys in the front lines.”<br />
The newspaper also liked to present firsthand<br />
reports of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> “boys” in the<br />
service. Cpl. Claude H. Whaley wrote about his<br />
life in the Marine Corps, where “They fed me<br />
good and worked me hard.” He trained at Parris<br />
Island and then went to Quartermaster training,<br />
but had not yet seen combat.” Pfc. William P.<br />
❖<br />
The war came home on the frontpage<br />
of the News and Farmer, with<br />
news of local citizens in the service,<br />
news of the home front and civil<br />
defense preparations for the possibility<br />
of attack.<br />
MICROFILM OF THE SURVIVING COPIES OF THE<br />
NEWSPAPER IS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA<br />
MAIN LIBRARY, GEORGIA NEWSPAPER PROJECT.<br />
Chapter III ✦ 45
❖<br />
Jodeco Road, about 1950; after<br />
WWII the rural character of<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> would give way to<br />
relentless suburbanization.<br />
Reeves graduated from aircraft mechanics<br />
school and expected to be “on the line soon.” He<br />
ended his letter with a “Prayer of Penitence.”<br />
The editors also gave attention to those who<br />
were leaving for the service. On the last day of<br />
April 1943 they listed seventeen young men<br />
who had been ordered to report to Fort<br />
McPherson in five days.<br />
During WWI the Atlanta Army Depot had<br />
been located in warehouse space in the city<br />
donated by philanthropist Asa Candler. It<br />
operated until 1922, and was shut down. Faced<br />
with the threat of war in 1939, it was reactivated<br />
as the Fourth Corps Army Quartermaster Depot<br />
and briefly located at Fort McPherson before<br />
being moved back to the old warehouse<br />
location. Finally, Congress appropriated $20<br />
million for a new facility that was constructed<br />
on a large tract of farmland close to the town of<br />
Conley, where fewer than one hundred people<br />
lived at the time. Close to railroad lines, the<br />
depot was a key distribution point for military<br />
supplies. Also located on the site were an<br />
Ordnance Automotive School and facilities for<br />
repair and refurbishing of engineer and<br />
ordnance equipment. It was briefly a center for<br />
the repatriation of the remains of those killed in<br />
military service, and later became the<br />
headquarters for the administration of military<br />
cemeteries in the Southeast. Morris Army<br />
Airfield operated as part of the facility for a few<br />
years. In 1962 the Quartermaster Depot was<br />
renamed the Atlanta Army Depot when control<br />
transferred from the Quartermaster Corps to the<br />
U.S. Army Supply and Maintenance Command.<br />
Finally, in the wake of an Army reorganization<br />
in 1973, the depot becamea satellite installation<br />
of nearby Fort McPherson and was again<br />
renamed Ft. Gillem in honor of the career of<br />
Lieutenant General Alvan C. Gillem, who<br />
became commanding general of Fort<br />
McPherson, where he had begun his forty-year<br />
military career as a private. Eventually Ft.<br />
Gillem was annexed by the city of Forest Park.<br />
Ft. Gillem, which had come to <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> during WWII, continued to be used by<br />
the Army as a supply depot and training<br />
location into the twenty-first century before<br />
being closed. Most of the land has reverted to<br />
civilian uses, although a few small military<br />
activities will remain in the county.<br />
Although the war had brought many changes<br />
to <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, at mid-century the county’s<br />
principal cash income still came from<br />
agriculture including peach orchards, cotton,<br />
truck crops, dairy products, beef, pork, poultry<br />
and production of seed for market. But change<br />
was still on the march, and <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
was due for major transformations in the<br />
near future.<br />
46 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
CHAPTER IV<br />
The last five decades have been times of profound change for <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, bringing economic,<br />
social, and physical change. Long a center of agricultural activity, the county is now thoroughly<br />
urbanized and integrated into the “Greater Atlanta” metropolis. Many descendants of early settlers<br />
still make <strong>Clayton</strong> their home, but the area is now home to large numbers of newcomers who have<br />
come not just from the region or other parts of the nation, but from all corners of the world. The<br />
county provided one of the venues for the Centennial Olympics of 1996. For all the years of its<br />
existence, one theme remains constant: <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> is a crossroads.<br />
Jonesboro, the county seat, is a starting place for those newcomers and visitors who have an<br />
interest in area history. Visitors to the Stately Oaks complex will see several historic buildings in<br />
addition to the house itself. The train depot, located in Old Downtown Jonesboro, is now a visitor<br />
center and home of the Road to Tara Museum of Gone With the Wind memorabilia including original<br />
posters, costumes, and still photographs from the Oscar-winning film. The 1869 Jail building now<br />
houses the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> History Museum and may be toured by appointment. Many of those who<br />
died in the battle of Jonesboro now rest in the peaceful, tree-shaded Patrick Cleburne Memorial<br />
Confederate Cemetery on McDonough Street, not far from the business district.<br />
Also in Jonesboro, the Arts <strong>Clayton</strong> Gallery is a project of the Arts <strong>Clayton</strong>, Inc., organization that<br />
was founded in 1987. The gallery, located in a renovated building at 136 S. Main Street, features the<br />
work of Georgia artists. Murals depicting life in the 1940s and ’50s adorn the exterior of the building.<br />
Arts <strong>Clayton</strong> also sponsors educational programs, including an Art Van that visits schools and other<br />
locations where children can benefit from art enrichment activities.<br />
As <strong>Clayton</strong> has grown over the years, a network of communities came into being; some can first be<br />
identified because in the days before the zip code, they had a separate, named post office; others are<br />
mentioned in family histories or other documents. Some villages have left little more than a place<br />
name in the historic record but Dorsey, Bumblehook, Flint River, Hastings, Hillyer, Ibarra, Nolan,<br />
❖<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> International Park is<br />
a legacy of the Atlanta Centennial<br />
Olympic Games in the year 2000.<br />
Beach volleyball made its debut as an<br />
Olympic sport in the tournament<br />
played on “Atlanta Beach.” The small<br />
lake surrounded by an artificial beach<br />
of white sand remains the centerpiece<br />
of the park, which also includes picnic<br />
areas, a tennis center, and the Muscle<br />
Beach Fitness Center.<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 47
❖<br />
Above: Originally a burial ground for<br />
soldiers who died in the local field<br />
hospitals at the time of the Battle of<br />
Jonesboro, this cemetery was named<br />
in honor of CSA General Patrick<br />
Cleburne. After the war, the remains<br />
of others who had been hastily buried<br />
on the battlefield were also moved to<br />
this location.<br />
Below: Early aviators looked down on<br />
the abandoned oval of the Atlanta<br />
Automobile Association’s former race<br />
track and saw a good spot to land<br />
their planes.<br />
COURTESY OF THE KENAN RESEARCH CENTER AT<br />
THE ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER<br />
Orrs, Selina, and Thames still must be<br />
remembered. Lake City is tucked in between<br />
Morrow and Forest Park; the Southeastern<br />
Branch of the National Archives and Records<br />
Service sits on the boundary between Lake City<br />
and Morrow. The archives houses about seventy<br />
thousand cubic feet of archival holdings dating<br />
from 1716. The city’s name derives from several<br />
small lakes in the area which now have been<br />
filled. Ellenwood, on Georgia 42 and the<br />
Southern Railroad, is now largely a residential<br />
area. It is the location of a facility connected with<br />
the Southeast Branch of the National Archives<br />
and Records Service, which is called the Atlanta<br />
Records Center. The Center stores and services<br />
records from Federal agencies in Alabama,<br />
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North<br />
Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.<br />
FLYING<br />
The most dramatic development in <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong>’s modern history has been the growth of<br />
the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International<br />
Airport. Its story begins in the first decades of<br />
the century with another mode of<br />
transportation—quite new at the time—the<br />
automobile. “Buddy” Candler, son of Coca-Cola<br />
founder Asa Candler, became enamored of the<br />
invention. Many of his friends agreed, and they<br />
formed a club, the Atlanta Automobile<br />
Association. The group took an interest in<br />
racing, and prevailed on the senior Candler to<br />
advance funds to build a racetrack not far from<br />
the village of Hapeville. There, they staged at<br />
least one race of national interest; the legendary<br />
driver Barney Oldfield burned up the track with<br />
speeds over seventy mph in his Buick racer to<br />
win the Coca-Cola Trophy. In spite of the<br />
interest generated by this race, the AAA track<br />
did not show a profit, and financier Candler,<br />
who expected a return on his investment, lost<br />
patience. He foreclosed, and demolished the<br />
track facilities for scrap in order to recover a<br />
portion of the original loan. Only the oval track<br />
remained, forlorn in an open field.<br />
However, the track did not go entirely unused;<br />
this was also the dawn of aviation, and fliers in<br />
the area used the track as a convenient landing<br />
place. This did not go unnoticed at a time when<br />
the city had determined to secure a position in<br />
the newly forming web of U.S. airmail routes.<br />
Atlanta Mayor Walter A. Sims signed a five-year<br />
lease for the track in 1925. The terms of the lease<br />
reflected Candler’s affection for the city; he<br />
charged the city only the amount of the taxes he<br />
would be required to pay on the land. Thus,<br />
Candler Field, located in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, was<br />
established as Atlanta’s airport and the city<br />
succeeded in winning a place in the airmail<br />
system. The first Contract Air Mail flight, piloted<br />
by Ben Ellison, took off from Candler field on<br />
September 15, 1926, bound for destinations in<br />
Florida. A stop had been planned at Macon, but<br />
because of a local political dispute, the airfield<br />
was plowed up. Instead of landing, the pilot<br />
watched for a signal from the Macon postmaster,<br />
buzzed the field where he stood, waving a white<br />
handkerchief in each hand, and dropped the mail<br />
bag. This route was soon abandoned because of<br />
insufficient demand, perhaps the result of the<br />
10¢ per ounce postal rate. However, Candler<br />
Field continued in use; Charles Lindbergh, the<br />
celebrity pilot who made the first solo flight over<br />
the Atlantic, landed his Spirit of St. Louis there<br />
for a short appearance before thrilled onlookers.<br />
Then, in 1928, Pitcairn Aviation reestablished<br />
mail service, with Atlanta as a link between New<br />
Orleans and New Jersey.<br />
Airmail had become a permanent feature of<br />
the U. S. Postal Service and in 1929, the city<br />
purchased Candler Field. In the first of a series of<br />
revisions, the city officially named it Atlanta<br />
Municipal Airport, although the “Candler Field”<br />
appellation continued in use for some years.<br />
48 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
The cost was $94,400, certainly the best<br />
investment in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> real estate ever<br />
made. Airmail service continued to expand.<br />
During the Roosevelt administration, Delta<br />
Airlines, a Louisiana firm, won the Atlanta to<br />
Charlotte airmail contract. Charles Dolson, a<br />
pilot on this route eventually became the CEO of<br />
Delta. The new airline established a maintenance<br />
facility at the airport; and in 1941 it moved its<br />
center of operations to the Atlanta airport,<br />
starting a long and important relationship that<br />
has lasted into the twenty-first century.<br />
Passenger service came almost immediately<br />
after the inauguration of the Contract Mail<br />
Service. In 1930 Delta began flights to<br />
Birmingham, and Eastern Air Transport<br />
(formerly Pitcairn Aviation) opened passenger<br />
service, first to Dallas and Los Angeles; and<br />
within a few months, added flights to New York<br />
and Florida. By 1939 air traffic had become<br />
heavy enough to require the construction of the<br />
airport’s first control tower.<br />
World War II doubled the size of Candler<br />
Field, when the government declared it a U. S.<br />
airbase. Although Atlanta officials maintained<br />
that the name of the airport had been changed<br />
at the time of the purchase of Candler Field, a<br />
dispute with the Post Office led them to reaffirm<br />
the official title, “Atlanta Municipal Airport” in<br />
the summer of 1942. Whatever its name, it was<br />
already the nation’s busiest airport in terms of<br />
flight operations in the year 1942, with a record<br />
seventeen hundred takeoffs and landings on one<br />
single day. In 1948, while the airport<br />
administration worked in a war-surplus hangar,<br />
more than a million passengers came through<br />
the airport. To meet the increasing flow of<br />
business, the need for a larger terminal seemed<br />
evident. From this point forward, the airport<br />
facilities have remained in an almost constant<br />
state of improvement and expansion.<br />
In 1957 a new terminal was under<br />
construction and traffic through the Atlanta<br />
airport set a new record: between noon and<br />
2pm, it was now the busiest airport in the<br />
world. The new terminal opened in 1961, and<br />
was almost immediately operating at its<br />
capacity. It had been planned to accommodate<br />
about six million travelers, but the advent of jet<br />
travel had delivered over 9 million travelers to<br />
the Atlanta Municipal Airport.<br />
The city renamed the airport in 1971, to<br />
honor the memory of long-time Mayor William<br />
B. Hartsfield, but that name was soon revised<br />
when Eastern Airlines inaugurated the first<br />
international flights to Mexico and Montego Bay.<br />
Now the airport was the William B. Hartsfield<br />
Atlanta International Airport. More<br />
international flights connected to the airport,<br />
which in 1980 opened the world’s largest<br />
passenger terminal, designed to serve 55 million<br />
passengers annually. Over the years additional<br />
runways had been added and existing ones<br />
extended. In 1988 the airport was tied into<br />
Atlanta’s MARTA rapid transit system; passenger<br />
light rail trains now linked the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
airport to the heart of the city of Atlanta. The<br />
passenger facilities also grew, with the addition<br />
of a concourse devoted to serving international<br />
passengers as well as more renovations of the<br />
❖<br />
Above: Candler Field was officially<br />
renamed “Atlanta Municipal Airport”<br />
in 1942. Today it is busiest airport in<br />
the world in terms of flight operations.<br />
COURTESY OF THE ATLANTA HARTSFIELD-<br />
JACKSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.<br />
Below: In the early 1960s a broad,<br />
straight highway led directly to the<br />
airport terminal, which now is<br />
encircled by coils of entrance and exit<br />
ramps serving the three interstate<br />
highways that surround the airport.<br />
COURTESY OF THE ATLANTA HARTSFIELD-<br />
JACKSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 49
❖<br />
Above: A group of schoolgirls posed<br />
in the shade of a schoolyard tree<br />
in 1950.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Below: <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> farm laborers<br />
and a cook posed with members<br />
of the family that employed them in<br />
the 1940s.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES,<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION.<br />
terminal. Because of the terminal’s large<br />
“footprint” the airport provides a system of<br />
subway-style passenger trains and a moving<br />
sidewalk to cover the distance between the<br />
ticketing facilities and their flights. While at the<br />
airport, passengers can visit shops and dining<br />
facilities located in the main terminal building<br />
and along the five concourses where passengers<br />
meet their planes.<br />
In October 2003 the city of Atlanta once<br />
again renamed the airport, to honor the memory<br />
of another Mayor, Maynard H. Jackson, who had<br />
been a strong supporter of the airport.<br />
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport<br />
continues to be the world’s busiest airport; over<br />
80 million passengers used the airport in 2007,<br />
including more than 9 million international<br />
visitors. Fifty-five passenger or cargo airlines use<br />
the Hartsfield-Jackson facilities. According to the<br />
Air Transport Research Society, they have come<br />
to the “Most Efficient Airport in the World.”<br />
The presence of an airport naturally<br />
stimulates development of related facilities. One<br />
of the largest of these is the Georgia<br />
International Convention Center, on the<br />
outskirts of College Park, a town that began its<br />
existence in 1890 as a prospective textile<br />
manufacturing site that was first called<br />
Manchester. College Park is mostly located in<br />
Fulton <strong>County</strong>, but the Convention Center was<br />
built on the portion that extends into <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong>. Close to the airport as well as the<br />
intersection of three interstate highways, the<br />
Center is a few minutes travel from downtown<br />
Atlanta. With over two hundred thousand<br />
square feet of space for exhibits, meetings,<br />
performances and other events, it is the second<br />
largest convention facility in the state.<br />
AFRICAN- AMERICAN<br />
LIFE<br />
Until the middle of the twentieth century, the<br />
lives of African Americans in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
are poorly recorded. Slave lists from antebellum<br />
years give only a general demographic picture.<br />
Because <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> had only a few large<br />
plantations, the greater part of the county’s<br />
black population was scattered across the area,<br />
living with the households they served in small<br />
groups or as single individuals. One free person<br />
of color, known only as Frank is recorded; he<br />
lived as the rules of the time required, under the<br />
legal guardianship of Leander C. Hutcheson.<br />
Enslaved persons occasionally appear in<br />
legal documents, such as wills or bills of sale,<br />
50 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Spencer [says] that Mrs. E. Sharpe who is the<br />
mother-in-law of Chaney promised to see him<br />
paid in other words see that he has his rights.<br />
There is no proof of the statement of Mrs.<br />
Sharpe, only as a freedman’s word for it R.E.<br />
Chaney lives with Mrs. Sharpe. He owns no<br />
property. is there any remedy for the freedman<br />
that had no written contract[?]<br />
but little of substance preserves the memory<br />
of individuals, beyond some sentimental<br />
recollections of “faithful servants” recorded by<br />
whites who knew them.<br />
This attitude largely continued after the end<br />
of slavery, although a search of Freedman’s<br />
Bureau records will reveal glimpses of the new<br />
relationships that were forged between the<br />
former slaves and the whites of the region<br />
during the Reconstruction era. A typical case<br />
involved a dispute over wages. In this instance,<br />
the local agent J. L. H. Waldrop asked for<br />
some advice from his superior about the case of<br />
a freedman named Spencer who claimed that he<br />
had made a verbal contract to work on the farm<br />
of a man named Chaney.<br />
Chaney postponed the payment of the debt<br />
by promising to settle soon. The freedman has<br />
not yet been paid. Chaney has no property that<br />
can be applied to the payment of any debt.<br />
Waldrop also looked after a school for the<br />
children of the local freedmen, but had many<br />
difficulties, including the arson of the building.<br />
In January of 1869, reported “in reference to the<br />
School House and Church at this place,”<br />
We have a good teacher here now. The house<br />
that I have rented for the freedman [school] is<br />
not large enough to accommodate the number of<br />
students that could go to school. If there is any<br />
chance for the freedman of this county to get any<br />
assistance to build a school house now is the<br />
time…we cannot have a proper school without a<br />
comfortable house, and that the freedmen is not<br />
able to build<br />
One source reports that nothing is known<br />
of any Ku Klux Klan activities in <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
during Reconstruction, but also reports<br />
recollections of some by elderly persons that<br />
“…at dusk, local vigilantes rode abreast on<br />
horseback, and at a fast pace, through the streets<br />
of the town as a signal that any blacks on the<br />
streets at that hour would be well-advised to go<br />
to their homes and stay there until daylight of<br />
the following morning.”<br />
❖<br />
Above: “Aunt” Bird Glenn, an<br />
employee of Ettie Brown, was<br />
photographed in 1920.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES,<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLT076-84.<br />
Below: Robert Morris, a prosperous<br />
dealer in quality groceries, did<br />
business with the most prominent<br />
families in the county.<br />
COURTESY OF HISTORICAL JONESBORO/CLAYTON<br />
COUNTY, INC.<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 51
❖<br />
Above: A photograph Andrew’s Chapel<br />
was included in Jonesboro’s Champion<br />
Home Town entry.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Below: The “colored” schools of<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> held May Day<br />
celebrations with parades and<br />
performances by the students.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Only in the twentieth century does much<br />
information about the life of the county’s<br />
African-American population come slowly to<br />
