A publication of
December 2018
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G N I P R L A A C C T E S O O N M E E A H T
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www.hallco.org
200 Years of Hall
Dec. 15, 1818 The county’s boundaries are set in a land lottery act and described as the area lying southwest of “a line to begin at a place where Capt. John Miller now lives on the Franklin County line, running north 30 degrees west of the Chattahoochee River, down the same to the Gwinnett County line.” It was formed from land annexed from Franklin and Jackson counties. It is named for Dr. Lyman Hall, signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor, minister and physician.
Oct. 20, 1838 Cherokees begin their
1849 White Sulphur Springs, a
journey out of the region following deals struck with the U.S. government.
1820
1830
health resort, began operating. See page 10
1840
1850
200 years of Hall Dec. 17, 1902 The electric company turned on the first
1871 Railroad
electric lights for Gainesville
lines came to Gainesville. See page 18
June 1, 1903 Tornado tears through Gainesville and New Holland killing more than 100 people. See page 30
1892 Gainesville City
1878 Brenau University
School System established. See page 8
founded as Georgia Baptist Female Seminary. It was named Brenau College in 1900. See page 9
1908 Riverside Military
1875 Former Confederate
Academy was founded. See page 9
Gen. James Longstreet settles in Gainesville.
1870
1880
1927 Chicopee
1890
1900
1966 Gainesville Junior College opened. It later became Gainesville State College. See page 8
1940 Jesse Jewell opened a hatchery. Soon after, he started a processing plant, then his own feed mill and rendering plant, creating the vertical integration model that revolutionized the poultry industry. See page 13
Jan. 26, 1947 The Times is founded, bringing the area its first daily newspaper. See page 16
1920
1930
1940
1950
Gainesville is built, Downey Hospital. See page 10
1910
April 6, 1936 A tornado destroys Gainesville, killing more than 200. See page 30
Manufacturing Co. built by Johnson & Johnson. See page 14
1912 The first hospital in
1959 Lake Lanier fills, reaching 1,071 feet above sea level. Congress had first approved the dam that formed the lake in 1946. See page 4
1967 Lanier Technical College opened in Oakwood. See page 8
1960 2013 University of North
1996 Lake Lanier is the site
Georgia was born from the consolidation of North Georgia College & State University and Gainesville State College. See page 8
of the rowing and paddling events of the Summer Olympics. See page 4
2010 Nathan Deal elected governor after having served as 9th District representative in the U.S. House for 17 years. See page 5
1976 Northeast Georgia Medical Center is born from what was Hall County Hospital, established in 1951. See page 10
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
For more history of Hall County, find the Hall Tales podcast series at gainesvilletimes.com/HallTales or on your podcast app. The series features host Johnny Vardeman, former editor of The Times, and was produced by Features Editor Nick Bowman.
200 Years of Hall
Episode 1: Lake Lanier
Episode 7: Chicopee Village
Episode 2: Industry
Episode 8: Ghosts
Episode 3: Railroads
Episode 9: The Times
Episode 4: Cherokee
Episode 10: Black history
Episode 5: Poultry industry
Episode 11: Civil War
Episode 6: Farm life
Episode 12: 200 years
This special section was produced by The Times in Gainesville, Ga. It includes new material produced specifically for this section and information pulled from Times files, including a 175th anniversary special section also produced by The Times. Special thanks to the Hall County Library System for many of the historical photos included and to the Northeast Georgia History Center for providing both information and photos.
