This week’s Time Capsule looks at an ordinance on billiards, a brazen armored car robbery and the potential renaming of Fairground Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

100 years ago …

In the Friday, May 16, 1913 edition of The Marietta Journal and Courier, the Methodist church was reported as overflowing with its own congregation and members of the Baptist church for Mother’s Day. White carnations were given to everyone who entered the church.

Another story that week announced that graduating exercises for Marietta High School would be held at the Armory at 8 p.m. on May 23. A small admission fee of 25 cents was charged to all attendees.

There were also two interesting ads in the paper that week. A quarter-page ad on the front advertised the screening of “The Toll of War,” a film was about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, at the Gem Theatre. On page two, an ad from the L.W. Rogers Co. advertised – 21 pounds of sugar for $1, 48 pounds of flour for $1.38, 24 pounds of flour for 72 cents, flour in barrel lots for $5.28 and 100 pound sacks of chick feed for $1.99.

50 years ago …

Some 15 property owners from Fairground Street and Roosevelt Circle were reported in the Friday, May 10, 1963 MDJ as vigorously protesting efforts by the city school board to condemn land near them for a black high school football field. The owners said the lights and yelling from football games would force them to sell their homes at a loss and move away. The property was being sought because Lemon Street High School’s old football field, adjacent to the school, was to be used for a badly needed $100,000 wing containing service facilities, including a band room, a music department, shop and home economics rooms.

The Marietta City Council was reported in the Sunday, May 12, 1963 paper as agreeing that if a man was old enough to vote, then he was old enough to shoot pool without his parents’ permission. Council members asked Mayor Sam Welsch to draw up an amendment to the then-current ordinance which said anyone under 21 had to get a letter of consent from their parents in order to play billiards.

The capture of three carloads of moonshine whiskey was reported in the Monday, May 13, 1963 paper. Marietta police officers seized 58 gallons in the Elk Street area after investigating a report of cars unloading liquor. A 1951 Ford, a 1941 Pontiac and a 1950 Chevrolet were found hastily abandoned at the scene.

A tractor-trailer truck hauling 30,000 pounds of dressed chicken was reported in the Wednesday, May 15, 1963 paper as having swerved out of control on Roswell Road late the night before and flipped over a steep embankment. The truck crashed at the bottom of a ditch at Sope Creek and sprained both the neck and back of the driver.

20 years ago …

Three heavily armed robbers were reported in the Wednesday, May 12, 1993 MDJ as having used two stolen cars to pull off a brazen robbery of a Brinks Inc. armored truck as it was delivering money to the Georgia Federal Bank. When the Brinks truck backed up to the bank, a white man driving a Chevrolet commercial van stolen in Fulton County pulled up and blocked the front of the truck as two other men in an Oldsmobile stolen out of Gwinnett County pulled up. An armed man wearing a clear plastic mask and a blonde wig jumped out of the car stealing cash from the money cart of the Brinks guard outside the truck on the sidewalk.

The Marietta-Cobb-Smyrna Narcotics Unit was reported in the Friday, May 14, 1993 paper as having made its first high-tech marijuana bust in the county. The raid captured over 500 high-grade marijuana plants, estimated at $4,000 a piece with a total market value of about $2 million. The basement of the two-story home, which had garbage bags stapled over the windows, was full of an elaborate hydroponics system.

A group of black Cobb residents were reported in the Thursday, May 13, 1993 paper as asking the Marietta City Council to change the name of Fairground Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Street. If the council did not agree, the 50-member Cobb County MLK Support Group planned to suggest Roswell Street as its second choice and Lawrence Street as a third option.

In the Saturday, May 15, 1993 paper, it was reported that the construction budget for Cobb’s unfinished convention center had more than $650,000 in cost overruns. Unplanned expenses included $381,000 in building permits and another $275,000 for a maintenance program in which all Galleria tenants participated.

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

This week’s Time Capsule looks at the burning of dogs and horses at the county dump, expansion of Marietta’s Lemon Street High School and a local teen co-producing the Oprah Winfrey Show.

100 years ago …

In the Friday, May 9, 1913 edition of The Marietta Journal and Courier, the Marietta Board of Lights and Water announced that the driest April in 30 years had caused a water shortage in the city. A ban on sprinkling city water upon streets and gardens was put into effect while a new city well was being bored to help alleviate the shortage. The Kennesaw Paper Co. also placed a small front page blurb announcing that it had an abundant supply of water and would be glad to supply it at low prices.

50 years ago …

Similar to a recent event in Smyrna, a man out walking with his children was reported in the Monday, May 6, 1963 paper as having found a live 60-mm World War II Japanese mortar shell along the edge of Lost Mountain. An Army demolitions expert said the shell could have destroyed a good-sized building if dropped on its nose. Marietta police urged residents holding souvenir ordinance to dispose of it through the Army’s explosive disposal unit at Fort McPherson in Atlanta.