light. Tantalizing hints appear, such as a<br />
reference to an unnamed black person whose<br />
home contained “portraits in oil.” A tattered<br />
1907 receipt introduces Robert Morris who was<br />
a “Dealer in Staple and Fancy Groceries, Fruits,<br />
Etc., and All Kinds of Fresh Meats.” He counted<br />
among his customers the more prominent<br />
families of Jonesboro. By 1930 the census<br />
recorded that the 54-year–old merchant owned<br />
a house worth $1,000 and, unlike most of his<br />
neighbors, a “radio set.” He and Nettie, his wife<br />
of ten years, were the parents of three<br />
children—Hattie, Robert, Jr., and William.<br />
Awareness of race was a constant in the life of<br />
the county. For example, the advent of the<br />
Selective Service, just prior to the outbreak of<br />
WWII, meant that all young men, including<br />
African Americans, registered for the draft. A<br />
newspaper story in 1941 records the race<br />
consciousness of the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Selective<br />
Service Board, “So far the Board has had<br />
practically enough volunteers to fill their calls<br />
from among the whites, but they are having to<br />
induct colored boys as among them were very<br />
few volunteers.” Two “colored boys” named A.<br />
C. Glenn and Clifford Howard Turnipseed<br />
entered the service at the time of this story.<br />
Newspapers before the civil rights era were<br />
nearly silent on the subject of black life, unless<br />
they reported some instance of wrongdoing or<br />
public foolishness. The custom of the time<br />
excluded any positive news related to the African-<br />
American community from the front page. The<br />
general public did not read about weddings and<br />
funerals, school programs, college graduations,<br />
travel abroad, artistic works or personal<br />
achievements of any sort that were a part of black<br />
life. These omissions tended to reinforce a<br />
widespread misconception among whites that<br />
their black neighbors did nothing of consequence.<br />
In 1950, Jonesboro’s entry into the<br />
Champion Home Town contest finally brings<br />
into view an African-American community<br />
already fully formed. The town’s entry took the<br />
form of a scrapbook extolling all of the best<br />
features of the town, so it included a report on<br />
the presence of “Colored Churches.” Shiloh<br />
Baptist Church held services under the<br />
leadership of Pastor S. M. Davis of Atlanta on<br />
alternate Sundays, but had Sunday school with<br />
six teachers every week. Andrews Chapel<br />
Methodist Church had 225 members, a Sunday<br />
school with seven teachers, a Missionary Society<br />
and a Methodist Men’s Society.<br />
In its treatment of education, the scrapbook<br />
covered both white and “colored” divisions of<br />
the segregated county schools. Fading snapshots<br />
of a May Day celebration, evidently connected<br />
with the Jonesboro Consolidated Colored<br />
School, show a parade with floats and a<br />
marching band. Dancers in sombreros perform a<br />
folk dance, surrounded by interested onlookers.<br />
Another series of photos records a sunny day on<br />
an elementary school grounds; children run<br />
about and a group of smiling girls gather in the<br />
shade of a tree. The high school had boys’ and<br />
girls’ basketball teams; posed in their uniforms.<br />
The faculty and the principal of one of the<br />
schools stood on its steps to be photographed.<br />
The bonds formed in this community are<br />
strong. When desegregation of the local schools<br />
meant that African-American teachers would be<br />
reassigned to formerly white schools, it was<br />
apparent that even this most desirable step<br />
forward may have some cost. The faculties of<br />
two “colored” schools had worked together for<br />
so long that they wanted to preserve their<br />
relationship. They formed the Arnold-Fountain<br />
Professional Club, naming the group after the<br />
two schools where the founding members had<br />
taught. This group continues to meet regularly,<br />
decades after the end of segregation.<br />
The ruling that reorganized Georgia’s schools<br />
was not welcomed by many residents of <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
52 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
<strong>County</strong>, which was a center of Ku Klux Klan<br />
activity. Individuals identified as state leaders of<br />
the KKK lived in the county. In her fictionalized<br />
memoir of growing up in post-WWII <strong>Clayton</strong>,<br />
Patty Wilson Byars described a Klan demonstration<br />
on Main Street, with some Klansmen on<br />
horseback brandishing flaming torches:<br />
All of the men were dressed in long white<br />
robes, or sheets, with only the bottom part of<br />
their pant legs and shoes showing. Their heads<br />
were covered with white hoods, eye slits cut so<br />
they could see. Some of the horses, too, were<br />
covered in white sheets, even their faces, and<br />
large round eye holes were cut out to permit full<br />
vision. Many Klansmen carried torches that<br />
flamed high over their heads. Others blew long<br />
blasts on their bugles. Some had megaphones,<br />
shouting through them in booming voices….<br />
The street glowed with fire from the torches,<br />
lighting up the area so all could see.<br />
Presbyterian Church. A group of Klansmen<br />
appeared in the parking lot as those who<br />
attended were leaving. Arthur and Lucy remained<br />
to lock up the building and then went outside.<br />
There, illuminated by a single light about a dozen<br />
hooded men moved toward the Huie’s lonely car.<br />
The two started their walk toward it. Then she<br />
thought, “All right you Klansmen, you are the<br />
ones who have talked so much about how you<br />
are the protector of Southern Womanhood and<br />
how you always protect southern ladies from<br />
danger. Well, I’ll show you who is a Southern<br />
Lady.” She reached into her purse, and recovered<br />
her white gloves. Putting on these markers of her<br />
status as a “Southern Lady” Lucy concealed her<br />
fears as she walked beside her husband past the<br />
menacing robed figures to the car; they got in and<br />
drove away. A convoy of Klansmen followed as<br />
they drove home, entered the house and locked<br />
up. Then they watched from an unlighted<br />
window four cars parked by the roadside. A<br />
cluster of robed men conferred for a time before<br />
driving away. But they were not finished with<br />
Arthur and Lucy. The next night the Huies found<br />
a burning cross in the front yard. It was the first<br />
of several as they, and other members of HOPE<br />
persisted, and finally prevailed in their defense of<br />
the schools.<br />
From its earliest days <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> has been<br />
the home of two parallel cultures, one black and<br />
one white. Only recently has the white community<br />
had the opportunity to know their black neighbors<br />
more completely. An example of this half-hidden<br />
community life revolves around a burial ground,<br />
❖<br />
Above: A photograph of the “Colored”<br />
educational facilites in Jonesboro were<br />
offered as part of an entry in a<br />
“Champion Home Town” contest.<br />
JONESBORO SCRAPBOOK, COURTESY OF THE<br />
CLAYTON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.<br />
Below: The Lodge was destroyed by<br />
fire, but many of the graves that were<br />
located next to it bear signs of the<br />
connection between the burial ground<br />
and the Masons.<br />
PHOTO BY JIM KEMP.<br />
However, some citizens of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
stood up to this powerful force. In the late 1950’s,<br />
when the political leadership of the state<br />
considered shutting down the Georgia school<br />
system rather than desegregate, a citizens’ group<br />
called Help Our Public Education organized to<br />
support the continued operation of the integrated<br />
schools. A small chapter of that group formed in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>; Arthur and Lucy Huie were<br />
members. Lucy later recounted their experience<br />
with the Klan on a dark night after the HOPE<br />
group concluded its meeting in the Jonesboro<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 53
❖<br />
Anderson “Paps” Freeman was the<br />
progenitor of a large family. Many<br />
of his descendants still live in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
COURTESY OF VIRGINIA FREEMAN FORD.<br />
now known as <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Memorial Gardens<br />
Cemetery. After the displacement of the Creek<br />
Indians, a man named Steele and his slaves farmed<br />
this land where, after some time, a slave burial<br />
ground developed. Steele gave land near the<br />
graveyard for a black church, which later divided<br />
into two congregations, one Baptist, one<br />
Methodist. Members of the latter group organized<br />
a Masonic lodge. In the late 1800s a group of<br />
members of the York Rite Masonic Lodge #429,<br />
Lovejoy Enterprise, purchased the two acre tract.<br />
They built a “Lodge Hall” that also was used as a<br />
school. Some <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> citizens<br />
remembered attending classes in the first decades<br />
of the twentieth century. One teacher, Mrs. Ethel<br />
K. “Kate” Lovett managed four “grades” of pupils<br />
in the one-room schoolhouse.<br />
Throughout this time, African-American<br />
families, mostly those connected with the Lodge,<br />
continued to bury their relatives in this place.<br />
However, at some point after the middle of the<br />
century, the building disappeared; some people<br />
familiar with the property believe it burned,<br />
possibly as the result of arson. At some point a<br />
different group seems to have replaced the old<br />
York Rite lodge, because in 1966 it was the P. S.<br />
and S. Lodge No. 5 that sold the land. For the<br />
token sum of $1, Kate Lovett, the former teacher<br />
in the one-room school who had become a<br />
community activist and evangelist, hoped to<br />
preserve the community burial ground with free<br />
burials for the poor. Unfortunately, in the ensuing<br />
years most of the graves became overgrown,<br />
although some persons still were laid to rest with<br />
their kinsmen from time to time.<br />
The hidden graves at the Lodge Hall burial<br />
ground were rediscovered by Wayne Patterson, a<br />
county employee. He contacted Minnie Thrasher,<br />
a descendant of persons buried there. Patterson<br />
also contacted <strong>County</strong> Commission Chair Eldrin<br />
Bell, who recognized the historic significance of<br />
the place and supported a campaign to restore<br />
the old cemetery. In 2006, Mrs. Lovett’s heirs<br />
passed the land on to <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. The burial<br />
ground was put back into good order; 237 graves<br />
were revealed, although many more probably<br />
exist in the area. Chuck Ware, the county’s Grants<br />
and Government Liaison made the recovery of<br />
the cemetery a special project. He told the<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> News Daily, “I’m getting the living<br />
together with the dead, in a way of speaking.” At<br />
the dedication ceremony of the newly named<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Memorial Gardens Cemetery in<br />
May 2006, Chairman Bell announced plans to<br />
add the cemetery to the county’s “Heritage Trail”<br />
and to preserve “The Lodge Hall” as the name for<br />
a portion of the grounds. A new access road and<br />
park-like landscaping are planned and the county<br />
also hopes to reconstruct a replica of the old<br />
combination Lodge and school, where records of<br />
the burials will be made available to visitors.<br />
Members of several long-established <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> families took an interest in this project to<br />
restore dignity to the last resting place of their<br />
African-American ancestors. One of these<br />
families is made up of the numerous descendants<br />
of Anderson “Paps” Freeman, Sr., who is buried<br />
there. Freeman was born in about 1830 and lived<br />
as a slave on the plantation of a person named<br />
Anderson. After slavery ended, he married Alice<br />
Freeman, who was born in 1840 or ’45 and they<br />
had eleven children. After the death of Alice,<br />
“Paps” Freeman married Jane Knight and two<br />
more children were added to the Freeman family<br />
tree. The family lived in <strong>Clayton</strong> or neighboring<br />
counties for the rest of Anderson Freeman’s life.<br />
FOUNDERS OF THE YORK RITE MASON LODGE<br />
NO. 429,LOVEJOY ENTERPRISE<br />
Floyd Thrasher, King Allen. Robert B. Jones, James B. Jones, Oscar Wimbush, Bennie Nunnally,<br />
and Tilman Walker<br />
O FFICERS OF THE P. S .&S . LODGE NO. 5<br />
Wesley Turnipseed, Mary Sandford, Jimmie Lee Brown, Precious Eason, Maggie Robinson,<br />
Carrie Hayes Nunnally, and Tilman Walker.<br />
54 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
One of his sons, William H. “Luke” Freeman<br />
was very prosperous and became owner of 278<br />
acres of land; possibly he was the first African<br />
American to own land in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. He<br />
had tenants and kept a small store for the small<br />
community in the neighborhood of his acreage.<br />
A family member recalled,<br />
…if the people of the community had<br />
something to sell they would bring it to his store<br />
and he’d sell it for them with a little profit out of<br />
it. It was a good relationship going on between<br />
that community. If anyone got sick, they would<br />
go to each other’s houses and stay with them<br />
until theywere healed.<br />
In 1906 Anderson Freeman and some of his<br />
children organized the first Freeman Family<br />
Reunion; this close-knit group continued its<br />
annual meetings every year, with the exception of<br />
1942, when wartime rationing made it impossible<br />
to arrange. Members of the family have made the<br />
effort to preserve their history. Reunions usually<br />
took place in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, but occasionally<br />
sub-reunions convened in places as far away as<br />
Toledo, Ohio or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.<br />
Members of the family come from as far away as<br />
Boston or Portland, Oregon. One family member,<br />
Glenda Matuté Hunter, remembered a time when<br />
she was a small girl walking for a very long time at<br />
night in order to reach the reunion in time. When<br />
they arrived, “They were hugging, kissing, and<br />
crying. I used to wonder why they were crying<br />
because at that time I didn’t know about the tears<br />
of joy.” The celebration centered on a meal of<br />
cakes, pies, chicken, and other treats, served<br />
outside on “horse leg tables” decorated with white<br />
tablecloths made from fertilizer sacks. The ground<br />
around the table was carpeted with several inches<br />
of fresh sawdust, “so all the children could run<br />
around without hurting their feet on the rocks.”<br />
Before settling in to the feast the family members<br />
formed two lines and marched around the table<br />
singing the family song, “I Shall Wear a Crown.” In<br />
her description of these events, Virginia Freeman<br />
Ford wrote, “After dinner the children played and<br />
the other family members talked about the love<br />
and wisdom of God, how hard they worked, and<br />
their trials and tribulations. Their main concerns<br />
were food, clothes and shelter. The families all<br />
looked out for one another.”<br />
POPULATION GROWTH &<br />
CHANGE<br />
During the Eisenhower administration the<br />
United States Congress accepted the president’s<br />
recommendation to create a massive interstate<br />
highway system. Ultimately three of these<br />
highways connected to the city of Atlanta, even as<br />
the trains of the previous century had done. In an<br />
echo of that early pattern of railroad development,<br />
one of the major lines of the system, Interstate 75,<br />
linked Atlanta to the South passed through<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> just as the railroad and the U.S.<br />
highways had done. Several large trucking<br />
concerns have centers in the northeastern portion<br />
of the county, close to the Perimeter Highway that<br />
circles Atlanta and connects Interstates 20, 75,<br />
and 85. These new roads played a large part in<br />
bringing population change to the county, which<br />
previously had increased and changed mostly by<br />
a gradual influx of Southerners. Now the county<br />
has become increasingly suburbanized, while its<br />
demographic characteristics have changed<br />
dramatically. Immigrants from Latin America and<br />
Asia, combined, represent about ten percent of<br />
the population; about two-thirds of <strong>Clayton</strong>’s<br />
citizens are African American.<br />
Perhaps the most spectacular and beautiful<br />
visual example of demographic change is the<br />
Hindu Temple of Atlanta, in Riverdale, that<br />
opened in 1990. Master craftsmen brought from<br />
India by the temple’s organizers built it in the style<br />
of the tenth-century Chola Dynasty; it stands a<br />
brilliant white filigree against the blue Georgia sky.<br />
Several hundred Atlanta-area Hindus, who are<br />
largely middle-class professionals from southern<br />
India, attend the temple each day.<br />
❖<br />
Suitable streets and roads combined<br />
with the internal combustion engine to<br />
create a system of delivery that is<br />
essential to modern commerce.<br />
COURTESY OF THE GEORGIA ARCHIVES,<br />
VANISHING GEORGIA COLLECTION, CLLT84-85<br />
AND CLT45-84.<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 55
❖<br />
Above: Each day worshippers from all<br />
over the metro Atlanta area visit the<br />
Hindu Temple of Atlanta in Riverdale.<br />
COURTESY OF THE HINDU TEMPLE OF<br />
ATLANTA, INC.<br />
Below: Although it is actually situated<br />
a short distance beyond the <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> boundary, members of<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>’s new Buddhist<br />
community were involved in building<br />
the Wat Lao Photisarum.<br />
PHOTO BY JIM KEMP.<br />
Another demonstration of the newly<br />
international flavor of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> life is its<br />
small Buddhist community; Laotian Buddhists<br />
have built the Wat Lao Photisarum temple in<br />
Conley. Lao Buddhist temples serve immigrants<br />
from Laos, but the Lao Buddhists also say,<br />
“Buddhist temples welcome all seekers of<br />
knowledge regardless of ethnic background.”<br />
A visit to any of the county’s supermarkets will<br />
demonstrate the presence of the large Hispanic<br />
population—slightly more than 11 percent of the<br />
county—that has made a home in <strong>Clayton</strong> over<br />
the recent years. They offer a variety of tortillas,<br />
canned goods and toiletries from Latin America,<br />
selections of dried peppers, Latin American style<br />
cheeses and fresh plantains. In the northern<br />
portion of the county are stores catering entirely<br />
to customers seeking these products. In all,<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong>’s Hispanic-owned businesses represent<br />
about 4 percent of the county’s businesses. Other<br />
specialty shopping facilities aim at an Asian-<br />
American customer base; Asians comprise about 5<br />
percent of the county population and they operate<br />
about 8.6 percent of its businesses. Spanish and<br />
Korean signs invite <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> newcomers to<br />
church services in their native tongues, while<br />
private schools teaching English as a second<br />
language do steady business.<br />
The presence of the Interstate system finished<br />
off a process that began when the first <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> residents took a train into Atlanta to work<br />
or shop. A county of small towns and farms has<br />
become almost entirely suburbanized. Where milk<br />
cows once grazed or cotton rose up in the heat of<br />
a Georgia summer, now housing developments<br />
and strip malls flourish. A person driving through<br />
the county will need to watch for road signs to find<br />
the place where Morrow leaves off and Lake City<br />
begins. Where Arthur Huie’s beef cattle once<br />
grazed, a modern courthouse and county jail now<br />
56 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
stand. Rush hours bring heavy traffic to Highway<br />
54 and Tara Boulevard. The world of nature now<br />
may be seen only in a few precious spots such as<br />
the Reynolds Nature Preserve, where visitors can<br />
walk the trails and imagine <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> as it<br />
was in the distant, quiet past.<br />
CAN YOU DIRECT ME<br />
TO TARA?<br />
Little girls often enjoy spending time with<br />
their interesting aunts. This was certainly the way<br />
young Miss Peggy Marsh felt about coming to<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> from her home in Atlanta to visit<br />
her maternal aunts, Sis and Mamie Fitzgerald,<br />
elderly ladies still residing on their family<br />
plantation. One of the best things about these<br />
visits was the exciting stories of the old times—<br />
life in plantation days, the desperate time of war,<br />
and the struggle to rebuild from near total<br />
destruction. In those times (Margaret Munnerlyn<br />
Mitchell had been born in 1900) scars of the old<br />
battles could still be seen in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Peggy was destined to have a very interesting<br />
life. She had an unhappy first marriage followed<br />
by a happy second one, and worked as a writer for<br />
the Atlanta Constitution, now with the byline<br />
“Margaret Mitchell.” Like many newspaper<br />
reporters she also had a literary project on the<br />
side. She was mining the treasure-trove of<br />
Southern history—including the stories from her<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> kin and their neighbors—to write<br />
an epic historical novel. The huge manuscript<br />
rested in her closet for some time before a friend<br />
persuaded her to offer it to a publisher. Named<br />
Gone With the Wind, her story of life in the old<br />
South zoomed to the top of the best seller lists,<br />
won the Pulitzer Prize, and inspired a spectacular<br />
and equally successful movie. Margaret Mitchell<br />
became an international celebrity.<br />
Gone With the Wind premiered at Atlanta’s<br />
Loew’s Grand Theater in December, 1939, taking<br />
all of its stars as well as author Margaret Mitchell<br />
through a dazzling round of social events and<br />
publicity. <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> also was discovering<br />
some new-found celebrity as it became known as<br />
a source for the hit movie. In anticipation of the<br />
premiere, the United Daughters of the<br />
Confederacy made plans to place welcoming signs<br />