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Lake Lanier
The prized tourist destination has seen its share of ups and downs — in more ways than one BY JEFF GILL
jgill@gainesvilletimes.com
One of Georgia’s gems sits in Hall County’s backyard, with a colorful history spanning more than 50 years. Over its lifetime, Lake Lanier has been a drinking water source, a watery playground for Atlanta and millions of tourists, and a sporting venue that found fame in the 1996 Olympics. The Army Corps of Engineers-operated reservoir opened to the public in the late 1950s but dates to 1946, when Congress approved the River and Harbor Act, authorizing “a multiple purpose dam on the Chattahoochee River at Buford in the interest of navigation, flood control and power and water supply.” A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the site of Buford Dam in 1950. The initial contractor for the first phase of construction was a Minneapolis firm that was awarded the contract in June 1951 for $2.8 million. The work also included construction of two saddle dikes and an access road. The firm subcontracted work to an Oregon company that drilled three penstocks and a sluice tunnel 246 feet in length to allow for power production and emergency releases of water downstream. A story in the April 14, 1954, edition of The Times gave an account of the first land purchase for the lake. Henry Shadburn, then 81, was paid $4,100 for his home and 100 acres in Forsyth County, roughly $1 an acre. Some landowners resisted and became subjects of a civil action in U.S. District Court. The land disputes were resolved by the time flood gates were closed in 1956 and Lake Lanier began filling.
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Concrete is placed at Buford Dam in this Dec. 3, 1954 photo.
In 1957, more than 250,000 people visited Lake Lanier as it opened for business and the first power was generated. By 1959, the full pool level of 1,070 feet above sea level was reached. In a 2010 interview with The Times, Gainesville resident Harold Martin talked about how he was eager to get on the new lake with his family.
“I had been out in a boat a couple of times. I went to Allatoona and Chatuge (lakes) a time or two, so that’s the reason I wanted a boat,” he said. He had kept an eye on the lake’s construction, and as work progressed, “I got the fever wanting a boat. I ordered a kit boat from Sears Roebuck. It was a 21-foot cruiser, and it took me two years
to put it together. I started it in 1955 and launched it in 1957.” The Martins’ camera documented how they, along with another couple and their children, sped along the water in the boat and, at one point, passed by the new dam. In 1962, the Lake Lanier Islands Development Authority was created as a state agency to “plan, develop and
200 Years of Hall
Politics
County enjoys prestige as political powerhouse, especially in past decade BY MEGAN REED
mreed@gainesvilletimes.com
Times file photo
Low water levels in Lake Lanier near Chestatee Road in 2008.
operate four islands in the southern portion of Lake Sidney Lanier for resort and recreation purposes and to enhance the tourism potential of North Georgia,” according to the authority’s website. In 1974, PineIsle Resort opened and would go on to host a number of major events, including a stop on the LPGA tour. Lake Lanier Islands would later feature a beach, water park and horse stables. Another hotel would emerge, Emerald Pointe. “For a while, (the authority) operated by leasing out amenities to be run by concessionaires,” including PineIsle, the website states. “By the 1980s, all operations were turned back over to the authority to run.” In the mid-1990s, the authority signed an agreement with a private company, KSL Lake Lanier, Inc., to operate the islands. Over a decade later, the resort fell under new management with the family of Gwinnett County businessman Virgil Williams. The family embarked on a huge makeover of the islands, one that included tearing down the old PineIsle hotel and converting Emerald Pointe into the Legacy Lodge and Conference Center. In January 2018, the family announced it would keep the primary lease on the resort, handling the hospitality side, while subleasing to Safe Harbor Development and Margaritaville Holdings, partially owned by music icon Jimmy Buffett. This spring began a new era as the area was rebranded with a Buffett theme as Margaritaville at Lanier Islands. Arguably one of Lake Lanier’s biggest moments was serving as the 1996 Olympics’ rowing and canoe/kayak site at Clark’s Bridge Park in Gainesville. Initially, while the metro Atlanta facilities and venues were well underway, planners faced a dilemma on where to hold the rowing and flatwater canoekayak events. The first option was the lake at Stone Mountain, but an island obstacle in the middle of the lake’s clearest straightaway would prove logistically impossible to overcome. Then it was decided to build a venue from a planned reservoir in Rockdale County on a site that had no water. But that idea ran afoul of some of the sports’