Also that day, it was reported that a Smyrna man was accidentally wounded after his wife fired a German Luger pistol at a rat in their living room. Missing the rat, the bullet grazed the man on the left side of the head and fractured his skull while he lay on the couch watching television.

The Cobb County Advisory Board was reported in the Tuesday, May 7, 1963 paper as having ordered a health department inspection of the county-owned garbage dump after complaints from 22 nearby residents. A spokesman for the protesting property owners said that dead dogs and at least one dead horse had been burned recently at the dump.

Marietta Mayor Sam Welsch was reported in the Wednesday, May 8, 1963 paper as asking the Marietta City Council to approve an ordinance increasing the maximum fine for traffic offenses in the city from $100 to $200.

In the Thursday, May 9, 1963 paper, the Marietta Board of Education was reported as having filed condemnation papers against property for the expansion program of the city’s black high school. The school board was taking steps to condemn a 3.5-acre tract of property that was three-tenths of a mile from the Lemon Street High School. The plan was for the school’s football field to be shifted to the property once condemnation proceedings were complete.

20 years ago …

A proposal from Cobb-based Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. was reported in the Tuesday, May 4, 1993 MDJ as saying that Lockheed could build 75 C-5B transport planes for the Air Force that were capable of carrying as much cargo as the 120 planned McDonnell Douglas C-17 airlifters and for less than half the cost. Lockheed proposed building the C-5s for $165 million each, for a total cost of $12.21 billion, plus an estimated $575 million in costs to restart the C-5B assembly line. The value of the embattled C-17 contract was about $30 billion, or $250 million per plane.

In the May 5, 1993 paper, it was reported that Matthew Reeves of Acworth was invited to Chicago to co-produce an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show. Reeves, who was legally blind, received a call from Oprah producer David Boul with the invitation to co-produce the “A Tribute to Kids” episode, which would feature a studio audience made up strictly of teens from schools in the Chicago area. Reeves had been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey along with five other teens in late November 1992 after they had been awarded the Horatio Alger Scholarship and traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National Scholars Conference of the Horatio Alger Association.

While the deadline for sealed bids on the 800-acre Sweetwater Industrial Park in Austell had closed, the Thursday, May 6, 1993 paper reported that it would be about two months before Austell City officials learned if the site would be the home to Norfolk-Southern Railway’s truck to rail center. The land, which was near the old Coats & Clark thread mill in the former city of Clarkdale, had sat in bankruptcy for three years and was part of a multi-tract package put up for bid by the U.S. Resolution Trust Corp. Norfolk-Southern Railway, which offered $4 million for the property in late 1992, wanted to relocate its regional truck to rail transfer station out of Camden Yards in Atlanta.

 

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

This week’s Time Capsule looks at the murder of Mary Phagan, a visit from Robert F. Kennedy, a moonshine convoy and the possible reviving of the C-5 Galaxy.

100 years ago …

The front page of the Friday, May 2, 1913, Marietta Journal and Courier was filled with multiple headlines on the now infamous murder of Mary Phagan of Marietta at the National Pencil Company factory in Atlanta.

At the time of the story, three men were under arrest and being held as suspects in the case – Arthur Mullinax, a street car conductor; National Pencil Company’s superintendent Leo M. Frank; and Newt Lee, a black night watchman at the factory.

For more information on the 100th anniversary of the murder and the later lynching of Frank, check out the Sunday, April 28, 2013 story by MDJ News Editor Leo Hohmann – A Pilgrimage for ‘little Mary’ at http://bit.ly/103FlI1

50 years ago …

U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy arrived in Atlanta on the final day of a swing through three Southern states, as reported in the Friday, April 26, 1963 Marietta Daily Journal. During the visit, Kennedy ruled out overt federal action against Southern states which had segregationist practices in order to achieve more progress in granting basic rights to blacks. He said problems like school integration should be worked out “internally” within those states and cited the peaceful integration of some Atlanta schools by local officials.

A two-car moonshine running convoy was stopped and the drivers arrested in South Cobb, according to the Sunday, April 28, 1963 paper. Two county policemen made the arrests and confiscated 33 gallons of non-tax paid whiskey in the trunk of the lead car about 5:30 a.m. Police said the second car in the convoy was “blocking,” which was a method used to hinder the efforts of any lawmen that might begin chasing the lead car and prevent capture of the whiskey.

Marietta Mayor Sam Welsch and a six-man citizens committee were reported in the Monday, April 29, 1963 paper as meeting with Jimm Gillis the director of the State Highway Board to discuss proposed changes in the plans for the widening and improvement of Roswell Road east of the Four Lane Highway (U.S. Highway 41).