along the roads into the area. Local volunteers<br />
stood ready to guide visitors to historic sites,<br />
which were also to be marked for easy locating.<br />
The Jonesboro City Council and various private<br />
donors contributed funds to purchase an<br />
advertisement in the forthcoming Atlanta<br />
Constitution special edition to commemorate the<br />
event. An exhibit of Civil War relics was planned<br />
for the City Hall. They optimistically anticipated<br />
“thousands” of visitors. This was the beginning of<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>’s career as a tourist destination.<br />
The Fitzgerald house she had loved to visit as<br />
a child, which is reputed to be the model for<br />
Tara, was far from the grandest house in the<br />
county. In fact, the white-columned Greek<br />
revival mansion shown in the film owes a lot<br />
more to the architecture of Natchez or New<br />
Orleans than to <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. A closer<br />
examination of the famous book reveals very<br />
few details about the mythic O’Hara family<br />
home. Mitchell’s original vision of the past<br />
leaves Tara’s appearance mostly to the<br />
imagination of the reader. She tells us that it was<br />
constructed of whitewashed brick.<br />
[The house was]…a clumsy sprawling building<br />
that crowned the rise of ground overlooking the<br />
green incline of pasture land running down to the<br />
river; and it pleased Gerald greatly, for, even when<br />
new, it wore a look of mellowed years. The old<br />
oaks, which had seen Indians pass under their<br />
limbs, hugged the house closely with their great<br />
trunks and towered their branches over the roof in<br />
dense shade. The lawn, reclaimed from weeds,<br />
grew thick with clover and Bermuda grass, and<br />
Gerald saw to it that it was well kept. From the<br />
❖<br />
Above: Margaret Mitchell became an<br />
international celebrity a a result of<br />
her prize-winning novel and the<br />
movie that it inspired.<br />
COURTESY OF THE KENAN RESEARCH CENTER AT<br />
THE ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER.<br />
Below: Probably inspired by the idea of<br />
the elegant antebellum home, Ashley<br />
Oaks, built in 1879, is also known as<br />
the Hutcheson-Bailey House. Built by<br />
Leander C. Hutcheson, it is of solid<br />
brick construction, with walls several<br />
inches thick. Jonesboro’s first banker,<br />
Alfred C. Blalock, boarded here during<br />
the early years of the twentieth<br />
century. It is now open to the public by<br />
special arrangement.<br />
Chapter IV ✦ 57
❖<br />
Above: Located in the Old Depot in<br />
the Jonesboro business district, the<br />
Road to Tara museum houses<br />
memorabilia connected with the<br />
prize-winning book and movie,<br />
much of which was collected by<br />
Herb Bridges.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
Right: The actual Fitzgerald<br />
Plantation house and one of its<br />
associated outbuildings are in<br />
private hands. Although it would<br />
have been a very comfortable<br />
residence in its day, the house is a far<br />
cry from the Tara that has risen in the<br />
public imagination.<br />
COURTESY OF THE CLAYTON COUNTY<br />
CONVENTION AND TOURIST BUREAU.<br />
avenue of cedars to the row of white cabins in the<br />
slave quarters, there was an air of solidness, of<br />
stability and permanence about Tara, and<br />
whenever Gerald galloped around the bend in the<br />
road and saw his own roof rising through green<br />
branches, his heart swelled with pride as though<br />
each sight of it were the first sight.<br />
So compelling is the power of Gone With the<br />
Wind that some readers lose track of the fact that it<br />
is a work of fiction. Employees of tourist<br />
information centers in Georgia regularly face the<br />
unhappy task of disappointing fans of the movie,<br />
asking for directions to Tara. First they must gently<br />
convey the fact that Tara is fictional, and then go<br />
on to point out that the written version describes a<br />
comfortable farmhouse such as the one visited by<br />
the child Peggy Marsh. But there is a consolation to<br />
offer. Although the now dilapidated Fitzgerald<br />
house is in private hands and far from public<br />
access, a well-preserved similar dwelling, called<br />
Stately Oaks, is open for visitors in the town of<br />
Jonesboro. Like Scarlett O’Hara’s fictional home,<br />
Stately Oaks offers airy rooms and a pleasant front<br />
porch; it is comfortable, if not a palace. In this<br />
place, where visitors can mingle historical fact with<br />
Margaret Mitchell’s fantasy, the prophecy of the<br />
UDC has proved correct—a steady stream of<br />
visitors comes to Stately Oaks, and some never<br />
give up their idea that it is the “real” Tara.<br />
Recent decades have witnessed great changes<br />
in the life of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. Old familiar names<br />
still may be seen on long-established businesses,<br />
but newcomers are finding places in the county<br />
as well. African Americans have moved to new<br />
positions of public leadership and service.<br />
Travelers from far away still pass through the<br />
county, visiting the scenes of the historic Battle of<br />
Jonesboro and remembering Gone With the Wind<br />
at the museum in the old Depot on Jonesboro’s<br />
Main Street. Once a crossroads, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
is still a crossroads, always remembering its past<br />
as it moves into the new century.<br />
58 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />
Although this volume does not have the formal apparatus of an academic history—no footnotes,<br />
no detailed bibliography—the main sources of the information and the help of many persons must<br />
not go unrecognized.<br />
Some of those who directed me to the evidence of <strong>Clayton</strong>’s past include Barbara Emmert and Ted<br />
Key of <strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc., who were the first that I consulted. I was allowed<br />
access to primary source materials as yet unavailable to the general public that are in <strong>Historic</strong><br />
Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong><strong>County</strong>, Inc.’s holdings. Some other helpful members of that organization included<br />
Virginia Freeman Ford, Helen Honea Knight, Joe Moore, Mark Pollard, Susan Pelfrey, Madison<br />
Pelfrey, and Elaine Thames. Interviews with Mrs. Lucie Huie provided insight into <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
in the civil rights era.<br />
Other helpful individuals include: Chuck Ware, who has represented <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> in the<br />
effort to restore the Memorial Gardens Cemetery and Kena Reyes, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> archivist;<br />
Noah Phelps, Archivist, <strong>Historic</strong>al Initiative, Sigma Chi International Fraternity; Michael Rose of<br />
the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center; Sherri A. Nettles, Public Affairs office,<br />
U.S. Army Garrison, Fort McPherson; Dr. B. K. Mohan of the Hindu Temple of Atlanta; Mike Toomey,<br />
Morrow Tourist Bureau; Patrick Duncand and Megan Spears, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Convention<br />
and Visitors’ Bureau; Jamie Carlington, the Southern Regional Medical Center; Andrea Towne, Georgia<br />
International Convention Center; and personnel at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International airport.<br />
❖<br />
Left: Born in 1832, Jacob T.<br />
Eberhardt of Ellenwood was<br />
photographed in the last quarter of<br />
the nineteenth century.<br />
Right: William Calloway Estes and<br />
Margaret Malinda Kile were<br />
photographed at the time of their<br />
wedding in 1878.<br />
Acknowledgements ✦ 59
❖<br />
Joseph Frank Thames feeds a calf on<br />
his family’s farm.<br />
COURTESY OF ELAINE THAMES.<br />
The National Archives staff assisted in the use<br />
of microfilm of the Freedmen’s Bureau Records.<br />
The State of Georgia Archives had materials<br />
pertaining to the county’s history, and its<br />
Vanishing Georgia and Virtual Georgia<br />
photography collections and its map collection<br />
are outstanding; Barbara DeLoach and Steve<br />
Engerrand provided a great deal of help in<br />
acquiring photographs from these sources.<br />
At the main branch of the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
Public Library System, Carol Stewart provided<br />
access to unique items in their holdings. The<br />
Georgia Newspaper Project of the University of<br />
Georgia Library was the source of microfilm<br />
copies of the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> News and Farmer;<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State University’s library provided<br />
published reference material, and the use of its<br />
microfilm reader; Rosemary Fischer assisted in<br />
locating archival materials.<br />
Cindy Parrish of Maryville, Tennessee,<br />
provided the drawing of the Georgia land<br />
lottery, that was made by George I. Parrish, Jr.<br />
1930-1992; see a selection of historical art<br />
prints by this well known Georgia artist at<br />
georgeparrishart.com.<br />
Jim C. Kemp gave invaluable help in<br />
researching visual resources, making photographs,<br />
and providing editorial advice.<br />
Some of the published sources consulted were:<br />
Bakken, Terry. <strong>Historic</strong> <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Home of Gone With the Wind. Jonesboro: <strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro, Inc. 1975<br />
The <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Annual, No.1…Lovejoy, Georgia: Walter H. Grant, 1893<br />
Coulter, E. Merton. Georgia: A Short History. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1960.<br />
The <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> News and Farmer (microfilm, University of Georgia Library, Georgia Newspaper Project).<br />
Dickson, Abb, comp. The Battle of Jonesboro: Three Views, Three Objectives. Privately published in Jonesboro Georgia.<br />
History of the City of Riverdale, Georgia, Bi-Centennial Edition 1776-1976 (In the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Main Library, Genealogy Collection).<br />
Huie, Lucy Cline “Meeting the Klan.” The Night the Animals Screamed. Morrow, Georgia: Pen and Pica Writers, 2003, 13-18.<br />
Jonesboro Bicentennial Committee. Jonesboro: A <strong>Historic</strong>al Sketch. 1976,<br />
Kilgore, Alice Copeland; Edith Haynes Smith and Francis Partridge Tuck, eds. A History of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Georgia 1821-1983. <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong>, Georgia: Ancestors Unlimited, Inc. Genealogical Society, 1983.<br />
McCuller, Bernice. This Is Your Georgia. Northport Alabama: American Southern Publishing Company, 1966.<br />
Varner, James M. “Brief History of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>” and “<strong>Historic</strong> Highlights of Morrow.” <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> <strong>Historic</strong>al Society <strong>Historic</strong>al<br />
Bulletin, No.1, May 1963.<br />
White, George. Statistics of the State of Georgia. Savannah, Georgia: W. Thorne Williams, 1849.<br />
_____. <strong>Historic</strong>al Collections of Georgia, 1855 (repr. 1969).<br />
National Archives and Records Service. Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (microfilm).<br />
New Georgia Encyclopedia (online).<br />
The New York Times (online archives).<br />
United States Bureau of the Census. US Census Quickfacts, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13/13063.html<br />
60 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
SHARING THE HERITAGE<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> profiles of businesses,<br />
SPECIAL<br />
THANKS TO<br />
organizations, and families that have<br />
contributed to the development and<br />
economic base of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
City of Forest Park .........................................................................62<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc. ...........................................65<br />
Blalock Machinery & Equipment Company, Inc. ...................................66<br />
Hodges, McEachem & King, Attorneys at Law......................................69<br />
Sutherland’s Foodservice, Inc............................................................70<br />
Atlanta Produce Dealers Association ..................................................71<br />
Atlanta State Farmers Market...........................................................72<br />
Paragon Systems, Inc.......................................................................73<br />
Forest Park Sheet Metal Works, Inc. ..................................................74<br />
Action Tire Company.......................................................................76<br />
R. J. Haynie & Associates ................................................................78<br />
Georgia International Convention Center............................................80<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Board of Commissioners .............................................82<br />
City of Jonesboro ............................................................................84<br />
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport .................................86<br />
BHW Sheet Metal Company ..............................................................88<br />
J. J. Jardina Company, Inc................................................................89<br />
Georgia Archives ............................................................................90<br />
Southern Regional Health System ......................................................91<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State University..................................................................92<br />
Arko Veal Company, Inc...................................................................93<br />
Dovetail Consulting.........................................................................94<br />
Spartan Lincoln Mercury..................................................................95<br />
Loggins & Associates, P.C.................................................................96<br />
Akstein Eye Center .........................................................................97<br />
Estes Heating & Air Conditioning......................................................98<br />
Chick-fil-A, Inc. .............................................................................99<br />
Allan Vigil Ford............................................................................100<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Water Authority .....................................................101<br />
Atlanta Orthopedic &<br />
Arthroscopy Center, PC<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
Water Authority<br />
Heritage Bank<br />
Loggins & Associates, P.C.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 61
CITY OF<br />
FOREST PARK<br />
❖<br />
These gentlemen probably referred to<br />
Forest Park by its first nickname,<br />
Stump Town.<br />
The City of Forest Park has<br />
been known by many names<br />
throughout the years. In the<br />
1830s and ’40s, it was<br />
nicknamed Stump Town for<br />
the numerous stumps left<br />
behind after multitudes of trees<br />
were cut down and their wood<br />
used for the steam engines<br />
riding the rails of the Macon<br />
and Western Railroad.<br />
Military maps drawn by<br />
Northern forces in 1864 referred<br />
to it as Quick Station; 1870<br />
Census records dubbed its<br />
station house Forrest Station;<br />
Simeon N. J. Waldrop in the mid 1870s<br />
deeded land adjacent to the Forrest Grove<br />
School to be utilized by the Forrest Grove<br />
Baptist Church; and in 1893, the <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> Annual No. 1 (1893), notes the<br />
community’s name as Astor and the station<br />
house was called Forrest.<br />
Then, on August 14, 1908, the Georgia<br />
General Assembly penned the charter, which<br />
declared that “the town of Forrest Park, in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Georgia” was officially<br />
incorporated. And, finally, in 1952, the City<br />
decided to drop the extra “r” and officially<br />
adopted the name Forest Park, the name that<br />
remains today.<br />
But, despite the different designations—no<br />
matter how many times the name was<br />
changed—one thing has remained steadfast.<br />
The citizens of Forest Park are proud of their<br />
heritage—the sheer strength, faith and<br />
determination of their ancestors who struggled<br />
through wars, illnesses, infestations, epidemics,<br />
and more to lay the firm foundation upon which<br />
the city sits today.<br />
Conveniently located between I-75, I-85,<br />
I-285, and I-675, just minutes from Atlanta<br />
and all the world renowned amenities offered<br />
there, the City of Forest Park today covers<br />
9.3 square miles of constantly changing land.<br />
One can still see, however, the original one<br />
square mile design around the Main Street area<br />
of the city.<br />
Like the physical boundaries of the land,<br />
the population has also shown explosive<br />
growth—increasing more than forty fold from<br />
its initial counts of about 500 in the early 1900s<br />
to its current population of approximately<br />
22,000. By population, it is the largest city in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Within the Forest Park city limits, one will<br />
find the world’s largest open-air farmers market.<br />
Covering a sprawling 146 acres, the Georgia<br />
State Farmers Market is run by the State<br />
Agricultural Commission and will soon be<br />
receiving a facelift as part of a major<br />
revitalization project. People from all over the<br />
world will be able to enjoy the same fresh<br />
produce offered today as well as specialty and<br />
prepared foods, local arts and crafts, numerous<br />
restaurants and food related vendors. The<br />
existing exhibit hall will be renovated so as to<br />
provide a venue for trade shows, demonstrations,<br />
classes, everything possible today but on a much<br />
larger, more up-to-date scale.<br />
Another attribute to the City’s growth and<br />
longevity is Fort Gillem Military Reservation.<br />
Established in 1941 and encompassing 1,427<br />
acres of land, Fort Gillem has been charged<br />
with training supply soldiers and maintaining<br />
and processing equipment used in every<br />
major conflict since WWII. Previously named<br />
Atlanta Army General Depot and the Conley<br />
Quartermaster Depot, the name was officially<br />
changed on June 30, 1974, to Fort Gillem, in<br />
honor of Lieutenant General Alvan C. Gillem,<br />
Jr., of the Third Army.<br />
Located in the eastern portion of the city,<br />
the base’s land has included warehouses,<br />
barracks, lakes, tennis courts, gymnasium,<br />
playground, a softball field, golf course, an<br />
62 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
airstrip and currently houses many different<br />
supply and support units.<br />
In 2011, however, the City will have a<br />
bittersweet, rare opportunity. The U.S.<br />
Government’s Base Closure and Realignment<br />
Commission has pinpointed several military<br />
bases for closure, and Fort Gillem as well as its<br />
neighboring base—Fort McPherson located in<br />
the southern section of Atlanta—will be lost. At<br />
Fort Gillem, 237 acres will be retained by the<br />
Army, leaving some 1,190 acres to be declared<br />
surplus and cleared of Army occupation by<br />
September 15, 2011.<br />
To formulate plans for the reuse and<br />
redevelopment of this surplus land, the Forest<br />
Park/Fort Gillem Local Redevelopment Authority<br />
(LRA) was created in May 2005 and has since<br />
put together a development team called the<br />
Forest Park Development Partners, LLC.<br />
Together, this team—which consists of Cousins<br />
Properties Incorporated, Weeks Robinson<br />
Properties LLC, and LNR Property Corporation’s<br />
Commercial Property Group—has presented an<br />
exciting $750 million redevelopment plan.<br />
Expected to take ten to fifteen years to<br />
complete, this massive project is anticipated to<br />
include 717 single- and multifamily housing<br />
units; 435,000 square feet of retail space;<br />
more than 1 million square feet of office space;<br />
more than 8.2 million square feet of light<br />
manufacturing and warehouse distribution<br />
space; and more than 200 acres of green space.<br />
When the project is complete, the City of Forest<br />
Park is expected to see an addition of twentyfive<br />
to thirty percent more land, $423 million in<br />
new real property taxes to the area, 4,700 new<br />
construction jobs and 17,642 permanent jobs.<br />
Another major project underway in the city<br />
is the Main Street Livable Centers Initiative<br />
Project (LCI). This project studies the city’s<br />
options associated with a proposed commuter<br />
rail line. Transportation, land use, housing,<br />
development and redevelopment around the<br />
proposed line and the overall economics of the<br />
❖<br />
Above: Bill Lee Park located on<br />
Main Street.<br />
Below: A birds-eye view of what the<br />
Georgia State Farmers Market will<br />
look like after its planned facelift..<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 63
❖<br />
Above: This beautiful eighteen acre<br />
park is a gathering place for citizens<br />
and one of the city’s center points.<br />
Below: The Main Street Livable<br />
Centers Initiative Project will bring<br />
the railroad back into the spotlight—<br />
this time as a commuter rail line.<br />
city are being studied. LCI plans include a<br />
Forest Park Town Center which will serve as an<br />
area for town festivals and other gatherings.<br />
Indeed, it is an exciting time in Forest Park.<br />
And with such grand activity and growth on the<br />
horizon, it is no wonder that the same citizens<br />
who came together to celebrate their city’s 100th<br />
birthday in August 2008 are so excited and<br />
hopeful about their future.<br />
Centennial birthday festivities included<br />
special guests, entertainment, games and<br />
souvenirs as well as a special museum. Though<br />
this centennial museum was placed in a<br />
temporary location for the celebration, a<br />
permanent location was in the planning stages.<br />
Items on display include photographs, books,<br />
clothes, and much more. For more information,<br />
visit www.forestparkga.org .<br />
64 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
<strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc., is<br />
a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting<br />
interest in the historical background and heritage<br />
of Jonesboro, Georgia, and <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> and<br />
to developing this historical background and<br />
heritage to the cultural, economic, and social<br />
