Land of Cotton, Look Away...

Not long ago we read in The Marietta Journal that giant  mural art would be on the side of some buildings in downtown Marietta and also at Brown Park is a freshly installed pedestrian bridge that crosses over South Marietta Parkway and we could not place exactly where, so while in the area we checked it out ourselves.  It is right beside Richard Hunter’s Memorial Bridge.  Richard Hunter is my uncle Dick.

Also, while there parking in the Brown Park small parking lot we saw a large group of people up on top of the hill in the Confederate Cemetery.  I couldn’t resist, I checked it out.  They were having a Confederate Memorial Day Ceremony.  With speakers, Taps, 21 Gun Salutes and all.

Look Away, Look Away, Dixie…

Throwback Thursday: The Great Locomotive Chase

Throwback Thursday:  Today in History, 1862, in Kennesaw, in front of the Lacy Hotel, Yankee spy James Andrew and his Raiders stole THE GENERAL Locomotive, and headed up the tracks for Chattanooga, saying "I think I can, I think I can!" They thought wrong.   

The day before Andrews' Raiders stayed in the Fletcher Hotel, by the tracks, now The Kennesaw House, which houses The Marietta Museum of 
History.

Disney made a movie about it and starred Fess Parker.

Look!  There is James Andrews now in his hotel room in Marietta, looking out the window at the GENERAL Locomotive  parked below (or maybe a Marietta History Museum depiction of it_.

Throwback Thursday: The Hunt House

Throwback Thursday.  This is the Hunt House.  Or was the Hunt House.  The house burned down years ago. The Hunt House was on Butler Street.  But even that has changed, the same land is now on Atlanta Street.  The city has plowed through Powers Barber Shop and paved it which physically extended Atlanta Street.

In the Civil War this house served as a hospital.  When Mary Phagan was murdered her grandfather lived in it.  About 15 or so years after Mary Phagan’s grandparents lived there Anna’s mother Marie lived there as a child.  Then, in the 1940s on up for a while the Hunt family of Hunt Ice Cream lived there.  Then, we used to play touch football on the side lawn. (don’t ask how good of a player I was).

Now, poof!  It is gone!

The Super Panel

Michael, Anthony, "Moe", and Mo

The Marietta Museum of History today had a panel discussion on Public Housing in Marietta in the 1940s.  There were four chairs placed to face the hordes of people who would come to listen. 

I was asked to give my view of living in the Clay Homes during that period.  Which would probably be limited because we moved the summer after I finished the first grade.

In the lobby before it started was my first cousins Anthony Rollins and Susie Petty Kirkendall, and her husband Ronnie Kirkendall.  Anthony said he probably would know more than anybody there about the Clay Homes because as a kid he lived in four different apartments.  I suggested he take my place on the panel.  He was willing.  I looked up Christa, the one running the show and told her that Anthony and I were trading places.  She said why didn't she just to get another chair and we would together.

As it worked out, the narrator Michael Thompson, Anthony, and I were the only panel did not show up.   The other two or three were no-shows.  Michael did most the talking, breaking down the community at the times and how they handled it all.  I'm glad he was there.

They had an assortment of cookies and water on a table for refreshments.  Afterwards, I was talking to an ex-resident of the Clay Homes, by the refreshment table, and while she was talking I reach down and swooped up two cookies and started eating one.  "My pay" I said.

Ronnie Kirkendall, and my two first cousins Susie Petty Kirkendall, and Anthony Rollins

Anthony and Laura, high schoolmates

Clifford Clayton, about 2 or 3 years younger, lived two doors door from us in the Clay Homes

L to R:  Marietta Journal photographer and  reporter (I think), Jim Morris, and Phillip Goldstein's son (I think)

Jane Glover, of Glover Machinery  and Phillip Goldstein

This guy asked a lot of intelligent questions for his age..  After it was over I asked him who he was and howcome he knew so much about Marietta.  He said he was working on his thesis.

Michael Thomas

Throwback Thursday, Frances & Larry Bell Pak

Throwback Thursday.  This is my sister Frances Hunter in our front yard on Manget Street about 1954.  