In the Tuesday, April 30, 1963 paper, a squabble over access rights through an alley off the north side of Roswell Street appeared headed for the courts after a city engineer brought out a bulldozer to knock down a barricade erected by Real Estate Developer O.C. Hubert. The city said the alley was an integral part of Alexander Street, while Hubert claimed it was his private property. The situation developed when Hubert erected the barricade and users of the alley complained to City Hall that it blocked their access to Roswell Street.

20 years ago …

In the race for the 1994 7th District Congressional seat four delegates had announced their intentions to run for the seat during the 7th District GOP Convention on April 17 in Cartersville, according to the Monday, April 26, 1993 MDJ. Coming as no surprise to anyone were the announcements by west Cobb resident and former U.S. Attorney Bob Barr, along with Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, a gynecologist from Carroll County. Two surprise announcements came from Bob Herriott of Carroll County, the co-chairman of former President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 Georgia campaign; and Kenny Moore of Troup County, a college preparatory math teacher and varsity tennis coach at LaGrange High School.

The April 29, 1993 MDJ reported that Lockheed Corp. chairman and chief executive officer Dan Teliep announced that James A. “Mickey” Blackwell, vice president and general manager of the F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter program, had been named president of Cobb-based Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co.

Congressmen Newt Gingrich, R-east Cobb, and George “Buddy” Darden, D-Marietta, were calling for a comprehensive review of the troubled McDonnell Douglas C-17 airlifter that might include the possible reviving of the C-5 Galaxy built at Lockheed. Gingrich said he planned to meet with Defense Secretary Les Aspin about the C-17 and Darden said that McDonnell Douglas officials were expected to appear later in the month before the defense appropriations subcommittee, which recommended funding for military programs. The day before Aspin was reported as having fired the Air Force general who headed up the C-17 program and disciplined three other generals involved in the project.

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

 

While Cobb County currently only has six cities – Acworth, Austell, Kennesaw, Marietta, Powder Springs and Smyrna – longtime residents will remember that the county has had several other cities over the years. Some of the more well-known cities were Elizabeth, Clarkdale, Mableton and Fair Oaks, which have been mentioned at different times in previous MDJ Time Capsule columns. But, while researching last week’s column this author came across a new obscure city.

In the Monday, April 19, 1993 MDJ, there was a story about how after 32 years of existence the county’s least known city, Chattahoochee Plantation, faced disappearing from the map due to a new state law.

A bill that passed during the 1993 session of the Georgia General Assembly and signed by Gov. Zell Miller stated that all nonfunctioning cities – those that provided no services to their residents – would lose their charters by 1995. The bill was crafted as a means for the state to save grant money.

Chattahoochee Plantation, according to the story, never offered a service, held a meeting or even a vote to anyone’s knowledge. The city was even overlooked by the Georgia Municipal Association’s list of about 100 cities that would be affected by the bill.

At the time, Chattahoochee Plantation stretched from the Douglas County line northward along the Cobb side of the Chattahoochee River toward Cherokee County.

Chattahoochee Plantation was created in 1961 in the Chattahoochee Plantation Estates subdivision in east Cobb by former Cobb County Reps. Bill Teague, Harold Willingham and Joe Mack Wilson – who served as Marietta’s mayor from 1990 until his death on May 17, 1993. The city was later expanded in 1968 to prevent the City of Atlanta from annexing the area.

When it incorporated, Chattahoochee Plantation had a mayor and city council that was appointed by developer Bill Ward and Fred Brown, who also named themselves as members of the council. Other members of the first and only Chattahoochee Plantation municipal government were Herman Warren, W.E. McFarland, Clyde King Jr. and Richard L. Simms – the only mayor of the city.

Prior to Cobb Rep. Hugh Lee McDaniell’s 1968 House bill that expanded the boundaries of Chattahoochee Plantation, the City of Atlanta had been annexing parts of both Clayton and DeKalb counties and was actively trying to annex everything within the Perimeter and Sandy Springs. Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen was reportedly looking to bring outlying areas into Atlanta to add to the city’s tax base.

Because of the threat of these annexations, the Cobb House delegation – which consisted of Reps. McDaniell, Bob Howard, Joe Mack Wilson, J.H. Henderson Jr. and Sens. Cyrus M. Chapman and Sam P. Hensley – decided to protect the entire Cobb border with Fulton and created the largest waterfront city in the state of Georgia.

Over the years, Chattahoochee Plantation remained obscure except for an unsuccessful attempt by Rep. Sallie Newbill, R-Sandy Springs, in 1991 to use its charter as a method to incorporate the Sandy Springs area. However, in recent years, Sandy Springs residents finally won their battle and were incorporated as a city.