advantage of the entire community.<br />
The official birth of <strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc., occurred on July 19,<br />
1968, although its roots go back to the<br />
Jonesboro Women’s Club, where enlightened<br />
members would discuss the unique<br />
marketability of Jonesboro and the surrounding<br />
county due to the rich history of the area.<br />
Originally, two separate and distinct historical<br />
organizations were formed: one to preserve the<br />
history of the city of Jonesboro, and another to<br />
preserve the history of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. Later,<br />
the two groups merged to form a single entity<br />
dedicated to preserve and promote the rich<br />
history of the entire area.<br />
Through the efforts of the organization and the<br />
generosity of local citizens, several buildings of<br />
historical significance have been assembled on the<br />
grounds of its headquarters at the Margaret<br />
Mitchell Memorial Park located on Jodeco Road in<br />
Jonesboro. The 1839 Greek Revival house, Stately<br />
Oaks, along with the original log kitchen, were<br />
donated by the Haynie/Orr family. The one-room<br />
Bethel Schoolhouse was obtained from the Bethel<br />
Baptist Church with the assistance of James Parker.<br />
Juddy’s <strong>County</strong> Store (1894) was donated by the<br />
William Roberts estate. The R. G. Turner estate<br />
donated the tenant house and well house. The<br />
beautiful site also boosts a recreation of an early<br />
Creek Indian Village. Tourists from throughout the<br />
United States and many foreign countries visit<br />
Stately Oaks each year. Groups can enjoy lunch or<br />
dinner tours in the beautifully decorated<br />
schoolhouse. Educational programs include Civil<br />
War home front and Native American village life<br />
tours for school and other youth groups.<br />
The <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> History Center located<br />
in the Old 1869 Jail is the repository of<br />
numerous artifacts related to <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>’s<br />
history from the Creek period to present day.<br />
The facility, located on King Street, was donated<br />
by the Allen sisters—Louise, Mattie and Alma.<br />
First Baptist Church of Jonesboro donated the<br />
Gayden Webb-Sims House, which is currently<br />
undergoing restoration.<br />
❖<br />
HISTORICAL<br />
JONESBORO/<br />
CLAYTON<br />
COUNTY, INC.<br />
Top: Tenant and well house was<br />
donated by the R.G. Turner Estate.<br />
Bottom: Stately Oaks Plantation.<br />
Legendary home of Gone With<br />
the Wind.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 65
BLALOCK<br />
MACHINERY &<br />
EQUIPMENT<br />
COMPANY, INC.<br />
❖<br />
Above: D. Braxton Blalock in his<br />
Senate Office at the Georgia Capital.<br />
Below: A.O. Blalock served under<br />
President Woodrow Wilson as<br />
Collector of Internal Revenue<br />
for Georgia.<br />
When Bill Blalock and his sister Mary talk<br />
about their family business—Blalock Machinery<br />
& Equipment Company, Inc.—it is obvious that<br />
they are not only proud of what they are today,<br />
but they are also proud of their heritage. And,<br />
who can blame them.<br />
After all, their forefathers and mothers laid<br />
an incredible foundation for them. They come<br />
from a long lineage of successful, yet humble<br />
men and women who can be traced all the way<br />
back to the middle 1700s—men who proudly<br />
served their communities, their state and their<br />
nation as community leaders and founders, state<br />
legislators and senators as well as brave soldiers,<br />
respected officers and true gentlemen.<br />
They come from generations of bankers,<br />
doctors, lawyers, educators, merchants, board<br />
chairmen, presidents and a multitude of other<br />
business leaders and founders. Their greatgrandfather,<br />
Aaron O. Blalock, in fact, served<br />
under President Woodrow Wilson as Collector<br />
of Internal Revenue for Georgia, and his<br />
brother, Dr. Alfred Blalock, was the Chief of<br />
Surgery at John Hopkins and is credited with<br />
perfecting the famous “blue-baby” operation,<br />
which restored and cured countless children<br />
with heart defects the world over. Another<br />
ancestor, Eugene M. Blalock, a lawyer and<br />
Jonesboro merchant who lived from 1851 to<br />
1907, founded the Atlanta Loan and Banking<br />
Company and established connections with<br />
many eastern capitalists, bringing to the South<br />
large sums of money at greatly reduced rates of<br />
interest. A farm loan banking business, Atlanta<br />
Loan and Banking extended into four states.<br />
Another Blalock-turned-banker, Dr. William<br />
Blalock, was the founder of Fulton National<br />
Bank in Atlanta.<br />
Though the known Blalock bloodline actually<br />
starts with Lewis Blalock who was born in<br />
North Carolina in 1749, the family tree was<br />
quickly transplanted to Georgia as Lewis<br />
himself moved here before his death. One of his<br />
sons, Zaddock Blalock, followed suit and was<br />
himself considered a Fayette <strong>County</strong> pioneer.<br />
Eventually, family members began migrating<br />
to neighboring counties, including <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong>. In fact, several of Zaddock’s grandsons—<br />
the children of Zaddock Braxton Blalock—<br />
made quite an impact on <strong>Clayton</strong>. For example,<br />
Alfred C. Blalock, 1854-1934, was the first to<br />
move into the county and was actually the<br />
founder and president of the Bank of Jonesboro<br />
and served many years as <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>’s<br />
State Senator. Alfred’s brother, Edgar A. Blalock,<br />
1854-1896, was also a banker and merchant in<br />
Jonesboro; and yet another of his brothers,<br />
Aaron O. Blalock, was a banker and merchant<br />
as well as a member of both the Georgia State<br />
Legislature and Senate. Aaron O. was also the<br />
66 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
father of Daniel Braxton Blalock, founder of<br />
Blalock Machinery & Equipment Company, Inc.<br />
A skilled entrepreneur, Daniel Braxton<br />
Blalock started Blalock Machinery in the fall<br />
of 1927. At its conception, the company sold<br />
heavy road equipment and maintained real<br />
estate holdings with D. B. himself serving<br />
as president and chairman of the board for<br />
almost a quarter of a century before passing the<br />
torch to his son, Daniel Braxton, Jr. The now<br />
late D.B., Jr., led the company from 1950<br />
until 1976.<br />
D.B., Jr.’s, eldest son—Daniel Braxton<br />
Blalock III—took over in 1976 and served until<br />
his death in 1998. His brother, William “Bill”<br />
Blalock, took the reins and remains at the<br />
company’s helm today. He is joined by his<br />
sister, Mary Blalock Williams, who serves as<br />
the company’s vice president and secretary,<br />
and his sister-in-law, Susan Blalock, wife of the<br />
late Daniel Braxton Blalock, III, who serves as<br />
company treasurer.<br />
Though the company was initially founded<br />
in Atlanta, it was moved to <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> in<br />
1978 when its land was condemned to make<br />
way for a new MARTA station.<br />
Bill says that moving the business to <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> was like coming home and that the<br />
county has not only been good to his family, but<br />
it has been good for the business. The business<br />
is currently located at 683 Atlanta South<br />
Parkway in College Park.<br />
In addition to changing its business address,<br />
the company has also changed its product line<br />
from heavy road equipment to power lawn<br />
equipment and is, in fact, one of the top<br />
distributors of such equipment in the United<br />
States today. The company and its nineteen<br />
employees serve more than 150 dealers in<br />
Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee and have<br />
tripled revenues in the past eight years to more<br />
❖<br />
Above: D. Braxton Blalock, Sr., and<br />
fellow Legislators pose with Evangelist<br />
Billy Graham (center).<br />
Below: Blalock Machinery’s founder<br />
and Chairman of the Board D.<br />
Braxton Blalock, Sr. (standing), and<br />
D. Braxton Blalock, Jr., company<br />
president, pose at the office in<br />
the 1950s.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 67
❖<br />
Above: Seated Left to right:<br />
Republican gubernatorial candidate<br />
Bo Calloway; former Georgia<br />
Governor Ernest Vandiver; Senator D.<br />
Braxton Blalock; and Democratic<br />
gubernatorial candidate Lester<br />
Maddox meet with Governor Carl<br />
Sanders and others during a political<br />
meeting of the minds in this<br />
1966 photo.<br />
Right: D. Braxton Blalock III<br />
accepting for Blalock Machinery &<br />
Equipment Company an Award of<br />
Excellence from Exmark<br />
Manufacturing Company.<br />
than $30 million annually. The company also<br />
maintains real estate holdings and has been<br />
heralded in the small business category as the<br />
2007 Georgia Family Business of the Year.<br />
An awards program initiated by the Cox<br />
Family Enterprise Center at Kennesaw State<br />
University, the Georgia Family “Business of<br />
the Year” Awards emphasize the crucial role<br />
family businesses play in Georgia’s economy<br />
and in society. Winning businesses are chosen<br />
on the basis of proven business success, positive<br />
family/business linkage, multigenerational<br />
family business involvement, contributions<br />
to industry and community, and innovative<br />
business practices and strategy—all criteria<br />
Blalock Machinery not only meets, but<br />
often exceeds.<br />
“It was really nice to win an award like the<br />
Georgia Family Business Award. It not only<br />
affirms what my grandfather, father and brother<br />
did before me, but it is also an affirmation that<br />
we continue to move in the right direction,” Bill<br />
said, quickly adding that the driving force<br />
behind the company for the past eight decades<br />
is the concept that it is not just a family-owned<br />
business, but a business for families.<br />
“We are extremely proud that the<br />
relationships that have developed between the<br />
Blalock family and our employee family have<br />
survived for generations,” Bill continued. “The<br />
Blalock legacy is, of course, a major factor in our<br />
continuing success, but our employees deserve<br />
much of the credit as well.”<br />
68 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
HODGES,<br />
MCEACHERN &<br />
KING,<br />
ATTORNEYS AT<br />
LAW<br />
Like father, like son. When it comes to the<br />
story of attorney Carl H. Hodges of Hodges,<br />
McEachern & King, no phrase could be<br />
more fitting.<br />
Carl H. was just two years old when his<br />
father, the late J. Carl Hodges, Jr., moved his<br />
family to <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> and set up a law<br />
practice in 1953. He specialized in real estate<br />
law and practiced alone until 1975 when<br />
Carl H.—having just finished his law studies<br />
at the University of Georgia—followed in<br />
his footsteps.<br />
The firm became Hodges and Hodges and<br />
father and son practiced together for eight<br />
years before J. Carl retired in 1983. Carl H.<br />
specialized in wills, trusts, estates, and probate.<br />
After Carl H. joined the firm and before<br />
J. Carl retired, the Hodges took on<br />
another partner, Marion K. McEachern.<br />
A graduate of Emory University Law<br />
School, McEachern joined the practice<br />
specializing in real estate law. McEachern<br />
helps clients with a wide variety of legal<br />
issues relating to acquiring, financing,<br />
developing, managing, constructing,<br />
leasing, and selling commercial and<br />
residential property of all kinds as well<br />
as taxation and disposal issues that relate<br />
to such property.<br />
A third partner, Kyle King, joined the<br />
practice in 1997, giving the firm its current<br />
name of Hodges, McEachern & King. Like<br />
Carl H., King is a graduate of the law school at<br />
the University of Georgia and focuses on wills<br />
trusts, estates, probate and any litigation related<br />
to those areas.<br />
In addition, the firm of Hodges, McEachern<br />
& King also specializes in Elder Law, with the<br />
attorneys committed to helping clients in<br />
making their end-of-life plans from estate<br />
planning and administration to Medicaid,<br />
disability and other long-term care issues.<br />
The offices of Hodges, McEachern & King<br />
are located at 177 North Main Street in<br />
Jonesboro. For more information, you may call<br />
770-473-0072.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 69
SUTHERLAND’S<br />
FOODSERVICE,<br />
INC.<br />
❖<br />
Above: In 1967, Sutherland’s moved<br />
to their new building at the market-<br />
”K.” It remains their present location,<br />
but many building projects and<br />
expansions have been completed<br />
since 1967.<br />
Below: Sutherland’s has an annual<br />
food show that welcomes the<br />
company’s customers. Shown here are<br />
some of the three generations of the<br />
Sutherland family that helped with<br />
the May 2008 show.<br />
In a tin shack at the corner of Washington<br />
and Trinity Avenues in Atlanta, Andrew W.<br />
Sutherland realized his dream to own his own<br />
business. From a small distributorship first<br />
hatched in 1947, where he had to sell and<br />
deliver eggs out of his car, to a major food<br />
supplier employing approximately seventy-five,<br />
Sutherland’s Foodservice, Inc., is one family<br />
business that has made a habit out of defying<br />
the odds, growing bigger and better every year.<br />
And, they have done so first by adhering<br />
strictly to the golden rule and treating their<br />
customers the same way they want to be<br />
treated and by providing not just service, but<br />
personal service.<br />
“Our customers are real people with real<br />
needs and not just a number or a sale,” said J. E.<br />
“Gene” Sutherland, Sr., the son of the late<br />
Andrew W. and Lucy E. Sutherland, and current<br />
company president. “It doesn’t matter how big<br />
we get, our partners and customers will always<br />
be like family. That’s the way it was when my<br />
father started the business and that’s the way it<br />
will always be.”<br />
Their second secret to success has been<br />
diversification. Since taking the reins in 1970,<br />
the second generation Sutherland has expanded<br />
the business, not only surviving, but thriving<br />
even as others faded away. In 1986, Sutherland’s<br />
acquired Rich & Morgan, Atlanta’s oldest<br />
independent grocer, and re-established itself as<br />
a broadliner, expanding inventory to include<br />
not just eggs and produce, but dry goods, meats<br />
and frozen foods. In 1992 it became a member<br />
of Frosty Acres, a national marketing and food<br />
buying cooperative, and began providing highquality<br />
national brands at the lowest prices<br />
possible; and, in 2007, became a member of<br />
Tailor Made Distribution, a premier national<br />
supply chain management company.<br />
“We survived because we didn’t have all our<br />
eggs in one basket,” Sutherland said, adding<br />
that they have continued to build relationships<br />
and friendships with new and existing customer<br />
partners and have consistently added to their<br />
product line to meet their customer’s needs.<br />
Current inventory, he said, now consists of<br />
seven thousand-plus items and includes just<br />
about anything related to the dining table from<br />
food to cleaning supplies.<br />
Even with such a tremendous inventory,<br />
however, eggs are still at the yolk of the<br />
Sutherland’s business—a business which has<br />
been named one of the nation’s “Top 50” food<br />
distributors by ID Access, publisher of two<br />
national magazines for the foodservice<br />
70 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
distribution industry. Sutherland’s has also been<br />
named in the Atlanta 100 list of privately held<br />
companies in the Atlanta metro area.<br />
Sutherland’s customer base encompasses<br />
restaurants, educational and healthcare facilities,<br />
bakeries, manufacturers and government<br />
institutions. In addition to six distribution<br />
centers totaling over 300,000 square feet of<br />
space, the company has a 120,000-square-foot<br />
main warehouse that also serves as the company<br />
headquarters. It is located at the Atlanta State<br />
Farmers Market in Forest Park where it has been<br />
since the market first relocated and opened in<br />
1959. All operations are still led by the<br />
Sutherland family. Gene, Sr.’s wife, Joan, and<br />
their four children—Bonnie, Connie, Diana and<br />
Gene—are all involved in management. In total,<br />
nine family members—one fourth generation—<br />
work for the company. Employees who are not<br />
related by blood still feel like part of the<br />
extended family and have recommended their<br />
own relatives who are now employed<br />
by Sutherland’s. The dedicated employees are<br />
also very engaged in helping to ensure<br />
When the Atlanta Produce Dealers<br />
Association (APDA) first sprouted into existence<br />
in 1947, its primary purpose was two-fold—to<br />
share credit information among its members<br />
and provide a forum where matters of general<br />
interest could be discussed and acted upon.<br />
Over the years, those basic principles have<br />
remained as constant as their commitment to<br />
helping each other and improving the industry<br />
has grown stronger.<br />
The official membership organization for the<br />
area’s professional produce business leaders,<br />
APDA is located at the Atlanta State Farmers<br />
Market and consists of wholesalers, retailers and<br />
distributors of food and produce, as well as<br />
associates from the businesses that work closely<br />
with them.<br />
It is the foremost advocate and liaison for the<br />
industry and offers a host of benefits to its<br />
members including monthly luncheons, a<br />
scholarship program, access to insurance, and<br />
fellowship activities. Additionally, the group is<br />
actively involved in legislative issues which<br />
affect its members and pursues special interest<br />
community projects such as the Forest Park<br />
Livable Centers Initiative.<br />
Sutherland’s continued success. Sales in 2007<br />
topped almost $90 million.<br />
For more information about Sutherland’s<br />
Foodservice, please visit www.suthfood.com.<br />
Atlanta Produce Dealers Association is<br />
located at the State Farmers Market in Forest<br />
Park, Georgia.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Gene Sutherland, Sr., (shown<br />
here with wife, Joan), has been<br />
involved in the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
business community since 1959.<br />
ATLANTA<br />
PRODUCE<br />
DEALERS<br />
ASSOCIATION<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 71
ATLANTA STATE<br />
FARMERS<br />
MARKET<br />
With 150 acres bustling with a host of<br />
vendors, approximately 3,000 visitors per day,<br />
and a plethora of fresh produce and products, it<br />
should come as no surprise that the Atlanta<br />
State Farmers Market is one of the largest such<br />
markets in the world.<br />
Located in Forest Park, this open-air market<br />
is a literal feast for the senses, offering a<br />
smorgasbord of commodities from the freshest,<br />
most colorful and flavorful produce to the most<br />
mouth-watering baked goods and the best<br />
quality meats around. There are tons of Georgiagrown<br />
specialties such as peaches, peanuts,<br />
pecans, and Vidalia onions as well as other fresh<br />
produce from around the country and world.<br />
One can even find plants and flowers, Christmas<br />
trees, canned goods, landscape materials, sod,<br />
and dry goods.<br />
In addition to wholesalers and retailers<br />
peddling their wares, the market also features a<br />
garden center, a restaurant, the Georgia Grown<br />
Visitors Center, and a USDA Federal-State office.<br />
Special events such as a bluegrass festival, gun<br />
shows, exotic bird shows, ceramic shows and<br />
other special events are held throughout the year.<br />
The market is open 364 days a year and sales<br />
usually top a half-billion dollars annually. Its<br />
economic impact is estimated at more than<br />
$1.25 billion per year and its vendors employ<br />
more than 3,700 people with a combined<br />
annual payroll of approximately $75 million.<br />
Conceived in 1935 when the Georgia<br />
Legislature authorized the Commissioner of<br />
Agriculture to establish a market in Atlanta,<br />
the market’s first permanent location was<br />
actually a sixteen acre tract of land on Murphy<br />
Avenue in West End. This location was opened<br />
in 1939 at a cost of $150,000. The market,<br />
however, outgrew its Murphy Avenue facilities<br />
during World War II and the boom years that<br />
followed, resulting in the opening of the current<br />
location in 1959. Located at 16 Forest Parkway<br />
in Forest Park, the Atlanta State Farmers Market<br />
we know today came with an initial price tag of<br />
$10 million and has undergone several<br />
additional renovation and improvement projects<br />
over the years.<br />
For more information, please visit the Atlanta<br />
State Farmers Market at www.agr.georgia.gov.<br />
72 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
PARAGON<br />
SYSTEMS, INC.<br />
The employees of Paragon Systems, Inc.,<br />
take their jobs seriously. Protecting thirty-two<br />
thousand homes and businesses from burglary<br />
and fire is serious business.<br />
Located in Jonesboro and founded almost<br />
forty years ago, Paragon is a family-owned<br />
business that is entirely self-contained. The<br />
company not only sells and installs burglar and<br />
fire alarm systems, but also monitors and<br />
services them. Performing these functions are<br />
twenty-eight dedicated employees, half of which<br />
have been with the company for more than a<br />
decade and a fourth that have been there for<br />
twenty plus years.<br />
“I have amazing people on my team,” owner<br />
and president Karen Sullivan said. “All of our<br />
employees are highly trained and certified, and<br />
are, undoubtedly, our greatest asset.”<br />
Also helping the firm to stand out is its<br />
twenty-four hours per day, seven days per<br />
week local monitoring service. While many<br />
local alarm companies contract their monitoring<br />
services through a 1-800 central station in<br />
a different section of the country, Paragon<br />
Systems, Inc., maintains its own central station<br />
in Jonesboro using local employees. The<br />
company was named the 2007 “Small Business<br />
of the Year” by the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Chamber of<br />
Commerce and is also a recipient of the Georgia<br />
Burglar and Fire Alarm Association’s “Member of<br />
the Year” Award. According to the Atlanta<br />
Business Chronicle, it is the largest local alarm<br />