200 Years of Hall
leaders unsure of the quality of such a course for world-class competitors. Atlanta officials had designated the Clark’s Bridge Park site as the backup if Rockdale’s plan failed. On Dec. 22, 1993, Jim Mathis Jr., head of the Gainesville Hall ’96 Roundtable group making the pitch, got the call at his office that the Olympics were coming to Gainesville. The Times’ headline the next day: “IT’S LANIER!” Today, the area is known as Lake Lanier Olympic Park, which sponsored the International Canoe Federation Dragon Boat World Championships in September — the first time the event has been held in the U.S. The park has a master plan for the boathouse side of the lake that includes an event space large enough to hold 1,000 to 1,300 people. The space would feature expansive glass windows overlooking Lanier. The lake has had troubled times, as well. Over the years, numerous people have died in boating accidents or drowned. Water quality and periodic, devastating droughts have long been issues. The lake hit a historic low of 1,050.79 feet on Dec. 26, 2007. And then, there’s the “water wars.” Georgia, Alabama and Florida have bickered for more than two decades over sharing water in the ApalachicolaChattahoochee-Flint River basin, which includes Lake Lanier in the headwaters. The latest battle is between Florida and Georgia, with Florida complaining about Georgia’s “overconsumption” of water from Lake Lanier, leading to crippling of Florida’s shellfish industry in the Gulf of Mexico. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which kicked it back to a special master, a court-appointed lawyer who adjudicates much of the case before it gets before the justices. New Mexico-based Paul Kelly, who serves as a senior judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Santa Fe, has been appointed to that role. Determining the costs for Georgia and benefits for Florida of a water use cap in the basin is likely to take years. “I don’t think it’ll be a short process,” Linda MacGregor, director of the Gainesville Department of Water Resources, told The Times in June.
Hall County is named after an early Georgia politician — Lyman Hall, who signed the Declaration of Independence and became the state’s first governor — and since then, the county has produced political leaders on the local, state and national level. Allen Daniel Candler, Georgia’s 54th governor, was born in Lumpkin County in 1832. He established a boarding school in Jonesboro, which he then closed to become a soldier in the Civil War. After the war, he arrived in Gainesville in 1870, where he started his political career by becoming the city’s mayor in 1872. Candler then served four terms in the state legislature, as well as four terms in Congress. Candler devoted the last years of his life to compiling and preserving state records. Glen Kyle, executive director of the Northeast Georgia History Center, said both Hall County’s geographic location and its industries have helped establish it as a center of political influence. “When the railroad came in 1871, that made Gainesville, not any other part of Northeast Georgia, but Gainesville, the economic, and therefore, political center of the entire region,” Kyle said. As Hall’s economy grew, Kyle said, so did its political power. “As politics follows money, then of course you’re going to get more attention. Then of course as the poultry industry gets big, then this becomes a very wealthy area, and for several years there, in the ’60s, Gainesville has the highest per capita income of any place in the state,” Kyle said. “... You get a lot of people in this region and from the county who start to make a difference in state politics.” The county’s proximity to Cherokee lands and the tension between people in Gainesville and the Cherokees also brought political attention to the area, Kyle said. Hall’s statewide influence in politics continues today, with the people in three of Georgia’s top political roles — governor, lieutenant governor and president pro tempore of the state Senate — all hailing from the county. Gov. Nathan Deal, who took office in 2011, spent most of his adult life in Gainesville, working as a prosecutor, judge, state senator and congressman. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has served in that position since 2007 and is the first Republican lieutenant governor in Georgia. He is from Gainesville and founded Southern Heritage Bank in 1999. In 1994, he was elected to the state Senate and served five terms. Also, state Sen. Butch Miller, who was elected in 2010, is a business owner from Gainesville and president pro tempore of the state Senate. Douglas Young, professor of political science at the University of North Georgia, said that in addition to Hall’s historical influence, the area still has a heavy hand in state politics.