While no longer a city, Chattahoochee Plantation currently is a small portion of East Cobb and made up of several neighborhoods that are a part of the Chattahoochee Plantation Community Association (CPCA).

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

This week’s Time Capsule looks at the breaking of a world record, PTA founder Alice Birney McClellan’s home and the 100-year old Lost Mountain Store.

100 years ago …

In the Friday, April 25, 1913 edition of The Marietta Journal and Courier there was a front page story about the recent meeting of the First Baptist Church adding 62 members. Rev. G.S. Tumlin was reported as also having baptized 45 people the previous Sunday.

There was also a full page advertisement for W.A. Florence’s “Stop! Look! Listen!” sale on the second page of that week’s paper. Some of the bargains under a nickel included 4 cent Ladies black hose, 30 by 12 inch towels with red borders for 3½ cents, a dozen pearl buttons for 3 cents and embroidered Ladies handkerchiefs for 4 cents.

50 years ago …

In the Sunday, April 21, 1963 paper there was a story about several thousand Cobb County school students expecting to be shifted to five junior high schools in the fall as the Board of Education made the move to a new junior high school system.

Also that day, a group of Roswell Road property owners refused to grant free rights-of-way for widening the heavily travelled city road east of the Four Lane (U.S. Highway 41). While opposing the current State Highway Department plans to expand the narrow two lane road to four 12 foot lanes, the property owners did indicate they would work with the city for an alternate solution.

Five dancers were reported in the Monday, April 22, 1963 paper as having broken the world’s Swing-A-Thon record over the weekend at Marietta’s Larry Bell Auditorium by dancing continuously for 62 hours and 30 minutes before being halted by the city’s curfew law. The dance-off was held on a challenge from Finland where a Helsinki couple had set the old world record of 60 consecutive hours.

The Cobb Advisory Board was reported in the Tuesday, April 22, 1963 paper as having adopted a policy of providing free emergency treatment for prisoners injured at county penal institutions – but balked at paying for long-range medical care for those injuries.

Another story that day reported that Cobb Sen. Ed Kendrick had called on Gov. Carl Sanders to look into the possibility of having the state purchase the Alice Birney McClellan home in Marietta as a historic shrine. The late Mrs. McClellan, a native Mariettan, was the founder of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) movement in the country. Her home was located at the corner of Kennesaw Avenue and Church Street.

In the Wednesday, April 24, 1963 paper it was reported that the Cobb Hospital Authority had hired the Atlanta architectural firm of Wilfred J. Gregon & Associates to design a proposed 200-bed hospital in the south Cobb area. The Atlanta firm agreed to draw up preliminary plans – and ask for pay only if the hospital authority’s application for Hill-Burton funds were approved. The hospital authority hoped that it might start construction on the new hospital by July 1964.

20 years ago …

U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-east Cobb, following his seven-day trip to Russia was quoted in the Monday, April 19, 1993 MDJ as saying that economic aid, relaxed trade restrictions and strong U.S.-Russia relations were needed to keep Russia from a return to communism and further economic collapse. Rep. Gingrich traveled to Russia as part of a 14-member congressional delegation on a fact-finding mission led by House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Missouri. Delegation members visited Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg and Nizniy Novgorod, a city once closed to westerners under Communist rule because of nuclear research.

In the Tuesday, April 20, 1993 paper, the Cobb Historic Preservation Commission voted unanimously in a hastily called and little-publicized meeting to allow George Morgan Development Co. of Atlanta to move one of the county’s most famous historic landmarks, the 100-year old Lost Mountain Store. The move was supposed to make way for developers of a shopping mall at the intersection of Mars Hill and Lost Mountain roads in west Cobb. The store, however, was later renovated into a branch of United Community Bank and remains at its original location as part of a Publix supermarket shopping center.

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

This week’s Time Capsule looks at the commemoration of Andrew’s Raid, a gasoline price war, a chimpanzee biting a Mableton boy, a burglary attempt on the Marietta Square and Hyde Farm.

100 years ago …

In the Friday, April 18, 1913 edition of The Marietta Journal and Courier there was a story about Judge J.M. Gann setting July 20th as the date for the election of a new sheriff to coincide with that of the U.S. Senator race. By waiting and combining the two elections, Judge Gann said it would save Cobb County $250. W.E. Swanson was appointed by Judge Gann to be the interim sheriff until the election was held following the death of Sheriff R.S. Lindley.

50 years ago …

Cobb’s 1963 property tax rate was officially set at 35.75 mills in the Friday, April 12, 1963 MDJ. The rate was a cut of more than 36 percent. Cobb Commissioner Herbert McCollum, chairman of the Cobb Advisory Board, said the new rate was the lowest he could recall in his 47 years as a Cobb resident.