company in the Atlanta area.<br />
Karen actually founded Paragon in College<br />
Park along with her husband, Stephen, in<br />
1970, but moved to Jonesboro in 1971. When<br />
Stephen passed away suddenly in 1990, Karen<br />
continued to run the company. All three of their<br />
children—Patrick, Kevin and Stephenie—have<br />
worked at Paragon at various times throughout<br />
the years and one has chosen to make it his<br />
career. After graduating from college and<br />
starting off as a “helper” in 1999, Kevin has<br />
worked his way up to vice president and is<br />
poised to become the company’s secondgeneration<br />
leader.<br />
Paragon and all of its employees are committed<br />
to their community and happily give time, money<br />
and in-kind service to a variety of causes and<br />
nonprofit organizations in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
For more information, please call 770-478-<br />
1513 or visit www.paragonsystem.com.<br />
❖<br />
Paragon Systems, Inc., is located at<br />
7869 Old Morrow Road in Jonesboro.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 73
❖<br />
FOREST PARK<br />
SHEET METAL<br />
WORKS, INC.<br />
Above: The family of Mario<br />
Moscardelli. Seated: Julie. Standing:<br />
Laurie, Linda, and Mike.<br />
Below: Mario and Mike working on<br />
job in earlier days of operation.<br />
Born of one man’s determination to provide<br />
for his family, Forest Park Sheet Metal Works,<br />
Inc., in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> has been providing<br />
custom-fabricated products and quality service<br />
to customers for more than a half-century.<br />
“My parents literally built this company<br />
from scrap,” said Laurie McGouirk, who joins<br />
her nephew in running the company today.<br />
“Times were tough, but they really poured<br />
themselves into it, giving us a wonderful<br />
childhood and a business that continues to<br />
support our family three generations later.”<br />
According to McGouirk, her father, Mario<br />
Moscardelli, spent the Great Depression years as<br />
a shipbuilder in Boston, Massachusetts. He<br />
joined the army during WWII and after serving<br />
a tour of duty overseas was assigned to what is<br />
now Fort Gillem. He loved the area so much<br />
that he moved his family here when his tour<br />
of duty ended in 1948 and began working as<br />
a welder with Low Temp Manufacturing<br />
in Jonesboro.<br />
Though thankful to have a job, he desperately<br />
wanted more for his wife, Julie, and their three<br />
children—Mike, Linda and Laurie. He had<br />
bought a small mobile home for them to live<br />
in, but he wanted a real house. Feeling one job<br />
just was not enough, he almost immediately<br />
began building a shop behind the trailer where<br />
he could spend every spare moment making<br />
aluminum awnings.<br />
“Dad would go out and get the orders and<br />
then manufacture and paint the awnings<br />
himself,” McGouirk reminisces. “Mom ordered<br />
all the materials and answered calls. While dad<br />
worked and we went to school, she put the<br />
stripes on the awnings. They were truly a team.”<br />
Moscardelli eventually quit his job at Low<br />
Temp, officially founding his company in 1950.<br />
In addition to awnings, he began making all<br />
types of sheet metal products and actually had<br />
an exclusive contract to make the ornamental<br />
cupolas adorning the rooftops of A & P Grocery<br />
74 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Stores as well as the canopies for Tenneco Gas<br />
Stations. A master salesman as well as a master<br />
craftsman, Moscardelli also convinced Bill Cook<br />
of Griffin LP Gas Company that he could beat<br />
whatever price Cook was paying for various<br />
parts he used in his business.<br />
“Bill gave dad $100 and dad worked all<br />
night, making a full delivery the next morning,”<br />
McGouirk said. “From that day on, dad was the<br />
only manufacturer Bill used.”<br />
By 1955, Moscardelli was able to build and<br />
move his family into a new house right next<br />
door to their mobile home.<br />
“I’ll never forget the night we moved to<br />
our new home. It was raining cats and dogs,”<br />
McGouirk remembers. “My mom said she just<br />
couldn’t stand living in ‘that pill box’ any longer<br />
and instructed us to get our pillows and run.<br />
We slept in our new home that night and it was<br />
wonderful; rain and all.”<br />
In 1960, Moscardelli purchased a piece of<br />
property on 85 Circle for a new shop. B.C.<br />
Haynie laid the concrete blocks and Moscardelli<br />
“pretty much did the rest.” About the same time,<br />
he hired a teenage boy from Riverdale named<br />
Larry Camp. Camp became such an integral part<br />
of the company, he not only inherited part of<br />
it, but he also became like a brother to the<br />
Moscardelli children. Additionally, prior to his<br />
death in 2001, he served as the company’s vice<br />
president under the direction of Moscardelli’s<br />
son, Mike, who took over the reins as president<br />
when his father retired in 1978. Mike<br />
successfully guided the company for twentyseven<br />
years with the<br />
help of his sisters, Laurie<br />
McGouirk and Linda<br />
Wyatt. Mike and Linda<br />
have since retired<br />
Today, Mike’s son,<br />
Tony, serves as company<br />
president and works<br />
alongside his Aunt<br />
Laurie in running the<br />
company. The company<br />
employs eleven people<br />
and has a customer base<br />
of more than 500<br />
customers, including<br />
several major electrical<br />
companies, Delta Air<br />
Lines, Fresh Express, Sara Lee Bakery and<br />
Eastern Foods, just to name a few.<br />
“I am just so proud of our business and all of<br />
our employees that have made it so successful,”<br />
McGouirk said, adding that in 1989 the<br />
company purchased the building next door to<br />
their existing facility and doubled their<br />
manufacturing area. “We can do just about<br />
anything with sheet metal. In fact, our motto<br />
should be ‘If you can draw it, we can build it.’”<br />
For more information, call 404-766-6246 or<br />
email fpsm@bellsouth.net.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Early days of FPSM (1957)<br />
before moving to current location on<br />
85 Circle. Left to Right: Mike<br />
Moscardelli (second generation),<br />
Mario Moscardelli (Founder) and<br />
Tony Moscardelli (third<br />
generation) right.<br />
Below: Our first job for a major<br />
supermarket chain in 1953.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 75
ACTION TIRE<br />
COMPANY<br />
When Rick Stewart took a summer job<br />
changing tires for a local transport company in<br />
1975, he did not realize he would be changing<br />
more than tires that summer. He did not dream<br />
he was actually embarking on a career that<br />
would change his life and make him the<br />
successful owner of his own business.<br />
“It all started that summer. At first, I just<br />
changed tires, but later I started doing other<br />
things from pick up and delivery and dispatch<br />
to assistant manager and finally outside sales,”<br />
Stewart reminisced. “In the sales job, I grew<br />
the business and became the company’s top<br />
sales person.”<br />
Then trouble came. The company’s owner<br />
began having financial difficulty and asked<br />
Stewart to take a substantial pay cut. Having<br />
just started his own family with a wife, two<br />
children and a new home, Stewart set out to<br />
find other employment. Some of his closest<br />
friends—many who also happened to be<br />
loyal customers—encouraged him to start his<br />
own business.<br />
“I was scared, but I found a financial backer<br />
and just decided to do it,” said Stewart, who still<br />
serves dual roles as owner and president of the<br />
company. “In July 1985, Action Tire Company<br />
opened its doors in Riverdale. Our facility was<br />
only 1,500 square feet and I had just two<br />
employees. We didn’t have a computer and kept<br />
our inventory in a card index and used threering<br />
binders for accounts and billing.”<br />
That was then.<br />
Today, Action Tire Company is headquartered<br />
in Forest Park and is one of the largest<br />
automotive and commercial tire dealers in the<br />
southeast with twelve different stores at nine<br />
convenient locations in Georgia and Alabama.<br />
The company employs 130 people, boasts<br />
annual sales in excess of $26 million, and has<br />
plans to open six to eight more stores in the next<br />
five years.<br />
One of the company’s current facilities is a<br />
retread center. Realizing retreads could save<br />
his customers money and also help the<br />
environment, Stewart teamed up with Oliver<br />
Rubber—a division of world leader Cooper<br />
Tire Company—to make, sell and service quality<br />
retreads. The facility is completely computerized,<br />
features state-of-the-art equipment, and is<br />
ranked one of the “Top 100 Retread Facilities in<br />
the United States” by national trade publication,<br />
Tire Business, Inc.<br />
Action Tire’s new tire inventory includes<br />
quality name brands such as Cooper, Toyo,<br />
Bridgestone, Akuret and Hercules and range in<br />
size from wheel barrow tires to tires for semitrucks.<br />
All locations are strategically located<br />
near highways for easy drive-through service.<br />
Additionally, the company has one of the area’s<br />
76 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
largest fleets of service trucks with more than<br />
forty-five trucks available to service tires up to<br />
twenty-five inches and two boom trucks for<br />
handling tires up to fifty inches.<br />
“Our goal is to provide the best service as<br />
well and the highest quality tires and parts<br />
to maximize our customers’ efficiency and<br />
profitability,” said Stewart. “Not only do we carry<br />
the best brands, but we also have highly-trained<br />
and knowledgeable professionals on staff to<br />
fully analyze our clients’ needs and provide<br />
them with solutions designed to fit their<br />
budgets without compromising safety. And, for<br />
those customers who need us to come to them,<br />
our fleet rolls around the clock and our service<br />
calls are always on time.”<br />
Although now a large company, Action Tire is<br />
still a family-owned business that strives to<br />
always give both customers and employees a<br />
positive experience. That is why, since the<br />
early years, Stewart has continued to sponsor<br />
activities to encourage and strengthen bonds<br />
with employees—activities such as a companywide<br />
tire rodeo, a competition to see which<br />
employee can dismount and remount a tire<br />
the quickest. It is also why he makes sure all<br />
of his technicians are able to attend training<br />
to become certified by the Tire Industry<br />
Association of America (TIA) and why he loves<br />
to reward his most exemplary employees with<br />
weekend vacations to the beach.<br />
Also an avid community supporter, Stewart<br />
faithfully pledges support to a multitude of area<br />
sports teams as well as numerous charitable<br />
causes such as the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital.<br />
He is a member of the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Chamber<br />
of Commerce as well as a host of other local,<br />
state and national associations and organizations.<br />
For more information, visit Action Tire<br />
Company online at www.actiontireco.com or<br />
call 404-767-3235.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 77
R. J. HAYNIE &<br />
ASSOCIATES<br />
❖<br />
Above: R. J. Haynie & Associates was<br />
originally founded in this 1940s-style<br />
house in Forest Park.<br />
Below: Current headquarters of R. J.<br />
Haynie & Associates at 1551<br />
Forest Parkway.<br />
The light turns green. Thank goodness, you<br />
think to yourself. You would sure hate to be late<br />
for the kick-off because of traffic.<br />
You turn into the stadium parking lot. It is<br />
evening, but thankfully, the parking lot lights<br />
are shining brightly as you quickly make<br />
your way to the entrance. You cannot wait to get<br />
inside and see your son take the field for the<br />
first time as a running back for his high school<br />
football team.<br />
Finally, you see your son on the field. The<br />
stadium lights are beaming and so is his smile.<br />
You smile back, knowing that this will be a<br />
night neither of you will ever forget.<br />
What you might not realize is that one<br />
company, R. J. Haynie & Associates, an electrical<br />
contracting firm located in Lake City, was<br />
responsible for much of what made this night so<br />
perfect—from the traffic light that ushered you<br />
into the parking lot, to the lot lights that led you<br />
safely to the entrance, to the stadium lights that<br />
shone on your son’s field of dreams.<br />
Indeed, each day millions of sports<br />
enthusiasts, shoppers, office workers and<br />
residents throughout Georgia are aided by<br />
lighting systems installed by R. J. Haynie &<br />
Associates. Others travel safely and confidently<br />
over the streets, highways and bridges on<br />
which the company has constructed and<br />
installed multitudes of traffic signals, video<br />
detection units, overhead signs, highway<br />
lighting, changeable message signs and other<br />
transportation system devices.<br />
Officially founded in 1978 by R. J. Haynie,<br />
Jr., R. J. Haynie & Associates started with just<br />
six employees working out of a small 1940sstyle<br />
house in Forest Park. They initially focused<br />
on projects for the water and sewer industry,<br />
mainly performing electrical work associated<br />
with large pumping stations, as well as waste<br />
and raw water treatment facilities. They wired<br />
buildings, standby generators, motor control<br />
centers, instrumentation and large motors, as<br />
well as constructed concrete encased duct banks<br />
and manholes.<br />
Around 1986 the company shifted its focus<br />
to outside lighting. Sports lighting, parking lot<br />
78 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
lighting and highway lighting began to<br />
dominate the majority of contracts sought after<br />
and acquired. The installation of transportation<br />
system devices soon followed.<br />
Today, the firm’s client base primarily includes<br />
the Georgia Department of Transportation,<br />
counties, municipalities and private developers<br />
throughout the state. It operates out of a<br />
spacious facility completed in 1999 and is<br />
located at 1551 Forest Parkway. A major<br />
expansion project to add several additional<br />
buildings, a wash bay and a host of other<br />
improvements to the grounds will be completed<br />
by the middle of 2008.<br />
The company currently employs nearly 100<br />
people, many who have been with the company<br />
since the early days. Willie G. Willis is one of<br />
those first employees and is a good example of<br />
the type of employees working for R. J. Haynie.<br />
“One day right after we opened, I parked in<br />
back of our office,” Haynie recalls. “When I<br />
went back to the car, I noticed that the front of<br />
the car had sunk into a hole caused by what was<br />
later determined to be an abandoned septic<br />
tank. While it sounds awful, it actually turned<br />
out to be a blessing, as the person we hired on a<br />
temporary basis to fill the hole later became our<br />
first twenty year employee. When Willie Willis<br />
did the job in half the time we expected it to<br />
take, we knew he would be a valuable asset to<br />
the company. And, until his retirement, he was<br />
a major contributor to our success. That’s just<br />
the type of employees we have.”<br />
Though the elder Haynie was never actively<br />
involved in the procurement of work for the<br />
business, he contributed in many ways and in<br />
later years served as the resident handyman. His<br />
son, R. J. “Bobby” Haynie, has always performed<br />
the duties of president, and his daughter, Nobie<br />
“Bebe” Haynie, as secretary/treasurer. Other<br />
family members have worked both full-time and<br />
part-time for the company throughout the years.<br />
For more information on R. J. Haynie &<br />
Associates, visit www.rjhaynie.com or call<br />
404-361-0672.<br />
❖<br />
Examples of how R. J. Haynie &<br />
Associates lights your world on a<br />
daily basis.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 79
GEORGIA<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
CONVENTION<br />
CENTER<br />
❖<br />
Above: Georgia International<br />
Convention and Trade Center opened<br />
its doors in 1985.<br />
Below: GICC is the second largest<br />
convention center in Georgia.<br />
The most exciting chapter in the history of<br />
the Georgia International Convention Center<br />
has yet to be penned. In fact, it is still in the<br />
midst of being created.<br />
Having begun as the charge of the Business<br />
and Industrial Development Authority of<br />
College Park in the early 1980s, the Georgia<br />
International Convention and Trade Center<br />
first opened its doors in 1985. The initial center<br />
featured 136,000 total square feet of meeting<br />
and exhibition space. A phase-two expansion<br />
more than doubled the facility’s size to a massive<br />
329,000 square feet in 1993.<br />
With its size, amenities and service ranked<br />
highly by meeting and event planners the<br />
nation over, the GICTC quickly rose to top of its<br />
class and began to amass the awards to prove<br />
it—coveted honors such as Facilities Magazine<br />
1996 Prime Site Award granted for service<br />
and facility excellence and based on<br />
nominations by customers themselves. The<br />
facility also earned the coveted Planner’s Choice<br />
Award for excellence in meetings management<br />
that same year.<br />
And, yet, there were better things still<br />
to come.<br />
When neighboring Hartsfield-Jackson<br />
International—the world’s busiest airport—<br />
fashioned plans for a $5.4 billion expansion<br />
project which, among other things, included a<br />
fifth runway, the existing convention center<br />
facility was targeted for relocation. Still owned<br />
and operated by the forward-thinking City of<br />
College Park, a new facility was built at a cost<br />
of $95 million and officially opened<br />
in 2003. Though the center shortened<br />
its name to the Georgia International<br />
Convention Center (GICC), its offerings<br />
to the meeting and convention world<br />
grew exponentially.<br />
Now the second largest convention<br />
facility in the state with a total of<br />
400,000 square feet of space and<br />
featuring Georgia’s largest ballroom at<br />
40,000 square feet, the GICC has<br />
been called “a marvel of both form<br />
and function” and offers a completely<br />
“new standard of convention” in the<br />
areas of aesthetics, amenities and<br />
accommodations. It has received rave<br />
reviews from conference and event<br />
80 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
planners alike who continue to entrust the<br />
facility with their highest profile events—from<br />
addresses by the President of the United States<br />
to the televised auditions of the wildly-famous<br />
television show, American Idol, to international,<br />
national and regional conventions, conferences,<br />
trade and public shows.<br />
In addition to its bold architecture and<br />
contemporary design, the facility also features the<br />
latest technology with high-speed fiberoptic<br />
and telecommunications networks<br />
throughout the building as well as top-notch<br />
in-house audiovisual services. There is even a<br />
ninety-five-hundred-square-foot Culinary Arts<br />
Center that includes a VIP tasting room and serves<br />
as the headquarters for exclusive full-service<br />
caterer, Proof Of The Pudding, Atlanta’s premier<br />
catering company that has provided exclusive<br />
services to GICC since 1993. A professional and<br />
seasoned staff completes the picture.<br />
As of this writing, a second phase of<br />
development nears completion and the GICC<br />
is just months away from being catapulted<br />
from the major leagues of convention venues<br />
into a league of its very own. This phase—a<br />
$230 million, 29-acre mixed-use development<br />
commissioned by the City of College Park<br />
and dubbed the Gateway Center—includes<br />
more than a million square feet of office,<br />
retail and hotel and parking space and will<br />
feature two on-site hotels. Of the two new<br />
hotels, one will be a 400-room headquarters<br />
hotel and the other a 150-room suites hotel.<br />
Both will don the Marriott flag and both are<br />
expected to open in the middle<br />
of 2010.<br />
Shortly before the hotels<br />
open, the airport’s eagerly<br />
anticipated Automated People<br />
Mover (APM) is expected to<br />
begin transporting visitors from<br />
the airport to the GICC in<br />
2009. The trip from door to door<br />
will take just a couple of minutes<br />
and will further complement<br />
the center’s rising status as one<br />
of the most desirable and<br />
efficient convention complexes in<br />
the nation.<br />
For more information, please<br />
visit www.gicc.com.<br />
❖<br />
Above: Georgia International<br />
Convention Center, 2008.<br />
Below: Georgia International<br />
Convention Center’s International<br />
Ballroom, Georgia’s largest.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 81
CLAYTON<br />
COUNTY<br />
BOARD OF<br />
COMMISSIONERS<br />
❖<br />
Left: Natural beauty abounds in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
For those who live, work and play amid its<br />
143 square miles, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> offers the<br />
best of both worlds—a world of big-city<br />
opportunities sweetly seasoned with a healthy<br />
helping of small-town charm.<br />
The county—a suburban community just<br />
minutes away from downtown Atlanta—is<br />
actually the fifth most populated county in<br />
Georgia with more than a quarter of a million<br />
people calling it home. It includes the cities of<br />
Jonesboro, Forest Park, College Park, Lake City,<br />
Lovejoy, Morrow and Riverdale as well as a<br />
number of unincorporated townships.<br />
features the lowest operating millage rate in<br />
metropolitan area. It also boasts a county-wide<br />
Class 3 fire insurance rating and is a certified<br />
storm-ready community. It has a state-of-theart<br />
landfill to meet the county’s solid waste<br />
needs well into the next century as well as a<br />
nationally acclaimed, self-sustaining wastewater<br />
treatment system.<br />
Additionally, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> is Atlanta’s only<br />
designated Foreign Trade Zone, which provides<br />
tax advantages for companies dealing in foreign<br />
goods and has one of the best transportation<br />
systems in the region with U.S. Interstate<br />
Highways 75, 85, 285 and 675 as well as rail<br />
service by Norfolk-Southern and CSX. There is<br />
convenient air service at Hartsfield-Jackson<br />