Courtesy Hall County Library System
Lyman Hall, namesake of Hall County, was one of the three signers of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia. He was born April 12, 1724, in Wallington, Conn., and died in Burke County on Oct. 19, 1790.
Associated Press
Gov. Nathan Deal spent most of his adult life in Gainesville, working as a prosecutor, judge, state senator and congressman.
Times file photo
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is from Gainesville and founded Southern Heritage Bank in 1999.
“To have had the governor and the lieutenant governor be from our hometown for the last eight years and to have had the lieutenant governor be from our town for the last 12 years, no other city or county in the state can claim that,” Young said. “… (Deal and Cagle) have both been major powerhouses in Georgia politics for a long time.” Young said for a town its size, Gainesville has been very influential in state politics throughout history. “I think Gainesvillians can be really proud of a town, that until quite recently, has been a pretty small town in terms of population for most of its history has produced a disproportionate share of really prominent political figures,” Young said.
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War
Hall County remembers its veterans with numerous monuments and parks BY JEFF GILL
jgill@gainesvilletimes.com
Not a soul was walking through Rock Creek Veterans Park on the sunny, day in late October, even as leaves that had changed to bright colors fell to the carefully landscaped grounds. But more than 165 Hall Countians were there in memory only, their names etched in brick or granite and part of memorials honoring fallen warriors. Hall County has quite the battlefield history, reflected in its patriotic observations through stone monuments and Memorial Days parades. Residents have responded through the years, heeding the call for troops in every conflict. One Rock Creek monument in particular features the names of fallen veterans from World War I to the modern War on Terror. In Hall’s earliest days, when the U.S. had conflicts with Native Americans, “we had a unit that served for a year during Cherokee removal (in the late 1830s),” said Glen Kyle, Northeast Georgia History Center executive director. “We had a unit that formed about the same time that fought in Florida during the Second Seminole War,” he said. Hall County didn’t have a giant contribution to the Civil War, unlike other parts of the state, such as Northwest Georgia. “We raised a few units to serve in the Confederate Army,” Kyle said. “Quite frankly, I would guess we had quite a few people who snuck north and joined the Union Army. Of all the delegates from Northeast Georgia that went to (Georgia’s) Secession Convention in 1861, only two voted from secession.” One of Hall County’s most prominent military figures would be Confederate Gen. James Longstreet, second in command to revered Gen. Robert E. Lee. He moved to Gainesville after the Civil War, serving as postmaster and opening and operating the Piedmont Hotel. He traveled a lot, particularly in the North, where his proReconstruction stances were more popular, and died in Gainesville in 1904. “We had a few folks sign up for the Spanish-American War,” Kyle said. A monument to veterans of the 1898 war site sits near the intersection of Spring and Green streets. World War I broke out in 1914, with America getting involved in 1917, or one year before the war’s end. A monument at the Paul E. Bolding American Legion Post 7, in addition to state records from the era, shows that 29 Hall Countians died in the war. Bolding himself is believed to be Hall’s first fallen serviceman during the war. The Marine’s photograph and military garb are on display at the post at 2343 Riverside Drive in Gainesville. Bolding died Oct. 3, 1918. He is buried at Gainesville’s Alta Vista Cemetery under a monument bearing an eagle’s image. Many of the Hall veterans’ stories are lost to time, but some are tucked away in state records. They show that Silas Dunnegan was killed in the trenches during the Battle of
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Photos courtesy Northeast Georgia History Center
Harry Truman Day on the Fourth of July 1945 in Gainesville. Folks gather along Broad Street, where what is now Roosevelt Square sits between the Brenau Downtown Center and Gainesville City Hall.
Harry Truman Day parade on the Fourth of July 1945 along Spring Street moving toward West Academy Street.