Behind Frances you can see Larry Bell Auditorium and some of Larry Bell Park's ball fields.

Happy Birthday Frances!

Memories of Two Marietta Buildings

When I cross the railroad tracks here and look south I think of the Kennesaw House/Marietta Museum of History,  Train Depot's ticket window, Visitors' Center, THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE (1862), and Hazel the Tailor.

Hazel was a little short bald-headed quiet man.  He had a little workroom on the ground floor of the Kennesaw House. 

Back in my high school days the fad was pegged pants, mostly Levis.  Pegged pants were taken up so the leg had no breathing room.  They were a tight squeeze all way down to your ankles.  Lord knows how we squeezed our feet through.  If you wanted pegged pants Hazel was your man.

The railway ticket office held special memories because my friend Van Callaway worked there.  If Van needed movie money he would visit his dad Carl Callaway at the train depot and receive movie money and a lecture.

100 Cherokee Street, Marietta, Georgia

After

Before

click on each picture to enlarge it

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated this date 49 years ago.

100 Cherokee Street is a Cobb  County Government business building easily accessible to the public.  You go there when you want to change something on your property taxes, sit in on a commissioner's meeting, and more (I just don't know what).

Before it was owned by the county it was a built by Barnett Bank, which bought The First National Bank and in time change its name.

Before the Barnett Bank/First National Bank it was another banking institution, which I don't recall the name.

The building sits on the corner of Lawrence  and Cherokee  Streets.  Across Cherokee Street is the Strand Theater; across Lawrence Street is another Cobb County Government building which was a judicial building; and cater-cornered is Glove Park.

Before the big white  elephant building it was a racial dividing line.  Into the Marietta Square were mostly white people.  Down Lawrence Street were mostly Afro-Americans, a pool hall, historical slave started Mt Zion Church and a black -owned funeral parlor. 

Afro-American men were always standing around talking and not many feet away at the courthouse white men always doing the same thing.

On April 4, 1968, Anna and were still newlyweds.  We went to see Odetta perform at Bottom of the Barrel in Atlanta on something like 9th or 11th Street.  We went in and was waiting when the manager came out and said Odetta would not be performing because Martin Luther king has been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

Stunned, We drove back to Cobb County.

Before going home I wanted to drive up through downtown Marietta to see if anything was going on because of the latest news.

We went through the Square from Atlanta Street.  At the corner of Cherokee and Lawrence Streets was a big crowd of young black men talking intensely.   

I was driving slsowly studying them when I ran a red-light, almost hitting a car going through the green-light.  I slammed on my brakes making a loud skidding scream and at the same time held out my arm to block Anna from ramming the dash.  All the young men looked up at me.  I turned left and we got the heck out of there.

We went there to witness history, not to be part of it.

The Marietta Cole Family

This is Nicolas Cole.  I met him at a Cobb Landmarks meeting a couple years ago.  At the time I did not catch his first name, I  must have been  studying his horsd'voeuvre   more than I was trying to retain his first name.  I first in error called him Steve Cole I was quickly corrected.

I was what might be called dumbstruck over Nick Cole's heritage.   His progenitor , Henry Cole., was certainly a history maker of Marietta and more which extended a wider range than the Marietta City Limits.

Henry Cole owned a hotel about where Schillings' Restaurant is today.  It was no secret before and during the Civil War he was a pro-Union.  And I believe I think that there was evidence that he was a Union Spy.  He may have got himself into hot water because of his activities.

I feel the most humane action he did was to donate his own land for burial of the dead Union Solders.  And it still continues today.  The name is now The Marietta National Cemetery.

Henry Cole, his family and some  members of the Fletcher family (owners of the Fletcher House aka Kennesaw House have their own small plot about where some cemetery paved drives cross almost in the center of the cemetery, near the top of the hill.

Long before the Civil War Native Americans  were required  to leave their weapons  at the Cole House before entering the city limits of Marietta.: early weapon control.

When Nick Cole and I introduced ourselves and I realized he was the living descendant of legendary Henry Cole I felt I was looking at live history talking, breathing, and munching. 