Atlanta International Airport, one of the world’s<br />
busiest airports.<br />
Right: The National Archives and<br />
Records Administration opened this<br />
new Southeast region facility in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> in 2005.<br />
Some of its greatest amenities include its<br />
many business opportunities, a fine public<br />
education system including a four-year college—<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State University—and numerous<br />
excellent healthcare facilities. It is one of Metro<br />
Atlanta’s most affordable areas and actually<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> is also home to the second largest<br />
convention and exhibition facility in the state—<br />
the Georgia International Convention Center<br />
in College Park—as well as one of the world’s<br />
largest farmers markets, the Atlanta State<br />
Farmers Market of Forest Park. Located in its<br />
county seat of Jonesboro and opened in 2000 is<br />
the Harold R. Banke Justice Center, one of the<br />
country’s most technologically secure facilities<br />
and the largest of its kind in Georgia with more<br />
than ten acres under one roof.<br />
In the areas of business and retail, <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
continues to excel as well. In 1975, Southlake<br />
Mall opened in Morrow, establishing a retail<br />
complex of over 100 stores, and in the late<br />
1990s, the Mount Zion Corridor was developed<br />
bringing in many more retail stores and<br />
restaurants. There are twenty-five industrial parks,<br />
twenty of which house Fortune 500 companies.<br />
Major employers in the county include Delta<br />
82 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Airlines, Inc., JCPenney Distribution Center,<br />
Southern Regional Medical Center, Southlake<br />
Mall, Northwest Airlines, Georgia Department<br />
of Revenue and the U.S. Army at Fort Gillem.<br />
Born and bred along the rail lines linking<br />
Macon to Atlanta and the port city of Savannah,<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> was the 125th county created in<br />
Georgia and was formed out of Fayette <strong>County</strong><br />
to the west and Henry <strong>County</strong> to the east. It was<br />
officially chartered on November 30, 1858, and<br />
was named after Augustine Smith <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
(1783-1839), a judge and member of the U.S.<br />
House of Representatives.<br />
In addition to the railroads along which<br />
the county grew up, increasing transportation<br />
options—particularly the opening of the<br />
interstate highways which criss-cross <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
turf—continue to spark an ever growing and<br />
widely-diversified industrial community in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
And, the promise of a bright future continues,<br />
according to <strong>County</strong> Commission Chairman<br />
Eldrin Bell.<br />
“Today our hearts continue to be full of hope<br />
and our future full of promise as we work<br />
diligently to implement programs that will<br />
generate more jobs for our citizens; as we utilize<br />
our libraries for tutorial learning centers; as<br />
we manage growth so that our schools can<br />
keep up with our population; as we provide<br />
quality programs for seniors; as we revitalize<br />
established businesses and shopping areas and<br />
create new ones; and as we establish stronger<br />
building and zoning codes and provide safer,<br />
cleaner communities for all,” Bell said. “All of<br />
these things and more are what we strive to<br />
accomplish and all is possible working together.<br />
Together, we continue to make <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
a better place for all!”<br />
For more information on <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>,<br />
please visit www.co.clayton.ga.us.<br />
❖<br />
Left: <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> is a great place<br />
to rear children.<br />
Below: Stately Oaks Plantation, the<br />
legendary home of Gone with the<br />
Wind, is just one of the many<br />
historical structures found in<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 83
CITY OF JONESBORO<br />
“Frankly, my dear, they do give a damn.”<br />
In fact, the people of Jonesboro care so much<br />
about their heritage—including their city’s<br />
unique ties to the epic Gone With The Wind—<br />
that they work diligently to preserve it.<br />
Incorporated in 1859 and located just fifteen<br />
minutes south of downtown Atlanta, the city<br />
not only served as an inspiration to Margaret<br />
Mitchell’s all-time best seller, but was actually—<br />
along with <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>—christened the<br />
“Official Home of Gone With The Wind” more<br />
than two decades ago by the Mitchell Trust and<br />
the Georgia State Legislature.<br />
Set in the Civil War South, this Pulitzer<br />
Prize-winning story is brought to life today at<br />
Jonesboro attractions such as The Road to Tara<br />
Museum, Stately Oaks Plantation and the city’s<br />
ever-popular Landmarks Through History Tour,<br />
just to name a few.<br />
For Gone With The Wind fans, The Road to<br />
Tara Museum is indeed a must-see. Located in<br />
the historic 1867 Jonesboro Train Depot on<br />
Main Street, this museum features an intriguing<br />
collection of book and movie memorabilia, an<br />
original oil mural depicting scenes from the<br />
film, rare behind-the-scenes photos, a costume<br />
gallery, authentic movie props, collectible plate<br />
and doll collections, a foreign edition library<br />
and Civil War artifacts.<br />
For a walk back in time, nothing beats a trip<br />
to Stately Oaks Plantation. Nestled in the woods<br />
of the Margaret Mitchell Memorial Park, this<br />
1839 white-columned plantation home is much<br />
like the homes described in Mitchell’s book.<br />
Still full of life more than a century and a half<br />
since its construction, visitors can enjoy tours of<br />
the home as well as the grounds which include<br />
a one-room school, an original log kitchen,<br />
a blacksmith shop and country store.<br />
Visitors to Stately Oaks in October will not<br />
only catch the annual Autumn Oaks Festival,<br />
but they will also have the opportunity to<br />
witness a realistic and moving reenactment of<br />
another major chapter in the city’s history—the<br />
Battle of Jonesboro. Designated the “Grand<br />
Finale” along the Atlanta Campaign Heritage<br />
Trail, this battle was not only significant to the<br />
fall of Atlanta in 1864, but ended up being<br />
a pivotal point in the nation’s history,<br />
propelling Abraham Lincoln to re-election two<br />
months later, and continuing the war until the<br />
84 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
❖<br />
Opposite, top: Civil War Cemetery.<br />
Confederacy finally surrendered the following<br />
year. In addition to Stately Oaks and other<br />
battlefield areas in Jonesboro, visitors can pay<br />
homage to the war dead at the Patrick Cleburne<br />
Memorial Confederate Cemetery.<br />
And if all that is not enough to make<br />
Jonesboro, Georgia, an exciting place to live or<br />
visit, consider this. This city, which is about to<br />
celebrate its 150 th birthday, has over 170 historic<br />
sites in just two square miles, from the<br />
aforementioned to a whole host of other precivil<br />
war homes, plantations, mansions, and<br />
other historic buildings. For those who want to<br />
see it all, the Landmarks through History Tour<br />
is a narrated air-conditioned coach tour which<br />
takes visitors through history, including an up<br />
close and personal look at Jonesboro’s historic<br />
district and featured sites such as the<br />
Jonesboro’s 1898 Courthouse, Ashley Oaks, the<br />
Warren House and more.<br />
Indeed, the City of Jonesboro is very proud<br />
of its past, but it is by no means stuck there. It<br />
is a forward-looking city of approximately four<br />
thousand residents, the county seat of <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> and a part of the greater Atlanta<br />
Metropolitan area. It is home to the Harold R.<br />
Banke Justice Center, one of the United States’<br />
most technologically secure facilities opened in<br />
2000, and the largest of its kind in the state with<br />
more than ten acres under one roof.<br />
In 2008 the city was led by Jonesboro native<br />
Luther Maddox as mayor and six council<br />
members—Clarence Mann, Roger Grider,<br />
Bobby Wiggins, Billy Powell, Rick Yonce, and<br />
Wallace Norrington.<br />
The city hosts or assists with a number of<br />
special events from Jonesboro Days each May and<br />
the Holiday at Home Parade and Street Festival<br />
each year the Saturday before Thanksgiving, to<br />
an annual Summer Concert Series.<br />
For additional information on the City of<br />
Jonesboro, please visit www.jonesboroga.com.<br />
Opposite, middle: The <strong>Historic</strong><br />
Blaylock House.<br />
Opposite, bottom: The Jonesboro Train<br />
Museum with Courthouse.<br />
Above: Council Members; Standing<br />
(from left to right): Clarence Mann,<br />
Bobby Wiggins, Rick Yonce, and Roger<br />
Grider. Seated: Wallace Norrington,<br />
Mayor Luther Maddox, and<br />
Billy Powell.<br />
Below: The Justice Center.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 85
HARTSFIELD-<br />
JACKSON<br />
ATLANTA<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
AIRPORT<br />
❖<br />
Above: Ben Decosta, Airport<br />
General Manager.<br />
Atlanta Mayor Walter Sims had an idea back<br />
in 1925—lease a tract of land in north <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> to construct a small airfield. More than<br />
eighty years later, the bond between Hartsfield-<br />
Jackson Atlanta International Airport, officially<br />
the busiest airport in the world, and <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> remains strong.<br />
The Airport, which sits on about 4,700<br />
acres in parts of <strong>Clayton</strong> and Fulton counties,<br />
contributes to the success of the metro Atlanta<br />
region with a gross economic impact of $23.5<br />
billion. The Airport also remains an economic<br />
force for the entire Southeast, with an impact of<br />
$53.6 billion annually to the state of Georgia.<br />
Furthermore, <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> accounts for<br />
about 6,000 direct jobs at Hartsfield-Jackson.<br />
So, we are proud of the partnership between<br />
Hartsfield-Jackson and the <strong>Clayton</strong> community<br />
and look forward to a bright future of continued<br />
growth and success together.<br />
A part of that teamwork can be seen through<br />
the Airport’s ongoing Partners in Education<br />
initiative. Since its implementation in 2002,<br />
Hartsfield-Jackson has teamed with, among<br />
other schools, M.D. Roberts Middle School<br />
in Jonesboro and North <strong>Clayton</strong> High School<br />
in College Park to create awareness about<br />
careers at Hartsfield-Jackson and nurture new<br />
generations of aviation leaders. It is a hugely<br />
successful program where aviation employees<br />
mentor and host students on-site. Also, the<br />
Airport’s annual Job Shadowing program brings<br />
in approximately 350 students to speak with<br />
Airport and airline officials and get a hands-on<br />
approach to life at Hartsfield-Jackson. It is the<br />
Airport’s way of staying connected and making a<br />
positive mark on surrounding communities.<br />
And speaking of positive impact, since<br />
Hartsfield-Jackson’s $1.1 billion fifth runway,<br />
called in these parts “the most important<br />
runway in America,” opened in 2006, it has<br />
been a major milestone in bringing greater<br />
efficiency and service to more than 89 million<br />
passengers. Following the opening of the 9,000-<br />
foot runway, the Airport’s on-time performance<br />
increased to 99.5 percent by the end of 2006.<br />
Construction of the new runway also<br />
necessitated a new air traffic control tower to<br />
handle nearly three thousand daily flights in and<br />
out of Atlanta. Built on a three-acre site north of<br />
the fifth runway, the new tower provides<br />
effective visibility to all runways. At the time of<br />
its completion in 2006, the 398-foot structure,<br />
86 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
which includes a three-story office building, an<br />
emergency generator building and two-story<br />
parking deck, was the tallest in North America.<br />
There are many other ways Hartsfield-<br />
Jackson is keeping up with the times and<br />
meeting ever-changing customer needs. The $1.68<br />
billion Maynard H. Jackson, Jr. International<br />
Terminal currently under construction will add<br />
twelve new international gates and is expected<br />
to be completed in 2011. The Consolidated<br />
Rental Car Facility (CONRAC), expected to be<br />
up and running by 2009, will centralize all<br />
rental car operations off-site and include two<br />
garages with 8,700 vehicle spaces. It will also<br />
feature a sixty-thosuand-square-foot customer<br />
service center and a new automated people<br />
mover train system.<br />
Many wonderful strides have been made<br />
since 1925 that continue to keep Hartsfield-<br />
Jackson at the forefront of innovation, efficiency<br />
and growth. In 2007, Airport General Manager<br />
Ben DeCosta was named “Best Airport Director”<br />
in the nation by leading industry publication<br />
Airport Revenue News. Also, in 2008,<br />
Forbes.com named Hartsfield-Jackson the best<br />
airport nationally for Wi-Fi connectivity.<br />
As the Airport moves forward with exceeding<br />
customer expectations and inching closer to<br />
being the best airport in the world, it is with the<br />
understanding that greatness begins on the<br />
home front. That is why we are proud that<br />
a large part of our success on a global level is<br />
a direct result of the achievements happening<br />
right here in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 87
BHW SHEET<br />
METAL<br />
COMPANY<br />
❖<br />
Top right: A 2007 aerial view of BHW<br />
Sheet Metal.<br />
Above: Robert A. Harris, founder.<br />
Below: A 1974 aerial view of BHW.<br />
One does not have to look far to find the<br />
handiwork of BHW Sheet Metal Company. As<br />
a matter of fact, it is BHW ductwork that so<br />
efficiently delivers heating and cooling to many<br />
of the buildings along Atlanta’s skyline and<br />
throughout the southeast.<br />
Established in 1959, BHW has been a family<br />
business from practically the beginning. Except<br />
for the first year in which founder Robert A.<br />
Harris, Sr., had two other sheet metal craftsmen as<br />
partners, the company has been owned and<br />
operated by Harris or one of his sons. After thirtyseven<br />
years at the helm, the now late Bob Harris<br />
turned the company over in 1996 to his stepson,<br />
Larry McLain. Just before his death in 2003,<br />
McLain, in turn, passed the torch to his brother,<br />
Keith Harris, who remains president today.<br />
All three men have been instrumental in<br />
BHW’s ascent to one of the largest sheet metal<br />
contractors in the southeast. A far cry from the<br />
small shop that operated with little more<br />
than a couple pieces of equipment and eight<br />
employees in a leased basement, the BHW of<br />
today operates from an 86,000-square-foot<br />
complex that takes up three buildings and nine<br />
acres in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>. The company employs<br />
over 200 people who work together to fabricate<br />
and install nearly 8 million pounds of sheet<br />
metal every year for ductwork and a host of<br />
other specialized products and applications.<br />
In addition to fabrication, BHW installs most<br />
of what it produces. The company has a full fleet<br />
of tractor trailer rigs to make its own deliveries.<br />
For jobs at multistory complexes—such as One<br />
Symphony Center in Atlanta—the company<br />
delivers the product in cages which are lifted by<br />
crane and save countless manpower hours.<br />
Inside the shop, BHW has always prided itself<br />
on using the most modern equipment available,<br />
which today includes computerized plasma<br />
cutters, spiral duct machines and duct coil lines.<br />
The company even employs a full staff of drafting<br />
personnel with six AutoCAD systems that can<br />
electronically send drawings to the machinery<br />
responsible for fabrication of the products.<br />
For more information on BHM Sheet Metal,<br />
visit www.bhwsm.com.<br />
88 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
J. J. JARDINA<br />
COMPANY, INC.<br />
Money may not grow on trees, but the<br />
business of J. J. Jardina Company, Inc., sure does.<br />
Actually this eighty-three year-old familyowned<br />
and -operated business grows on the<br />
branches, roots, and leaves of all sorts of fruitbearing<br />
vegetation.<br />
Founded in 1925 by the late James Joseph<br />
Jardina, Sr., J. J. Jardina Company, Inc., is one of<br />
the oldest and largest wholesale fruit dealers<br />
in the area with a yearround roster of<br />
approximately thirty employees and annual<br />
sales of more than $35 million. Currently<br />
headed by the founder’s grandson, Mike Jardina,<br />
the company is located at the Georgia State<br />
Farmer’s Market in Forest Park.<br />
According to Jardina, his family’s company<br />
carries just about any kind of fruit that does not<br />
have to be processed. This includes apples,<br />
peaches, grapes, all types of citrus, strawberries,<br />
plums and mangos, just to name a few. And,<br />
because they receive shipments from all over<br />
the world, most products are available yearround—a<br />
feature of great importance to their<br />
clients who are located throughout the<br />
southeast and range in size from mom and pop<br />
roadside fruit stands to major supermarket<br />
chains such as Quality Food Depot, Harry’s<br />
Whole Foods Market and Publix.<br />
A true family business since his grandfather<br />
hauled his first load of local fruit to markets as<br />
far away as Chicago, Mike points out that he is<br />
not the only Jardina to keep the company going<br />
throughout the years. His grandfather himself<br />
worked well into his eighties as did Mike’s<br />
uncle, the late Jimmy J. Jardina, Jr., who<br />
joined his father in the 1940s. Mike took over<br />
the company as president and chief executive<br />
officer in 1986 and his brother, Larry, has been<br />
with the company since 1992 and serves as<br />
secretary and treasurer. Another brother, Mark,<br />
joined them in April 2008. Their hope is to keep<br />
the business in the family for another eightyplus<br />
years.<br />
“We would like nothing more than to keep<br />
it in the family,” Mike said during a recent<br />
interview. “Fortunately, both Larry and Mark<br />
have sons that we will be able to pass the torch<br />
to in years to come.”<br />
❖<br />
Above: J. J. Jardina Company, Inc.,<br />
staff. Back row (from left to right):<br />
Jimmy Jardina, Jr., founder Jimmy<br />
Jardina, Sr., Mike Jardina, and G. C.<br />
Anglin. Front row: Larry Jardina and<br />
Bobby Smith.<br />
Below: From left to right: Mark<br />
Jardina, Mike Jardina, Larry Jardina,<br />
and Bob Goins.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 89
GEORGIA<br />
ARCHIVES<br />
❖<br />
Above: Miss America Spinach<br />
trademark from 1942. The Virtual<br />
Vault holds images of the recorded<br />
copy of official trademarks and union<br />
labels of goods sold or distributed<br />
within the state of Georgia,<br />
1894-1959.<br />
Below: Night view of the southwest<br />
façade of the Georgia Archives.<br />
Founded in 1918, the Georgia Archives is<br />
the state’s repository of official documents from<br />
1732 to the present. Visitors may conduct<br />
research, take a tour of the state-of-the-art<br />
facility, and see periodic exhibits of original<br />
documents. The Archives building won the<br />
American Institute of Architects’ National<br />
Design Award in 2005.<br />
The Georgia Archives primarily houses<br />
official state government records and a<br />
significant collection of local government<br />
records. Most of these are unpublished, original<br />
source materials maintained in their original<br />
format or on microfilm, all stored in a climatecontrolled<br />
environment. The Archives also<br />
houses a large collection of non-governmental<br />
documents of cultural and historical value.<br />
Included in these manuscript collections<br />
are family letters and papers, business records<br />
and account books, and materials such as<br />
minutes and reports of social, professional, and<br />
other organizations.<br />
The Archives’ microfilm library contains<br />
nearly thirty thousand reels available for public<br />
use including Georgia governmental records,<br />
selected U.S. records, Georgia county records,<br />
tax digests, private papers, church records,<br />
cemetery records, newspapers, genealogical<br />
records, Bible records, books and periodicals,<br />
selected out-of-state and foreign records, and a<br />
few municipal records. Some of the most<br />
frequently referenced materials include the<br />
Federal census schedules; Georgia Confederate<br />
Service and Pension Records; Colonial and<br />
Headright and Bounty land grants; Land Lottery<br />
and Georgia county records.<br />
Georgia’s official land and cartographic<br />
records are a significant part of the Georgia<br />
Archives’ holdings. Official copies of county<br />
boundary changes and municipal annexations<br />
are filed in the Archives. In addition,<br />
holdings include the State’s original Surveyor<br />
General collection, which includes over<br />
10,000 county and state maps as well as<br />
1.5 million land grants and plats from 1755<br />
to 1909.<br />
In addition to holding original historical<br />
records, the Georgia Archives collects books<br />
that supplement the original records. The<br />
extensive collection includes Georgia county<br />
histories and record abstracts, compiled<br />
bibliographies, various indexes, genealogy<br />
guidebooks, guides to the collections of<br />
other institutions, and patriotic lineage<br />
society publications.<br />
Visitors to the Archives’ website at<br />
www.GeorgiaArchives.org will find hundreds<br />
of thousands of documents and images in<br />
the site’s Virtual Vault. The Virtual Vault<br />
provides access to collections of historic<br />
photographs and postcards, selected vital<br />
records, maps, and images of particular<br />
interest to students and teachers. Visitors may<br />
even contribute their own images to the<br />
Archives through the “Virtual Georgia” section<br />
of the Virtual Vault.<br />
The Georgia Archives is located at 5800<br />
Jonesboro Road, Morrow, Georgia. For additional<br />
information, please call 678-364-3700 or visit<br />
www.GeorgiaArchives.org.<br />
90 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Always with a finger on the pulse of the<br />
latest in healthcare technology and the needs<br />