Argonne, Hubert Ledford was killed in his first battle and Daniel McKinney took a machine-gun bullet in the Battle of ChâteauThierry. World War I doesn’t get quite the attention as World War II, but it would set the stage for WWII, as well as other world-changing events throughout the 20th century, including the Cold War. The number of World War II veterans has faded dramatically over the years, as many of the troops would be in their 90s today. Several have died in recent years,
including Cecil Boswell. Known for marching in the Memorial Day parade in the uniform he wore when he was discharged from the Army, Boswell was part of the second wave invading Normandy on D-Day. Harvey “Mack” Abbott, who died in 2014, once described how, during Pearl Harbor, he went to a parade field and took aim with an M1903 Springfield bolt-action rifle as attacking aircraft flew overhead. Also, what is now Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport in Gainesville was a Navy base during the war. A terminal building from
those days remains at the airport. The Korean War was fought in 1950-53, with Hall County veterans having formed their own group, Korean War Veterans of Georgia. Veterans banded together in putting up a memorial to Korean War veterans at Rock Creek in 2012. They have also fought passionately to remind people that Korean War is not a “forgotten war,” wedged by the higher profile World War II and Vietnam War. The war “will never be forgotten by what few men are left,” veteran Jimmy “Doug” Gibbs said in 2013 interview. Vietnam War tested the mettle of men from rural communities throughout Hall in the 1960s. All but one of the 22 who fought in the war survived, with most of that number settling in the Gainesville area. The group would go on to form the Rock Creek Vietnam Veterans. Another veterans group, Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 772, would become active in Hall County. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, America would go to fight in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two area military units have played a role: the 802nd Ordnance Company, based at the U.S. Army Reserve Center on Shallowford Road in Gainesville; and Charlie Company, a Georgia Army National Guard unit based off Alta Vista Road in Gainesville. Their contributions to the wars led a Vietnam War veteran, Dave Dellinger, and others in Hall County to form Operation Patriot’s Call, an effort to help families of soldiers before, during and after overseas deployments. Dellinger also went to help organize Gainesville’s annual Memorial Day parade. “Hopefully, we don’t have any more (troops) sent anywhere, but you don’t know,” he said in a May 2018 interview.
200 Years of Hall
FRANK K. NORTON
W.L. NORTON SR.
Building Community Since 1928 www.gonorton.com
770.532.0022
Education
Public, private institutions have provided rich resources for region since early days Lakeview Academy A private, college preparatory school, Lakeview Academy began as the Gainesville Academy in September 1969 after more than a year of consultation among a group of parents. The first classes for sixth- and seventhgraders were located on North Bradford Street. According to the school’s history, a Board of Trustees was later formed to oversee the construction of a new campus on 35 acres off Lakeview Drive. In 1970, construction began on 12 classrooms, a library and an office, and in August of that year, the renamed school opened with 87 students in first through ninth grades and Woodrow Light as headmaster. By the end of the year, enrollment had grown to more than 100 students. In 1973, the Upper School was completed, and work then began on a gymnasium. By the end of the 1973-74 school year, Lakeview had 219 students and graduated its first class consisting of five members. Over the ensuing decades, the school expanded its curriculum to include art, drama and multimedia courses, and in 1998 officials purchased an additional 50 acres for new facilities, including the Walters Athletic Center. In January 2004, H. Ferrell Singleton announced his retirement after 27 years leading Lakeview Academy. James Curry Robison was hired as Lakeview’s last headmaster in 2005, with several programs started under his leadership, such as the Lakeview Lions first football program. A new Student Center was constructed in 2008. For the 2009-10 academic year, Lakeview hired its current Head of School John P. Kennedy. Kennedy has overseen additional construction, including the opening of the H. Ferrell Singleton middle school building in 2017.
