MDJ Time Capsule: The Week of Sept. 16

This week’s Time Capsule looks at a train derailment, a streetcar accident and a drowning.

100 years ago ...

The Thursday, Sept. 21, 1922, edition of The Marietta Journal reported that eight freight cars were derailed and several smashed beyond repair about four miles south of Marietta when a wheel on a box car broke on a southbound freight train the Saturday night before.

When the train derailed, several box cars fell into another freight train standing on the side track, doing considerable damage and blocking traffic over the road for several hours. There were no injuries sustained by members of either train crew.

Several hundred people from Marietta and Smyrna gathered to watch the Atlanta wrecking crews clear the tracks. Cars were parked so thick on Atlanta Road that self-appointed “cops” had to direct traffic for several hours to avoid gridlock on the road.

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“Flashes of Action,” a film about the fighting of American soldiers in World War I, was to be shown at The Strand Theatre the following Monday and Tuesday by the American Legion Horace Orr Post No. 29.

Marietta Mayor Gordon B. Gann issued a statement urging the people of Marietta and Cobb County to see the film because it would not only help the local post but give attendees a real glimpse of our soldiers in action. A small blurb on Page 3 also noted that some of the scenes in the film were shot by cameramen who later lost their lives in those battles.

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J.D. Malone Jr., son of Dr. J.D. Malone, was injured the Tuesday before while boarding a Marietta-Atlanta street car near the Allen Drug Store.

Malone, who worked in Atlanta, was running late and ran to catch the out-going streetcar as it rounded the corner on the southeast side of Marietta Square. After grabbing hold of the entrance bars, he couldn’t pull himself aboard and was thrown from the car. The last wheel of the streetcar ran over one of his feet, bruising the appendage and cutting off parts of his toes.

75 years ago ...

The Sunday, Sept. 14, 1947 edition of The Marietta Daily Journal reported the following:

♦A reward of $100 was being offered for apprehension and conviction of the people responsible for damaging a monument on the Gartrell plot in the Marietta City Cemetery the week before.

♦Cobb County police were baffled by the burning automobile discovered at 2:30 a.m. the day before, three miles from Marietta on the Atlanta Access Highway. All but two front tires were totally destroyed by the blaze. There was no trace of the owner and the path of the car was followed by hot lead dropping along the road.

♦Two Cobb men narrowly escaped death the day before when the light truck they were riding in struck the curbing of a drain trap on the Four-Lane Highway, now known as U.S. Highway 41, and overturned eight times. The driver, who walked four miles home after the incident, was booked on charges of having a wreck, leaving the scene of an accident and driving intoxicated. He escaped with bruises and minor cuts. His passenger was listed as “not critical” and being treated at Marietta Hospital.

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Cliff Parker, a 79-year-old Powers Ferry Road resident, was reported in the Monday, Sept. 15, 1947 paper as having drowned in the Chattahoochee River.

Parker, who lived in a tent by the riverside and fished for a living, was discovered in an ill condition by his neighbor Paul Thompson while heading home from a grocery store on Powers Ferry Road several hours before his body was recovered from the river. Paul Thompson carried Parker back to his house to rest. Two hours later, Parker went to the river and got into his boat, carrying with him the groceries.

Mary F. Thompson testified that she helped Parker into the boat. When the man reached mid-stream, he stopped paddling and let the boat float down stream. Then after several minutes he resumed paddling and reached the other bank and laid down to rest.

Paul Thompson later testified that he and his brother, Joe Kirk, went to the river at 5 p.m. to rest their rifles. They saw Parker’s clothing on the bank and began searching for him. Parker was found at 9 p.m. wearing only his underwear. His hat was found 50 feet from his other clothes.

It was ruled that Parker took off his clothes to pull the boat up onto the river bank, suffered a heart attack and fell into the water.