of the Southern Crescent community, Southern<br />
Regional Health System is one healthcare<br />
provider that refuses to rest on its laurels.<br />
Since its inception as <strong>Clayton</strong> General<br />
Hospital in 1971, Southern Regional has faithfully<br />
answered the growing demand for its<br />
services and is undeniably worthy of its position<br />
as the leading provider of healthcare south<br />
of Atlanta.<br />
Today, Southern Regional Health System<br />
is expanding services with the development<br />
of its new satellite campus, Spivey Station.<br />
The new campus offers the latest in medical<br />
technology and includes a medical office<br />
building, ambulatory surgery center and fully<br />
digital breast diagnostic center. Spivey Station<br />
serves as a “one stop” shop for healthcare.<br />
The not-for-profit community-based health<br />
system will continue to offer the same<br />
comprehensive health resources at its flagship<br />
facility, now known as Southern Regional<br />
Medical Center. A 376-bed, full-service hospital,<br />
the medical center features a long term acute<br />
care hospital, a Diabetes Resource Center, the<br />
Women’s Life Center, and one of the most<br />
advanced emergency departments in the state.<br />
The health system’s thirty bed Long Term<br />
Acute Care Hospital (LTACH)<br />
serves medically complex patients<br />
who require longer stays. The<br />
Women’s Life Center (WLC), one<br />
of Atlanta’s best women’s health<br />
providers, is a 107,530-square-foot,<br />
three-level facility that offers<br />
complete obstetrical, gynecological,<br />
diagnostic, and educational services<br />
in one convenient location. The<br />
WLC also features the only Level<br />
III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit<br />
NICU) in south metro Atlanta with<br />
the most advanced neonatal care<br />
available to infants in the community.<br />
Southern Regional’s Emergency Care<br />
department has dedicated trauma<br />
and cardiac rooms and serves more<br />
than eighty thousand patients<br />
annually. There is also a fully<br />
updated Critical Care Unit and a<br />
twenty-three hour Observation Unit.<br />
Southern Regional Health System is further<br />
comprised of the Center for Wound Care and<br />
Hyperbarics, a state-of-the-art outpatient center<br />
with the most technologically advanced<br />
therapies to treat problem wounds.<br />
As a leader in the healthcare industry,<br />
Southern Regional frequently receives honors<br />
and recognition. In 2006 the hospital was one<br />
of ten Georgia hospitals selected to participate<br />
in a study of community hospitals providing<br />
coronary angioplasty services with off-site<br />
surgical support. Today, the hospital provides<br />
the most angioplasty procedures on the<br />
Southside. Southern Regional’s Neonatal<br />
Intensive Care Unit was selected by the<br />
Southeast Region of ADVANCE for Nurses<br />
magazine as the “2006 Nursing Team of the<br />
Year” and graced the cover of the national<br />
magazine’s May issue.<br />
Southern Regional currently has 580<br />
physicians on its medical staff and employs<br />
over 2,260 people and approximately 325<br />
additional volunteers. Admissions in 2007<br />
topped 20,000, with more than 53,000 babies<br />
delivered. Emergency visits numbered 81,493<br />
emergency visits and almost 10,000 home<br />
health visits.<br />
For more information about Southern Regional<br />
Health System, visit www.southernregion.org.<br />
SOUTHERN<br />
REGIONAL<br />
HEALTH SYSTEM<br />
❖<br />
Southern Regional Medical Center.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 91
CLAYTON STATE<br />
UNIVERSITY<br />
❖<br />
Above: <strong>Clayton</strong> State’s School of<br />
Graduate Studies currently has four<br />
master’s level programs. Pictured, left<br />
to right, are program chairs Dr.<br />
Michael Deis (MBA), Dr. Sue Odom<br />
(Master of Nursing), Dr. Russell<br />
Porter (Master of Health<br />
Administration), Dean of the School<br />
of Graduate Studies Dr. Thomas<br />
Eaves, and Dr. Tom Barnett (Master<br />
of Arts in Liberal Studies).<br />
Below: The James M. Baker<br />
University Center, <strong>Clayton</strong> State’s<br />
signature building, was completed in<br />
August 2004 and named in honor of<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State alumnus James M.<br />
Baker in November 2005. The Baker<br />
Center provides the University with a<br />
true “center” for student life and<br />
contains food service areas, state-ofthe-art<br />
visual technology classrooms,<br />
offices and enhanced learning facilities<br />
including wireless capabilities and<br />
more than 2,000 data drops.<br />
As an outstanding comprehensive metropolitan<br />
university, <strong>Clayton</strong> State University has<br />
come a long way since its inception nearly four<br />
decades ago.<br />
It first opened in 1969 as <strong>Clayton</strong> Junior<br />
College with Dr. Harry S. Downs as founding<br />
president and an enrollment of 942 students. The<br />
Board of Regents of the University System of<br />
Georgia elevated it to baccalaureate status<br />
as <strong>Clayton</strong> State College in 1986 and to university<br />
status as <strong>Clayton</strong> College & State University in<br />
1996. The school’s current designation as <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
State University was approved in 2005.<br />
Since Downs’ retirement in 1994, the<br />
University has had only two permanent<br />
presidents, Dr. Richard A. Skinner, and current<br />
president Dr. Thomas K. Harden, who took<br />
office in 2000. The current enrollment is in<br />
excess of 6,000 students and the school<br />
provides a multitude of degree credit programs<br />
that—in the words of the University’s mission<br />
statement—provides "career-oriented education<br />
with a solid liberal arts foundation."<br />
In addition to a host of undergraduate<br />
degrees, <strong>Clayton</strong> State also has several graduate<br />
programs. The first, the Master of Arts in<br />
Liberal Studies, was approved by the Board of<br />
Regents in 2005 and began in 2006. The<br />
second, the Master of Science in Nursing, was<br />
approved in June 2006, followed by the Master<br />
of Health Administration in August 2006<br />
and the Master of Business Administration in<br />
2007. The latter three programs all began in<br />
2007. Proposals for additional degree programs<br />
are under development.<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State is also home to Spivey Hall,<br />
the finest small performance facility in the<br />
Southeast. First opened in 1991, Spivey Hall is<br />
known locally, nationally and internationally for<br />
presenting the best in jazz and classical music as<br />
well as an education outreach program that<br />
serves tens of thousands of school children from<br />
throughout metro Atlanta annually.<br />
One of the University’s newest buildings is<br />
the James M. Baker University Center, which<br />
opened in 2004 and provides the university<br />
with a true "Center" for student life. Three<br />
additional buildings will open in August<br />
2008—the University’s first student housing, a<br />
student activities center and a new building<br />
for the AACSB-accredited School of Business.<br />
For more information, you can visit <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
State University at www.clayton.edu.<br />
92 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
ARKO VEAL<br />
COMPANY, INC.<br />
When Russian native Arkady Miretsky<br />
immigrated to the United States in 1989, he<br />
came packing little more than a heart filled with<br />
big hopes and dreams.<br />
Today, as the owner of a multimillion dollar<br />
business, and a devoted husband and father,<br />
Miretsky says he is living all of those dreams—<br />
and then some.<br />
“Arko Veal Company, Inc., was born in 1998<br />
from a simple product idea and grew up from<br />
a small office, one truck and $2,000 to what we<br />
are today—a manufacturer and distributor of<br />
an original line of Tex Mex, Hispanic and<br />
Caribbean products with a 35,000-square-foot<br />
plant in Forest Park, 70 employees, 26 delivery<br />
trucks, and five 18-wheelers serving restaurants<br />
and markets throughout the Southeastern<br />
United States,” Miretsky said in a recent<br />
interview. “Our sales last year were more than<br />
$35 million.”<br />
With such explosive growth, it is no wonder<br />
Inc. Magazine listed the company as one of<br />
the “5,000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies”<br />
and “Top 100 Food and Beverage Companies”<br />
in the US in 2007. It is also no surprise<br />
that Miretsky himself has been touted in<br />
the Wall Street Journal as Businessman of the<br />
Year for Georgia—enormous kudos made<br />
even more impressive by the fact that less<br />
than two decades ago he was a penniless<br />
immigrant struggling to find a minimum<br />
wage job.<br />
Though a trained chef, Miretsky could not<br />
speak English when he first arrived in America<br />
and wound up a dishwasher at La Strada<br />
Restaurant in Dunwoody. Within six months,<br />
however, he had worked his way up to the<br />
cooking staff and finally chef. He also served as<br />
chef at local five-star hotel restaurant before<br />
coming up with the idea for a new portioncontrolled<br />
veal product that gave birth to his<br />
bustling company.<br />
“I can remember driving to my $4.75-anhour<br />
dishwashing job in my old VW Bug<br />
and dreaming about living in one of the really<br />
nice homes that I would pass,” Miretsky said.<br />
“Today, I have the dream job, I live in my<br />
dream home and I drive my dream car. And,<br />
most importantly, I have my dream family—a<br />
supportive wife, Angela, and two wonderful<br />
children, eight-year-old Alex and two-monthold<br />
Natalie.”<br />
For more information about Arko Veal<br />
Company, Inc., please call 404-534-9337.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 93
DOVETAIL<br />
CONSULTING<br />
❖<br />
Above: Founder and Owner of<br />
Dovetail Consulting, Mignon Allen.<br />
Dovetail Consulting is one of the few minority/<br />
female-owned and operated professional<br />
consulting firms in the nation that specializes<br />
in safety and security, public participation,<br />
and multimodal planning for the public<br />
transportation industry. The firm was founded<br />
by Mignon Allen in December 2002.<br />
The fourth in her family to attend the<br />
distinguished Spelman College in Atlanta, Allen<br />
graduated summa cum laude in 1994 and<br />
was recruited by Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid<br />
Transit Authority (MARTA) months before she<br />
graduated. Allen branched into consulting<br />
after completing her Masters of Business<br />
Administration at Emory University and the<br />
knowledge gained from seven years of service<br />
in the core functional areas of Strategic<br />
Planning, Engineering and Construction, and<br />
Rail Transportation at MARTA.<br />
Headquartered in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> with staff<br />
located in Chicago, Boston and Phoenix,<br />
Allen now employs eight professionals, all of<br />
whom are highly experienced in the public<br />
transportation industry and considered experts<br />
in their respective fields. The firm has doubled<br />
revenues each year since its inception and has<br />
assisted many agencies in planning, building,<br />
operating, expanding and maintaining public<br />
transit systems. The client list of state, regional,<br />
county, city, and public transit agencies<br />
has grown to include the Georgia Department<br />
of Transportation; Florida Department of<br />
Transportation; Arizona Department of<br />
Transportation; Georgia Regional Transportation<br />
Authority; Atlanta Regional Commission;<br />
Regional Transportation Authority in Chicago;<br />
Henry <strong>County</strong>, Georgia; Athens-Clarke <strong>County</strong>,<br />
Georgia; Cherokee <strong>County</strong>, Georgia; City of<br />
Atlanta; Hampton Roads Transit in Norfolk; Port<br />
Authority in Pittsburgh; Miami-Dade Transit<br />
Authority; and the Regional Planning Agency in<br />
Chattanooga, just to name few.<br />
Allen believes that successful organizations<br />
do not just happen; they are designed and<br />
managed to be that way. She attributes Dovetail<br />
Consulting’s success to a close-knit team that<br />
knows transit, uses minimal resources and<br />
produces high quality output. Her team prides<br />
itself in the knowledge, professionalism,<br />
and integrity of its exceptionally qualified<br />
and experienced staff. When asked what sets<br />
Dovetail Consulting apart, Allen responded,<br />
“We take personal interest in helping public<br />
agencies develop and implement plans that<br />
meet regulatory scrutiny and at the same time<br />
satisfy the needs of the riding public—that’s<br />
what we do.”<br />
94 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
There is only one thing better than winning<br />
an award and that is winning an award where<br />
your customers are the judges.<br />
Just ask Don Jackson, founder and owner of<br />
Spartan Lincoln Mercury, one of Ford Motor<br />
Company’s top hundred Lincoln-Mercury<br />
dealerships nationwide and eight-time winner of<br />
the company’s coveted President’s Award.<br />
“We are proud to be among Ford’s top<br />
dealerships and even more proud to have won—<br />
for eight consecutive years—the President’s<br />
Award, the company’s highest honor awarded to<br />
the dealerships that most consistently deliver<br />
exceptional customer service,” Jackson said.<br />
“Because selection is based on customer surveys<br />
solicited by Ford itself, this award essentially<br />
comes from our own customers, and that is the<br />
greatest award of all.”<br />
Located in Morrow and named after his<br />
children’s high school football team, Spartan<br />
Lincoln Mercury was founded by Jackson in<br />
1982. A graduate of Atlanta’s John Marshall<br />
University and a forty-three year veteran in the<br />
car industry, Jackson also owns Don Jackson<br />
Lincoln Mercury and Don Jackson Mitsubishi in<br />
Union City. The two Lincoln-Mercury dealerships<br />
alone employ 120 people, with combined sales<br />
routinely topping $50 million annually.<br />
While Jackson’s roots in the automotive<br />
industry run deep, his roots in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
run even deeper. It is where his parents lived<br />
most of their lives and where he was born and<br />
reared. It is also the place he will always call home.<br />
In addition to being an astute businessman,<br />
Jackson is also a family man. He and his wife<br />
Saundra have been married forty-four years<br />
and have six children and eighteen<br />
grandchildren. Most of his children have<br />
worked with him at some point and two of<br />
them, as well as one son-in-law, are still in the<br />
business—Casey Jackson serving as general<br />
manager for Spartan Lincoln Mercury, Derek<br />
Jackson as general manager of Don Jackson<br />
Mitsubishi, and Paul Nestlehutt, general<br />
manager of Don Jackson Lincoln Mercury.<br />
“I expect we’ll have some grandchildren join<br />
us in the future as well,” Jackson said with a smile.<br />
“And, together, we will work diligently with the<br />
rest of our top-notch staff to continue being the<br />
premier Lincoln Mercury dealer in Atlanta.”<br />
For more information, please call 1-800-349-<br />
4703 or visit www.spartanlincolnmercury.com.<br />
SPARTAN<br />
LINCOLN<br />
MERCURY<br />
❖<br />
In the early 1960s a broad, straight<br />
highway led directly to the airport<br />
terminal, which now is encircled by<br />
coils of entrance and exit ramps<br />
serving the three interstate highways<br />
that surround the airport.<br />
COURTESY OF THE ATLANTA HARTSFIELD-<br />
JACKSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 95
LOGGINS &<br />
ASSOCIATES,<br />
P.C.<br />
❖<br />
Ben Loggins, founder of Loggins &<br />
Associates, P.C.<br />
Ben Loggins earned his BBA and MBA from<br />
Georgia State University. For several years he<br />
worked for the IRS and an international<br />
accounting firm, before he realized his true<br />
desire was to work with small businesses<br />
within his own community, providing quality<br />
accounting services to help growing companies<br />
reach profitability.<br />
Loggins & Associates, P.C. was established<br />
in 1988. In 1994 the firm moved into its current<br />
location in Jonesboro, a 5,000-square-foot<br />
office, which today houses 18 employees, six<br />
of whom have been with the company<br />
for more than fifteen years.<br />
Business revenues have increased<br />
ten percent compounded every year<br />
for the past ten years.<br />
Loggins & Associates, P.C. was<br />
named <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Chamber’s<br />
2005 Small Business of the Year.<br />
The firm’s team of professionals<br />
includes a multistate tax reporting<br />
specialist, computer consultants,<br />
several QuickBooks Pro Advisors,<br />
and six CPAs who perform a complete<br />
menu of individually tailored<br />
accounting services. Together, they<br />
prepare a variety of reports, projections,<br />
and tax returns to provide<br />
clients with the most up-to-date<br />
financial data to assist in management<br />
decisions.<br />
A firm believer in community involvement,<br />
Loggins has served since 1981 as a <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> Rotary Club member and for seventeen<br />
years as a board member of the Southern<br />
Regional Medical Center Foundation. He also<br />
served as treasurer of the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
Olympic Committee, and Georgia Figure<br />
Skating Club, and is a member of the United<br />
State’s Figure Skating Association’s finance<br />
committee and the Georgia Society of CPAs’ Tax<br />
Forum Training Committee. He is an active<br />
supporter of the Southside Theatre Guild, and<br />
helped develop and fund a scholarship at<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> State University, where he spent several<br />
years as an instructor. He has been a member of<br />
the Community Foundation for <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong><br />
since 2003.<br />
He has also instilled in his team the<br />
importance of community. Four of his present<br />
and past employees have completed Leadership<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> training.<br />
As for the future, Loggins’ firm is working to<br />
become completely paperless, while continuing<br />
to provide clients with the best quality and<br />
even easier access to their data. He plans to<br />
remain deeply involved in community activities<br />
by helping youth development through<br />
scholarships and sportsmanship, and through<br />
his commitment to Rotary International’s goals<br />
and the Community Foundation’s initiatives.<br />
For more information, call 770-478-7424 or<br />
visit the firm online at www.logginscpa.com.<br />
96 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
AKSTEIN EYE<br />
CENTER<br />
When it comes to eye care centers, the<br />
difference is visible at Akstein Eye Center.<br />
Founded more than a quarter of a century<br />
ago by Dr. Ricardo B. Akstein, M.D., Akstein<br />
Eye Center specializes in medical and surgical<br />
treatments of diseases of the eye and features<br />
three locations—a main office at 86 Upper<br />
Riverdale Road in Riverdale and a pair of<br />
satellite offices at 102 Atlanta Street in<br />
McDonough and 605 North Jeff Davis Drive in<br />
Fayetteville. The center also includes an onsite<br />
ambulatory surgical center as well as in-house<br />
store featuring a vast inventory of both glasses<br />
and contact lenses available for purchase.<br />
Among the list of eye diseases treated at<br />
the center are cataracts, corneal diseases, lid<br />
conditions, glaucoma, eye muscle disorders<br />
(strabismus), diabetic related problems,<br />
macular degeneration and other retina-vitreous<br />
disorders, nearsightedness and farsightedness<br />
visual corrections. Specialty procedures<br />
performed include glaucoma filtration surgery,<br />
corneal transplants, cosmetic surgery, and<br />
cataract surgery with standard and premium<br />
implants, laser refractive surgery and retinavitreous<br />
surgery.<br />
Dr. Akstein is a graduate of Emory University<br />
in Atlanta. In addition, he is a Fellow of the<br />
American College of Surgeons (F.A.C.S.) and<br />
the International College of Surgeons (F.I.C.S.),<br />
designations awarded only to those surgeons<br />
whose education and training, professional<br />
qualifications, surgical competence, and ethical<br />
conduct have passed a rigorous evaluation,<br />
and are consistent with the high standards of<br />
the colleges.<br />
As to why he founded the center, Dr. Akstein<br />
said that while moonlighting as an emergency<br />
room physician at Southern Regional Medical<br />
Center and finishing up his ophthalmic<br />
residency and fellowship at Emory, he simply<br />
realized that there was a need for a quality<br />
ophthalmic practice in the area. He opened the<br />
center in 1982.<br />
“Since the beginning, we have been<br />
committed to providing superior general and<br />
sub-specialty eye care for patients in our<br />
community without regard to sex, cultural or<br />
economic, educational or religious background,<br />
or source of payment for his or her care,”<br />
Dr. Akstein said, referring to his practice’s<br />
mission statement. “We constantly strive for<br />
excellence, always attempting to exceed the<br />
expectations of our patients, our referral<br />
sources and healthcare organizations.”<br />
For more information, call 770-996-4844.<br />
❖<br />
Dr. Ricardo B. Akstein, M.D.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 97
ESTES HEATING<br />
& AIR<br />
CONDITIONING<br />
❖<br />
Above: Brian Estes, N.B. Estes<br />
(founder, deceased), and Tommy Estes.<br />
Below: Estes Corporate headquarters<br />
is located at 3981 Tradeport<br />
Boulevard in Atlanta, Georgia 30354<br />
Founded in 1949 by the late N.B. Estes, Estes<br />
Heating & Air Conditioning was built on a<br />
strong foundation of honesty, integrity and<br />
quality service—traditions that not only<br />
continue today, but that have made this still<br />
family-owned business the number one HVAC<br />
service, sales, repair and installation company<br />
in Atlanta.<br />
“While it’s true we have grown in volume<br />
every year since we opened, we haven’t<br />
forgotten what made us successful to begin<br />
with,” said Tommy Estes, N.B. Estes’ son and<br />
current company president.<br />
“Dad always did whatever<br />
it took to satisfy the<br />
customer, because he knew<br />
that without them he<br />
would have no business.<br />
That strong emphasis on<br />
customer service was created<br />
as a core company value<br />
early on and is still the key<br />
to our success.”<br />
Ranked in the upper<br />
echelon of heating and<br />
