A LOOK BACK

This Month in History

Ann Taylor Boutwell

Oct. 1, 1875: Atlanta mourned the passing of James Montgomery Calhoun, Atlanta’s 16th mayor. He served four one-year terms during the American Civil War years, from 1862 through 1865. e South Carolina native is buried at Oakland Cemetery next to his wife, Emma Eliza Dabney Calhoun.

Oct. 4, 1870: Oglethorpe

University opened in Atlanta with a faculty of ve college professors, six instructors in the law department and three teachers in the University High School. Future plans for the university included a medical college, a commercial department and a civil engineering school. Originally located on Hunter Street, the university opened on its present site on Peachtree Road in September 1916.

Oct. 5, 1873: Liquor dealer Lee Smith sold one of Atlanta’s best saloons at 16 Marietta St., for an undisclosed sum. It was called e Girl of the Period, an expression o en used as both a derogatory and complimentary remark during the Gilded Age. e next few weeks, new owner Lucius “Luch” Harris busied himself painting, dusting and brushing up the saloon. By Oct. 29, an ad in the Atlanta Daily Herald noted the pub’s opening with a new stock of old brandies, whiskies, wines, gins and real Havana cigars. By March 1874, a er the nancial panic of 1873 and a temperance crusade, 16 Marietta St. was listed in the city directory as Samuel Long’s shoe shop, maker of custom boots.

Oct. 7, 2003: Author Steve Oney makes his rst appearance at the Rialto Center for the Performing Arts to talk about his long awaited 649-page epic saga titled And the Dead Shall Rise, published by Pantheon Books. It is Oney’s 17-year quest of the murder of Mary Phagan and the lynching of Leo Frank and to nd out what really happened.

Oct. 7-8, 1919: e old gas lamppost fronting the James Bank located at the Whitehall and Alabama street corner was a popular site during the Confederate Southern Memorial Association’s twoday reunion. e siege of Atlanta relic was where Solomon Luckie an African American barber was fatally wounded on Aug. 10, 1864. Reunion Chairman Walter P. Andrews made sure the city bustled with picnics, bands, parades and speeches on the courthouse steps. One of the Georgia Maids of Honor was 18-year-old Margaret Mitchell, home from Smith College. She enjoyed her volunteer assignment chau euring veterans around the city because it was an opportunity listen to all the survivors’ stories.

Oct. 8, 1887: Gentlemen’s Driving Club (now Piedmont Driving Club) opened two days before Cotton Exposition of 1887 in Piedmont Park.

Oct. 11, 1895: e Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama wasn’t the only one to entrance visitors in the city. e Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama was on display during the Cotton States and International Exhibition at Piedmont Park. Visitors entered a building just outside the park near 14th Street specially designed for the massive cylindrical painting. ey stood in the center, which gave them a 360-degree perspective of the famous three-day battle.

Oct. 12, 1935: At Broadlands, the home of Josephine Inman and Hugh V. Richardson on Paces Ferry Road, the family celebrated the betrothal of their daughter Louise to Ivan Allen, Jr., future Mayor of Atlanta. e First Presbyterian Church on Peachtree Street was the scene of the noon wedding on January 1, 1936. Ivan served as Mayor and Louise served as rst lady of Atlanta from 1962 until 1970.

Oct. 14, 1952: e Daily World, Atlanta’s only African American newspaper, endorsed Dwight Eisenhower for president. Both the Journal and Constitution backed Adlai Stevenson.

Oct. 29-31, 1978: e Fox eatre held a special showing of a 1953 threedimensional lm, e House of Wax, starring Vincent Price and a very young Charles Bronson. It’s one of the few 3D lms produced in the early 1950s in which the audience wore special glassed to produce the special e ects.

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