Gainesville City Schools Following approval by voters, the Gainesville City School System was established in the fall of 1892 with 450 students enrolled and R.E. Park serving as the first superintendent. But not long after launching, the school system faced a challenge from local businesses and residents who wanted to redirect money to create a sewer system. More than 125 years later, the outcome of that dispute is clear as Gainesville City Schools continues to grow. The school system now has six elementary schools, one middle school and one high school staffed by over 1,000 employees and consisting of a diverse student population of approximately 8,400 students under the leadership of Superintendent Jeremy Williams. Former city schools that were opened but eventually closed include the Main Street School, Candler Street School and Miller Park School. E.E. Butler High
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Photos courtesy Hall County Library System
The “Crow’s Nest,” shown in the early 1900s, is one of the landmarks of what is now Brenau University.
School closed in 1969 when the school system integrated African-American students. Gainesville High’s first students attended a campus on North Bradford Street that opened in 1892. The school later moved to the Main Street campus in 1902 where it remained until the 1930s when it moved downtown to Washington Street. Gainesville’s Main Street School served various grade levels until it was demolished in 1978. The Fair Street school, now an international baccalaureate world school serving elementary grades, has served the city’s African-American neighborhoods since 1936, and after integration was converted into a sixth- and seventh-grade school. In 2003, it began serving prekindergarten through fifth grade. And in 2012, the school was demolished and rebuilt. Today, Gainesville High is renowned for many things, including its football program, which won the state championship as recently as 2012. Then there’s the iconic granite rock ripping through the earth along Pearl Nix Parkway between Wilshire Trails Park and Longwood Park near Gainesville High, which is often painted to show school spirit and commemorate student events. But it’s also become an emblem for the wider Gainesville community to cherish, celebrate and memorialize life’s special moments. It’s a tradition that dates to the late 1960s.
Lanier Technical College
University of North Georgia
A local education committee — made up of members of what is now the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce, Hall County and Gainesville City school systems, Hall County Board of Commissioners and the Gainesville City Council — formed the Lanier Area Vocational-Technical School, which formally opened in January 1967. According to President Ray Perren, the college actually met at Oakwood Baptist Church for the fall quarter of 1966. The school was funded directly by a percentage of property taxes that was included in the Hall County government annual budget. John Lloyd was hired in 1965 to serve as the institution’s first director, a title that would later become president. The original building, what is now Building 100 in Oakwood, was designed by Garland Reynolds and constructed by Carroll Daniel Construction. The institution moved from local to state control in 1988, when it formally became Lanier Technical Institute. It became Lanier Technical College in 2001. With the formation of the Technical College System of Georgia in 2007, Lanier Tech began a campaign of rapid growth, culminating with a brand-new campus on 95 acres in North Hall — more than double the size of the original campus — that opens to students in January. The $150 million, 335,000-squarefoot campus will accommodate more than 5,000 students, doubling Lanier Tech’s capacity.
In 2013, the University of North Georgia was born from the consolidation of North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega and Gainesville State College in Oakwood. Gainesville State College opened in 1966 as Gainesville Junior College with a student body of about 400, and used both the Gainesville Civic Center and First Baptist Church of Gainesville for instruction before moving to the site of the current UNG Gainesville campus in 1967. Civic leaders, as part of a GainesvilleHall County Education Tax Force, in 1962, began working to bring additional post secondary educational options to the region, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Former chamber president James Mathis Sr. led the group. Other key figures in that effort include Loyd Strickland, who was also a key player in the development of Interstate 985, businessman Jesse Jewell, and James A. Dunlap, chairman of the Board of Regents. Hugh M. Mills Jr. was its first president. The school underwent several name changes; it became Gainesville College in 1987 and Gainesville State College in 2005 as it expanded four-year degree programs. UNG now serves students at campuses in Blue Ridge, Cumming, Dahlonega, Watkinsville and the Gainesville area. The Gainesville location is now
200 Years of Hall
expanding into space being vacated by Lanier Technical College as that school moves to a new campus in North Hall.