Also that day, Kennesaw residents opened a two-day commemoration of the famous Civil war episode, Andrew’s Raid. Gov. Carl Sanders fired the opening shot of the observance with a sawed-off 1864 Springfield musket. A crowd of a thousand gathered in front of the reconstructed Lacy Hotel on Kennesaw’s main street to hear the governor. Prior to the speech, Sanders arrived on the Confederate locomotive “The General” after an hour and 25-minute trip from Atlanta.

In the Sunday, April 14, 1963 paper, the City of Marietta was considering a raise to the speed limit on the Four Lane Highway (U.S. Highway 41) from 40 to 50 mph.

A week-long gasoline price war, reported in the Monday, April 15, 1963 paper, was continuing in Cobb with dealers cutting per-gallon sales as much as 10 cents. The independent service stations that started the price cutting binge were selling gas as low as 23.9 cents a gallon for regular and 24.9 cents a gallon for high test.

In the Tuesday, April 16, 1963 paper, a traveling circus chimpanzee bit a seven-year-old boy in Mableton after the child stuck his fingers into the animal’s cage. Dr. Ernest Thompson, Cobb’s health director, reported that the boy received a severe bite on the third finger of his left hand that required several stitches. The chimpanzee, part of the animal menagerie of the traveling Christiani-Wallace Brothers’ Circus, was examined and found not to be rabid.

Marietta police, summoned by a burglar alarm, was reported in the Thursday, April 18, 1963 paper as having searched the Dunaway Drug Store in downtown Marietta for 30 minutes before discovering a 30-year-old man hiding behind sliding doors of a counter in the prescription department. Four city police cars were ordered to the scene just before midnight the night before after a burglary alarm from a broken window went off at Fortune Jewelers, which was on the same side of the Marietta Square as the drug store. Police went behind the buildings and spotted a man on the roof of the drug store. They found the bars on a window had been bent and a door leading down to the drug store had been forced open. Officers also retrieved two pistols, a 22-caliber rifle and rolls of silver coins from the burglar’s 1950 Cadillac parked in front of the Strand Theater.

20 years ago …

In the Monday, April 12, 1993 MDJ there was a story about Lt. Jon Redwine of Cobb County Fire Station No. 18 climbing a 100-foot pine tree in Kennesaw to retrieve a family’s $300 Plumbhead Parakeet. Redwine, a veteran climber, scaled the tree without a ladder and instead used only a safety harness, shoe spikes and rope.

With the help of the Trust for Public Land, J.C. Hyde, 63, was reported in the Tuesday, April 13, 1993 paper as being allowed to continue plowing his farm with his mule, Nell, and hold off developers eager to cash in on his 130 acres overlooking the Chattahoochee River. Without the help of the trust, U.S. Rep. George “Buddy” Darden, D-Marietta, and several conservation organizations, Hyde would have had to sell his 160-year-old farm to developers to pay off the Internal Revenue Service. In recent years, following the death of J.C. Hyde, the farm was purchased by the Trust for Public Land and sold to the Cobb County Government for preservation.

Cobb Superior Court Judge Mary Staley was reported in the Thursday, April 15, 1993 paper as being the one to decide whether a north Cobb cemetery containing graves of 19th century settlers would be moved so an auto mall could be built upon the site by property owner by C.V. Nalley III. The day before, Judge Staley finished a two-day hearing on whether an April 1992 decision by the Cobb Board of Commissioners should be upheld to move the Edwards-Attaway cemetery, a 12-acre tract off Barrett Parkway and near Town Center at Cobb mall. Nine people who were descendants of those buried in the cemetery were seeking to reverse the commission’s decision.

 

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

This week's Time Capsule looks at the death of a sheriff, a mayor’s salary being argued before the Georgia Supreme Court, money requested for the Kennedy Parkway project and a mountain of tires removed from Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU).

100 years ago …

In the Friday, April 11, 1913 edition of The Marietta Journal and Courier there was a story about Sheriff R. S. Lindley dying suddenly at his home the Wednesday before from peritonitis at 56. Sheriff Lindley, who had been ill for two days, served two years as Deputy Sheriff before being elected Sheriff the previous summer.

50 years ago …

There seemed to be a fire epidemic in the county, according to a report in the Friday, April 6, 1963 Marietta Daily Journal. For just that one day, there was a grass fire on the L&N Railroad property at Butler Street and East Dixie Avenue in Marietta, a woods fire at Queens Mill Road in south Cobb where a car also burned, a vacant house on Roswell Road that was heavily damaged by a fire and eight other grass and woods fires throughout the county.