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I was unsure of Nick's first name.  Before I ran a similar article as above I emailed my friend Davis McCollum and asked him Cole's first name.  Davis is a Mariettan historian and knows everybody.  He told me had to think and he'll get back with me.  Shortly, he replied, "Steve".  I used the first name of Steve.  

Mary Ansley Southerland quickly informed me his name was not Steve, it is Nick.

Davis McCollum said "My bad!"  And I told him to think nothing of it, I am badder.

Other people, like Debbie Varner and Vickie Turner Hunt wanted to know more about the Cole House on the corner of Cole Street and the North Marietta Parkway (formerly Page Street) which Davis answered the questions.

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Then, less than 30 minutes later I was sitting at the dog park telling John Burgan the episode of the name mix-up.  And he said the Coles had a huge fallen tree in front of their house and John wanted that tree to make some furniture, which Nick agreed to, with the stipulation that John make some things for him, like an end table, and a few of his friends.  He said it was a prime rare type of cedar.  It was Western Cedar.  There are only 5 of these trees in either the East or Georgia, I forgot which.  That type of tree is more plentiful on the northwest coast.

I remember that downed huge tree in the Cole House's front yard.

Again, it is a small world.

John said he has his business card, which he showed me.  Nick is a photographer in Dallas. 

And his first name is Nicolas. 

Some Cemeteries near Downtown Marietta

October is the month of cemeteries. 

Here I am jumping on the bandwagon and showing some parts of four most popular cemeteries in Marietta.  As a adolescent I have played in and hung out in three of the cemeteries often.  Saint James not so much.

The cemeteries in order: the Marietta City Cemetery, the Confederate Cemetery, Saint James Episcopalian Cemetery, and the National Cemetery.   All within a couple of blocks of the Square in Downtown Marietta. 

The music is Bach on the Moog.

click below:

Marietta Police, Retired (Mostly)

Yesterday, Friday, August 28th, 2015, The Marietta Museum of  History had a "sit around the cracker barrel session" talking about the Marietta Police Force of times gone by.

I was glad to see some old friends that I grew up with, like Jerry Millwood, Haydn McLean, Rupert Raines,  and others.  They had a panel, sort of mostly retired MPD officers.  One, Tommy Maloney I think he is still on the force.  I used to work with his late brother Phil .

About a half dozen  ex Marietta cops got up told of their memories, which were mostly hilarious.  The memories also showed they were humans with big hearts.

One retired policeman, I don't remember the name, at the podium asked for people born in Marietta to raise their hands.  Almost everybody and I raised their hands.

Then he asked how many people went to Marietta High School.  A good many of the people, including me raised their hands.

Then, he asked for people who rolled Marietta High School to raise their hands.   As far as my peripheral vision   could tell, I was the only one who raised a hand.

Maybe I had better explain:

At a football game two friends and I arrived fully stocked under our coats with rolls of toilet paper.

Every so often we would throw a roll high in black sky and it would unroll as it traveled in the air.  twice it looped over the power lines.

MHS was playing Roswell.  When the Roswell Band came marching on the field at half time as they march we let the toilet paper fly.  Rolls flew and mysteriously did magic tricks like wrap around the legs of the band member trying to march,, tangled around tubas and other horn instruments.  I think some long streams of toilet paper got hung up in shoes and trailed them as they tried to march in cadence.

I  think everybody on the Marietta side were happy with the Roswell Band Half Time Show for a change.

I am pretty sure the statue of limitations has ran out.

One lady in the audience stood up and talked about the time her late father was on the force.  She was an articulate speaker.  She said her father's  name, Harold Griggs.  I perked up.  Lawdy!  She was Grethen Griggs.  We went back to the early 1940s when we were toddlers.

It was very enjoyable seeing the policemen talk.  Police are like Marines, they are in it for life whether they are paid for it or not.

Jack Shields

Jim Whitmyer

Rupert Raines

Jerry Millwood

Tommy Maloney

Stanley Biship

Edie Milwod and Haydn McLain

Officer Little, MPD Historian

Gretchen Griggs