air contractors in America<br />
and offering a 100 percent<br />
satisfaction guarantee,<br />
Estes today has a solid base<br />
of more than 250,000<br />
satisfied customers, almost<br />
100 employees, a fleet of 65 trucks, and a<br />
modern 27,000-square-foot building that houses<br />
all company operations and a showroom. The<br />
company has been featured in many nationallyrecognized<br />
trade publications and earned many<br />
awards, including the coveted “Residential<br />
Excellence Award” given to the top contractor<br />
in America by the Air Conditioning Contractors<br />
of America and “Best Contractor to<br />
Work For in the Southeast” award<br />
given by The News, a national air<br />
conditioning and refrigeration magazine.<br />
Additionally, the company<br />
has consistently earned Atlanta’s “Consumer’s<br />
Choice” Award; has achieved<br />
Kudzu.com’s highest rating; and is a<br />
repeat winner of Angie’s List’s “Super<br />
Service Award” as well as many other<br />
local, regional and national honors.<br />
Tommy, who does not remember a<br />
time he did not work at least part-time<br />
for his dad, joined the company fulltime<br />
after graduating college in 1971<br />
and has been at the helm since his<br />
dad stepped down in 1986. His own<br />
son, Brian, is working his way up<br />
through the ranks and is presently<br />
vice president and poised to take over<br />
the overall leadership of Estes. Estes has been<br />
based in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> since its inception.<br />
For more information, call 404-361-6560 or<br />
visit www.estesair.com.<br />
98 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
Though Chick-fil-A ® officially made its debut<br />
in Fulton <strong>County</strong>, this famous national restaurant<br />
chain and its founder, S. Truett Cathy, are<br />
an integral part of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>.<br />
In fact, the S. Truett Cathy family has called<br />
Hampton home for nearly a half a century.<br />
But, they do not just reside here. They are<br />
committed to serving the community. Not just<br />
donating money, but actually serving.<br />
A devout Christian, Cathy himself has led<br />
a Sunday School class for thirteen year-old boys<br />
at Jonesboro’s First Baptist Church for as long as<br />
he has been a resident. He has raised money for<br />
various local charities, supported education at<br />
every level and assisted needy children.<br />
He and wife Jeannette even started their own<br />
nonprofit, charitable foundation in 1984—the<br />
WinShape ® Foundation—through which they<br />
have donated millions of dollars to a family of<br />
growing ministries designed to help shape people<br />
of all ages and stages of life to be winners.<br />
In addition to being home to the Cathys,<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> actually played a role in the<br />
birth of Chick-fil-A ® . In fact, Forest Park was<br />
the location of Cathy’s second Dwarf House<br />
Restaurant that opened in 1951 and operated<br />
for nine years before being destroyed by fire.<br />
Though tragic at the time, that event<br />
served as a springboard for Cathy.<br />
Strongly believing that fast food was<br />
the next big thing, he first decided<br />
to try his hand at a fast-food establishment<br />
in Forest Park. Customers,<br />
however, decided that they preferred<br />
the "full service" of the Dwarf House<br />
and Cathy headed back to Hapeville,<br />
home of his initial Dwarf House.<br />
Feeling restless, he started experimenting<br />
with different ways to economically<br />
and quickly cook chicken.<br />
He finally hit on the perfect recipe<br />
and opened his first Chick-fil-A ®<br />
Restaurant in Atlanta’s Greenbriar<br />
Mall in 1967.<br />
Today, Chick-fil-A serves nutritious<br />
and freshly prepared food products<br />
in more than 1,400 mall locations,<br />
stand-alone restaurants, drivethru-only<br />
restaurants, Chick-fil-A<br />
Dwarf House ® and Truett’s Grill ®<br />
full-service restaurants, and through<br />
licensed outlets in college campuses, hospitals,<br />
airports, businesses and industrial sites in<br />
thirty-seven states and Washington, DC. It is the<br />
second largest quick-service chicken restaurant<br />
chain in the United States based on sales.<br />
For more information about Chick-fil-A,<br />
Inc., please visit www.chick-fil-a.com.<br />
❖<br />
CHICK-FIL-A,<br />
INC.<br />
S. Truett Cathy.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 99
ALLAN VIGIL<br />
FORD<br />
❖<br />
Above: Allan Vigil Ford in<br />
Morrow, Georgia.<br />
Below: Allan Vigil and wife Bonnie<br />
(center) with their two children,<br />
Dawn and Mike.<br />
When Allan Vigil took the wheel of the<br />
dealership that was one day to become his own,<br />
it was on the brink of extinction.<br />
Today, Allan Vigil Ford in Morrow is not only<br />
Georgia’s largest Ford dealer, but is one of the<br />
top 100 Ford dealerships in the country.<br />
The key to his success? “A loyal, dedicated<br />
team of employees and a commitment to excellent<br />
customer service and satisfaction,” says Vigil.<br />
A University of Florida graduate and decorated<br />
Army veteran, Vigil began his automotive career<br />
with Ford Motor Company in the early 1970s.<br />
After several years, he moved to the retail side<br />
of the business serving in various management<br />
positions. In 1982 he was asked to take over the<br />
failing Jonesboro dealership.<br />
Putting together a new management team<br />
and working diligently to increase sales while<br />
creating high levels of customer satisfaction,<br />
the dealership began to recover. When offered<br />
the opportunity to buy the company in 1990,<br />
Vigil did not hesitate and business has<br />
continued to flourish.<br />
In 2003, Vigil moved the dealership to<br />
Morrow. The new facility was designed for<br />
customer comfort and convenience and has<br />
large, open showrooms, multiple waiting rooms<br />
with digital televisions and Internet access,<br />
observation areas, a children’s play area, and<br />
a café. On the same campus is a separate<br />
distribution facility for the dealership’s brisk<br />
wholesale parts business, and next door is<br />
the Southeast’s largest collision center—a free<br />
standing, state-of-the-art facility with thirty-two<br />
repair bays and five downdraft paint booths.<br />
Allan Vigil Ford is privately owned and a true<br />
family business. Community-minded and the<br />
recipient of numerous professional honors, Vigil<br />
continues to serve as the company’s president.<br />
Son Mike also serves as president and general<br />
manager of Allan Vigil Ford Fayetteville and<br />
daughter Dawn serves as the company’s director<br />
of marketing and communications. All three<br />
proudly lead the Allan Vigil Ford team in<br />
upholding the company’s reputation for great<br />
service and customer satisfaction.<br />
For more information, visit Allan Vigil<br />
Ford on the web at www.vigilford.com or<br />
in person at 6790 Mount Zion Boulevard in<br />
Morrow, Georgia. You may also call toll-free at<br />
1-888-681-0159.<br />
100 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
CLAYTON<br />
COUNTY WATER<br />
AUTHORITY<br />
The <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Water Authority<br />
(CCWA) has a simple, yet profound mission<br />
statement which best describes what it has<br />
been successfully doing for residents and<br />
businesses of <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> since 1955: “God<br />
made it; we clean it up; and serve H2O to go”<br />
for customers everyday.<br />
The CCWA was created by the Georgia<br />
General Assembly more than a half century ago<br />
and initially served less than 500 customers.<br />
It employed a mere eight people, owned five<br />
pieces of equipment, and scarcely had the<br />
resources to operate its one water filter plant,<br />
which supplied just 250,000 gallons of finished<br />
drinking water to residents daily.<br />
Today, the CCWA has grown to employ more<br />
than 375 professionals trained and certified to<br />
operate over 500 pieces of equipment and six<br />
plants—three major water production plants<br />
and three major wastewater treatment plants—<br />
24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Together, the<br />
CCWA and its employees provide more than 42<br />
million gallons of water to 76,000 customer<br />
accounts and 270,000 citizens daily. It<br />
operates under the leadership of a sevenmember<br />
board of directors appointed by the<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Board of Commissioners; is<br />
recognized as an industry leader; and boasts a<br />
list of accolades and awards almost too long to<br />
list and still growing.<br />
“But no reward can match that of a satisfied<br />
customer or a dedicated employee, for they<br />
provide real tangible evidence of the Authority’s<br />
historical success,” pens the writers of 50 Years<br />
of Foresight: The Story of the <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Water<br />
Authority, a commemorative book written in<br />
celebration of the CCWA’s fiftieth birthday. “The<br />
best water utility in the state, region or nation?<br />
That is certainly debatable. However, what is<br />
not in question is whether or not the <strong>Clayton</strong><br />
<strong>County</strong> Water Authority has positively impacted<br />
its community, providing much more than<br />
infrastructure; rather, providing the foundation<br />
for a better place to live, work, and play. As has<br />
been told with its history, this Authority has<br />
fifty years worth of evidence of doing that! And<br />
this journey will certainly continue…”<br />
For more information, visit www.ccwa.us.<br />
❖<br />
Left: Seated (from left to right): Board<br />
Member Wesley E. Greene, Sr.,<br />
Chairman Pete McQueen and Vice<br />
Chairman Lloyd Joiner. Standing, left<br />
to right: Board Member Doug Bonner,<br />
Secretary/Treasurer Marie Barber and<br />
Board Member John Westervelt. Not<br />
pictured: Board Member John Chafin.<br />
Below: The CCWA’s total water<br />
management system uses technologies<br />
that ensure a clean, safe, reliable<br />
water supply. The innovative use of<br />
constructed treatment wetlands allows<br />
the CCWA to return 10 million<br />
gallons a day of highly treated<br />
wastewater to its reservoirs—making<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> virtually drought<br />
proof. This photo shows an aerial view<br />
of the Huie Constructed Treatment<br />
Wetlands site.<br />
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 101
SPONSORS<br />
Action Tire Company ...................................................................................................................................................................76<br />
Akstein Eye Center.......................................................................................................................................................................97<br />
Allan Vigil Ford..........................................................................................................................................................................100<br />
Arko Veal Company, Inc. ..............................................................................................................................................................93<br />
Atlanta Orthopedic & Arthroscopy Center, PC .............................................................................................................................61<br />
Atlanta Produce Dealers Association .............................................................................................................................................71<br />
Atlanta State Farmers Market........................................................................................................................................................72<br />
BHW Sheet Metal Company .........................................................................................................................................................88<br />
Blalock Machinery & Equipment Company, Inc. ..........................................................................................................................66<br />
Chick-fil-A, Inc. ...........................................................................................................................................................................99<br />
City of Forest Park .......................................................................................................................................................................62<br />
City of Jonesboro..........................................................................................................................................................................84<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Board of Commissioners .....................................................................................................................................82<br />
<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong> Water Authority ..........................................................................................................................................61, 101<br />
Dovetail Consulting......................................................................................................................................................................94<br />
Estes Heating & Air Conditioning ................................................................................................................................................98<br />
Forest Park Sheet Metal Works, Inc. .............................................................................................................................................74<br />
Georgia Archives ..........................................................................................................................................................................90<br />
Georgia International Convention Center .....................................................................................................................................80<br />
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport ...........................................................................................................................86<br />
Heritage Bank...............................................................................................................................................................................61<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Jonesboro/<strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Inc. ....................................................................................................................................65<br />
Hodges, McEachem & King, Attorneys at Law..............................................................................................................................69<br />
J. J. Jardina Company, Inc.............................................................................................................................................................89<br />
Loggins & Associates, P.C.......................................................................................................................................................61, 96<br />
Paragon Systems, Inc....................................................................................................................................................................73<br />
R. J. Haynie & Associates .............................................................................................................................................................78<br />
Southern Regional Health System .................................................................................................................................................91<br />
Spartan Lincoln Mercury ..............................................................................................................................................................95<br />
Sutherland’s Foodservice, Inc. ......................................................................................................................................................70<br />
102 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR<br />
K ATHRYN<br />
K EMP, PH D<br />
A native of Pennsylvania, Kathryn Kemp has earned her PhD in history from Georgia State and her M.A. and B.A. from the<br />
University of New Orleans. Her studies have centered on the U.S. South but she also enjoys teaching ancient history survey classes<br />
when the opportunity arises. She usually teaches U.S. history surveys, courses on minorities in U.S. history, and on the U.S. in the<br />
Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and a historical research and writing course for senior history majors.<br />
In addition to teaching, she has worked as an archivist, a researcher for an archaeology lab, and as a writer. Her book, God’s<br />
Capitalist: Asa Candler of Coca-Cola, was published by Mercer University Press in 2002. She also serves as the executive secretarytreasurer<br />
of the Georgia Association of Historians.<br />
She resides in <strong>Clayton</strong> <strong>County</strong>, Georgia, with her husband, Jim.<br />
About the Author ✦ 103
For more information about the following publications or about publishing your own book, please call<br />
<strong>Historic</strong>al Publishing Network at 800-749-9790 or visit www.lammertinc.com.<br />
Black Gold: The Story of Texas Oil & Gas<br />
Garland: A Contemporary History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Abilene: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Alamance <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Albuquerque: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Amarillo: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Anchorage: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Austin: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Baldwin <strong>County</strong>: A Bicentennial History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Baton Rouge: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Beaufort <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Beaumont: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Bexar <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Birmingham: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Brazoria <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Charlotte:<br />
An Illustrated History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg <strong>County</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Cheyenne: A History of the Magic City<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Comal <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Corpus Christi: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> DeKalb <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Denton <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Edmond: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> El Paso: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Erie <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Fairbanks: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Gainesville & Hall <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Gregg <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Hampton Roads: Where America Began<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Hancock <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Henry <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Houston: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Illinois: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Kern <strong>County</strong>:<br />
An Illustrated History of Bakersfield and Kern <strong>County</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Lafayette:<br />
An Illustrated History of Lafayette & Lafayette Parish<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Laredo:<br />
An Illustrated History of Laredo & Webb <strong>County</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Lee <strong>County</strong>: The Story of Fort Myers & Lee <strong>County</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Louisiana: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Midland: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Montgomery <strong>County</strong>:<br />
An Illustrated History of Montgomery <strong>County</strong>, Texas<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Ocala: The Story of Ocala & Marion <strong>County</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Oklahoma: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Oklahoma <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Omaha:<br />
An Illustrated History of Omaha and Douglas <strong>County</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Orange <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Ouachita Parish: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Paris and Lamar <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Pasadena: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Passaic <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Pennsylvania An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Philadelphia: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Prescott:<br />
An Illustrated History of Prescott & Yavapai <strong>County</strong><br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Richardson: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Rio Grande Valley: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Scottsdale: A Life from the Land<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Shelby <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Shreveport-Bossier:<br />
An Illustrated History of Shreveport & Bossier City<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> South Carolina: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Smith <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Temple: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Texas: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Victoria: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Tulsa: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Williamson <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> Wilmington & The Lower Cape Fear:<br />
An Illustrated History<br />
<strong>Historic</strong> York <strong>County</strong>: An Illustrated History<br />
Iron, Wood & Water: An Illustrated History of Lake Oswego<br />
Jefferson Parish: Rich Heritage, Promising Future<br />
Miami’s <strong>Historic</strong> Neighborhoods: A History of Community<br />
Old Orange <strong>County</strong> Courthouse: A Centennial History<br />
Plano: An Illustrated Chronicle<br />
The New Frontier:<br />
A Contemporary History of Fort Worth & Tarrant <strong>County</strong><br />
The San Gabriel Valley: A 21st Century Portrait<br />
The Spirit of Collin <strong>County</strong><br />
Valley Places, Valley Faces<br />
Water, Rails & Oil: <strong>Historic</strong> Mid & South Jefferson <strong>County</strong><br />
104 ✦ HISTORIC CLAYTON COUNTY
ISBN 9781935377054