In the Sunday, April 7, 1963 paper there was a story about a Dalton truck driver who was severely injured when his tractor trailer crashed into the railing of the bridge where the Four Lane (U.S. Highway 41) crossed the Chattahoochee River. Rush hour traffic was backed up for miles by the accident and police said the truck narrowly missed plunging into the river.

A Marietta man was reported as being arrested following the shooting of another civilian man in the parking lot of the non-commissioned officers’ club at Dobbins Air Force Base in the Monday, April 8, 1963 paper. The victim was treated at Kennestone Hospital for a flesh wound to the left side of his abdomen.

Cobb’s government was reported in the Tuesday, April 9, 1963 paper as having sold 56,943 vehicle license tags during the first three months of the year, which was more than the 55,003 tags sold during all of 1961.

Another story that day reported that four Marietta attorneys were arguing Marietta Mayor Sam Welsch’s salary for the third time before the Georgia Supreme Court. The controversial issue revolved around a $7,400 annual pay raise given to Mayor Welsch by the Marietta City Council in 1960 – which was later struck down by the Supreme Court, but then reinstated by the council under a rewritten resolution in February 1962.

Workmen were reported in the Thursday, April 11, 1963 paper as rushing to complete the Lacy Hotel in Kennesaw for the city’s centennial celebration of Andrew’s Raid. Gov. Carl E. Sanders was expected to open the celebration after arriving from Atlanta aboard the famous Civil War locomotive “The General.”

20 years ago …

In the Monday, April 5, 1993 MDJ, Cobb County officials asked the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) to add $35 million in funding to the proposed Kennedy Interchange project in the Cumberland-Galleria area during the next three years. The original metro-wide Transportation Improvement plan – endorsed by the ARC board in November 1992 – earmarked $29.1 million for the project between 1993 and 1996. The amended request for $63.9 million reflected the desire of the county and the Georgia Department of Transportation to accelerate the construction.

In the wake of a single-engine plane crash that killed two people during takeoff, more than 40 residents were reported in the Tuesday, April 6, 1993 paper as having turned out for the Kennesaw City Council meeting to oppose the county’s proposed expansion of McCollum Field. The FAA approved a $2.4 million grant in March for the county to make improvements to McCollum, including the extension of the 5,106 foot runway at the east end and the installation of an instrument landing system and a control tower, which was recently eliminated in 2013 by sequestration.

In a grove of trees in the far northern reaches of Southern College of Technology’s campus (now known as SPSU) there was a mountain of roughly 18,000 old tires. The college, reported in the Thursday, April 8, 1993 paper, paid B.F.I. Tire Recyclers over $14,000 to remove the tires in order to avoid charges from the state’s Environmental Protection Division. The tires were a legacy of the defunct bathtub races that were held annually at the college for 25 years. The tires had served as protective barriers for the roads used in the races, which featured motorized bathtubs whizzing around the campus at speeds averaging 60 to 70 miles per hour.

 

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

In this week’s column we look at a dog tax, a lawsuit over a telegram, a proposed courthouse on Highway 41, the county running out of land by 2010 and House leaders seeking an audience with Pope John Paul II.

100 years ago …

In the Friday, April 4, 1913 edition of The Marietta Journal and Courier there was a story about the Marietta City Council passing an ordinance that required all dog owners to register their pets and pay a $2.50 tax per animal. All stray dogs that were not registered and paid for were to be shot by the police.

50 years ago …

A 44,000-volt fuse at a sub-station was reported in the Sunday, March 31, 1963 MDJ as having blown out with a loud explosion-like noise during the noon rush hour the Friday before. Both lights and traffic signals in downtown Marietta were out for 37 minutes. The sound of the blow-out was heard as far away as 2½ miles.

Another story that day reported that an Acworth housewife, who contended that she missed her mother’s funeral in Switzerland due to the late delivery of a telegram, was suing Western Union Telegraph Co. for $100,025.

In the Wednesday, April 3, 1963 paper there was a story about a middle-aged Acworth man who escaped from the Cobb County jail only 12 hours before a relative showed up to pay his fine. The escapee was recaptured near an isolated cabin northeast of Cartersville with a 19-year-old Marietta girl, who was charged with aiding and abetting the fugitive.

Another story that day told of a woods fire that sent white smoke into the sky and endangered six homes near the intersection of Civitania and Cooper Lake roads in south Cobb. Firemen from the South Cobb fire station, the Cobb Forestry Unit and men from a Colonial Pipeline Company crew fought the fire for over five hours with bulldozers turning up dry brush and cutting fire breaks in the dry earth. The following day was a report of 14 more grass fires that broke out in the county. Minor damage was done to two buildings in Acworth when grass fires got out of control.

In the Thursday, April 4, 1963 paper there was a story about a proposal advocating a new Cobb County courthouse on a tract of land along the Four Lane Highway, now known as U.S. Highway 41. The proposed courthouse was in the core of a cluster of multi-story business buildings which, in addition to the courthouse, would represent an estimated investment of $4 million.

20 years ago …

A population study released to county commissioners at the beginning of March was reported in the Monday, March 29, 1993 MDJ. The study showed that Cobb’s population could not climb higher than 870,795 people and estimated that the county would be running out of land by 2010.

In the Tuesday, March 30, 1993 paper reported that U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-east Cobb) was among a delegation of U.S. House leaders that had embarked upon a 12-day trip to Russia, Warsaw, Kiev and Rome. The delegation was attempting to secure an audience with Pope John Paul II to discuss the political situation in Poland and the Ukraine.

A man dressed as a woman in a blond wig and pretending to be a police officer was reported in the Wednesday, March 31, 1993 paper as having robbed a north Cobb jewelry store at gunpoint and attacking one employee with a stun gun.

In the Thursday, April 1, 1993 paper there was a story about a second man dying as a result of a single-engine plane crash in Kennesaw. The crash victim died at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta from burns he received across 95 percent of his body. The other victim died at the scene at Kennesaw Due West Road and Kennesaw Due West Circle. The plane apparently crashed and exploded shortly after takeoff from Cobb County Airport-McCollum Field from a loss of power.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stacy Cotton was reported in the Friday, April 2, 1993 paper as having authorized Norfolk-Southern Railway Inc., to buy the 800-acre Sweetwater Industrial Park in Austell for development of a new regional truck-rail transfer station. The railroad was considering moving its regional transfer station out of Inman Yards in Atlanta to Austell – a change that was expected to bring 200 new jobs into the south Cobb community. The tract, owned by Landmark American Corporation, had been entangled in bankruptcy court for the past three years. A tentative sale price was set at $4 million.

 

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

In this week’s column we look at the quarantine of county cattle, a Swing-a-Thon, Marietta’s 59th traffic light and vandalism at the Marietta City Cemetery.

100 years ago …

In the Friday, March 28, 1913 edition of The Marietta Journal and Courier there was a story about a meeting to fight Texas Fever Cattle Ticks and how the county was under quarantine. The meeting, scheduled for later in the week, was expected to have presentations from an inspector with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a professor and state dairy agent, and a State College veterinarian.

Another story that week was about the dedication of the new church building at the Marietta Camp Ground. The Rev. John B. Jenkins of Atlanta conducted the service and was assisted by the Rev. J.B. Gresham.

There was also a half-page ad on the front page for McClure’s Annual Housewives’ Sale. The following items were available for just 5 cents – set of 24 safety pins, set of 24 pearl buttons, pair of brass pins, yard of elastic, embroidery hoops, set of three pencils, two packages of envelopes, set of six coat and hat hooks, pair of hinges, pair of mouse traps, set of three tea spoons, pair of table spoons, plain white saucers, fine-blown glass tumblers, pair of pie pans, jelly cake pans and pot covers.

50 years ago …

In the Friday, March 22, 1963 MDJ there was a story about 16 teenagers who were twisting for a $500 prize. The “Swing-a-Thon” at Thrift City started with 22 couples the night before trying to break the world’s record of 40 hours and 12 minutes. In Thrift City’s parking lot, there were only three empty spots out of the 2,400 available parking spaces.

A low bid of $1.81 million from E.A. Hudson’s and Sons in Bolton was reported received in the Sunday, March 24, 1963 paper by the State Highway Department for grading and paving of two miles of Interstate 75 between West Paces Ferry Road and the Chattahoochee River.

Another story that day stated officers had pursued two young Cobb men through five states until the exhausted fugitives decided to return to Marietta and face rape charges. The men had been moving from town to town once a week for 16 months. At one point, the fugitives left a town only three days before officers arrived.

The Cobb County Grand Jury was reported in the Tuesday, March 26, 1963 paper as lashing out at the details concerning the sale of the Cobb County Recreation Park in a 25-page presentment. The jury said it found no evidence of criminal action in the sale but charged that there had been unethical practices. The Grand Jury said the county stood to recover just under $300,000 of more than a half a million dollars in public funds which were invested in the defunct recreation center near Kennesaw.

In the Wednesday, March 27, 1963 paper it was reported that Marietta got its 59th traffic signal at the intersection of Roswell and Dodd streets.

While a two-plane attack on fire ants in the metro area had begun it was reported in the Thursday, March 28, 1963 paper that it would be awhile before the spray flights reached Cobb. The planes could only cover 10,000 acres in a day. Of the 200,000 acres scheduled for insecticide treatment, Cobb was to be the last. However, the planes – old wartime patrol bombers – were based at Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta.

20 years ago …

Vandals were reported in the Friday, March 26, 1993 paper as having hit one of the oldest sections of the Marietta City Cemetery, tipping over 43 headstones and causing $50,000 in damages. The section was near the Confederate cemetery on a hill overlooking Powder Springs Road that contained some of the most important names in Marietta’s history. Most of the headstones had been pushed off their foundations, which caused many to crack in half, crumble or chip.

Another story that day reported that Cobb commissioners directed the county attorney to determine if charges should be brought against individuals involved in disturbing the archaeological sites and clear cutting of trees along the controversial middle segment of the East-West Connector route. Incidents at the sites had cost the county its approval of federal construction permits for the land between Hicks and Cooper Lake roads. The proposed route followed an abandoned rail line and paralleled Civil War embattlements in the rural Ruff’s Mill area, as well as the historic Concord Covered Bridge district.

 

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.

 

In this week’s Time Capsule we look at moving pictures in Marietta and a wet sheet saving a local housewife from a bullet.

100 years ago …

In the Friday, March 21, 1913 edition of the Marietta Daily Journal and Courier there was a story about Roy Butler, managing director of the Scenic Film Co. of Atlanta, coming to Marietta making arrangements that week for his company to come to Marietta and take moving pictures of the city. All the factories and points of interest were to be photographed with the moving picture camera and the film would then be sent all over the South to be shown in moving picture theatres.

There was also a three-column wide, full-page length ad for the new Gem Theatre’s opening. The theater was billed as “the most complete and up-to-date Moving Picture Theatre in the South.” The opening picture would be The Battle of Bull Run along with the Famous Monarch Quartette singing at each performance. Admission was 15 cents.

50 years ago …

Lockheed was reported in the Friday, March 15, 1963 MDJ as having told its stockholders and employees that 1962 sales were $1.7 billion, which was the largest in company history at the time. The 1962 sales were 53 percent higher than 1961.

Also that day, there was a story about a Marietta housewife who was shielded from a bullet by a wet sheet after it was fired from the woods behind her home. Police said the .22 bullet struck and mashed a 1½ inch dent in the sheet, which absorbed the impact and did not penetrate through to the stomach of the woman standing behind it.

Walter Ball of Smyrna was reported as the only one of a group of 30 Smyrnans to complete a hiking challenge undertaken by Smyrna Jaycees and Optimist Club members in the Monday, March 18, 1963 paper. Ball, a physical education instructor, walked 50 miles in 17½ hours. Two other hikers went 35 miles before giving up.

In the Wednesday, March 20, 1963 paper gusty winds were reported as delaying the flight of two planes from Dobbins Air Force Base that were to spray parts of the metro area to kill fire ants in a program sponsored by the State Agriculture Department. One of the pilots also reportedly ate some of the poison fire ant bait to prove that it was not a danger to the public.

Another story that day reported that Mrs. J. Dana Eastham, a 30-year-old Marietta housewife, was one of four remaining Georgia contestants in the Mrs. America pageant in New York. The four finalists were out of the state’s original 20 contestants.

A story in the Thursday, March 21, 1963 paper reported that some 25 Smyrna teenagers were sentenced to eight hours work at either the city fire station or sanitary department after a group fight at Ward Baseball Park. Smyrna and Cobb officers said over 100 teens had gathered at the park for what was believed to be a fight between the junior and senior class at a local high school.

20 years ago …

The Georgia House was reported in the Thursday, March 18, 1993 MDJ as having voted 116-0 to rename a portion of South Cobb Drive the Gen. Lucius D. Clay Memorial Parkway in honor of the man who played an instrumental role in bringing the Bell Bomber plant to Marietta, which would later become Lockheed.

In the Friday, March 19, 1993 paper it was reported that if a powerful U.S. House committee chairman shot down the troubled McDonnell Douglas C-17 airlifter, Cobb-based Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. would have an edge to winning a $4.5 billion contract to modify at least 152 C-141 StarLifter cargo planes and see the revival of the C-5B program. The StarLifters, built at Lockheed’s South Cobb Drive assembly plant in the early 1960s, would then be modified under the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP).

Damon Poirier is the Newsroom Administrator for the Marietta Daily Journal.

If you are interested in learning more about the stories that were presented in this week’s column, you can search the newspaper’s digitized microfilm archives online. NewsBank, which hosts the archives for the Marietta Daily Journal, charges a fee for retrieved articles and has various price packages available. If you have any trouble with your username, password or payment options, please contact NewsBank at mariettadaily@newsbank.com.