Riverside Military Academy Founded in Gainesville in 1908, Riverside Military Academy is a college preparatory boarding school for boys in grades seventh through 12th. The school’s mission is “to prepare ethical young men of character for success in college and in life through the provision of a rigorous academic program, leadership opportunities, competitive athletics, extensive cocurricular activities, and the structure and discipline inherent in a military preparatory school environment.” Two Gainesville businessmen, Haywood Jefferson Pearce and Azor Warner Van Hoose Jr., launched the school with investors. Pearce had served as president of the local women’s school, now Brenau University. By 1913, the 25-acres campus academy included two brick buildings and a small wooden cottage. Pearce recruited Sandy Beaver, an educator then living and working in Stone Mountain, to Riverside’s administration, where he worked for 56 years. For the 2017-18 academic year, the school had an all-time high enrollment of about 550 students, with 120 graduating. Riverside currently has students from 27 different countries and 30 U.S. states.
Brenau University Founded as the Georgia Baptist Female Seminary by Dr. W. C. Wilkes, Brenau University is a private institution with a
200 Years of Hall
women’s college operating continually since 1878. The institution was bought by H.J. Pearce in 1900, and he renamed it to Brenau College, a hybrid of the Latin word ‘aurum,’ meaning gold, and the German word ‘brennen,’ meaning “to burn.” The school’s motto is “As Gold Refined by Fire.” A board of trustees assumed control of the privately owned institution in 1911. A boarding school serving girls in ninth through 12th grades was added in 1928, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, and closed in 2011. Brenau became a full-fledged university in the 1992-93 academic year. Pearce served as the college’s president, and when he died in 1943, his wife, who graduated Brenau in the class of 1900, led a committee that handled day to day functions of the university. The golden tiger statue that be seen on Green Street is named for Lucile Townsend Pearce. “She was in a position of power within the administration that many women of that time didn’t really have,” said Sommer Stockton, a senior communications major at Brenau who is writing a thesis on her. “She was one of the first female members of the board of trustees that was a lifelong member.” Today, the university offers bachelor’s, master’s and specialists degrees on five campuses throughout Georgia. Its current president, Ed Schrader, has led the university since 2005 and plans to retire in 2019. In recent years, the university has added doctoral programs, campuses and online options.
Hall County Schools The Hall County School District serves more than 28,000 students from Buford to Braselton and Gainesville to Lula – north, south, east and west across the county’s 429 square miles. But the school district’s beginnings are humble. For example, an old, handwritten ledger in the central office archives reports the first meeting of the board of education as taking place on Feb. 7, 1871, where a president and secretary were selected. Today, the board is made up of five elected members, one each from the North, South, East, and West Hall districts, and one elected at-large by all eligible county voters. The archives also include the first audit of the school district, which took place in 1931, and lists the salaries of employees, with teachers making little more than $100 salary. The current general fund budget for the school district is approaching $300 million. According to archives in The Times, major school mergers occurred in the 1950s that spawned North Hall, East Hall and South Hall high schools from smaller schools in Oakwood, Flowery Branch, Sardis, Lula and Clermont. Student growth led to expansion in West Hall, and in recent history the addition of schools in the Chestatee area and a new school in Flowery Branch. South Hall High was renamed Johnson High School in honor of Robert Wood Johnson, the Johnson & Johnson/Chicopee Manufacturing Corp. benefactor who donated thousands of acres for education purposes.
Riverside Military Academy cadet in 1943.
In 2018, the school district opened Cherokee Bluff middle and high schools. There are now eight high schools, including the Lanier College & Career Academy, plus the Alternative Learning Center and Early College at Jones. There are eight middle schools and 20 elementary schools.
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Health care
Promise of springs’ medical benefits began history of region’s draw as health hub BY MEGAN REED
mreed@gainesvilletimes.com
Since tourists were drawn to Hall County by its natural springs in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the area has been a health care center for the region. The White Sulphur Springs health resort north of Gainesville advertised the healing powers of its water. “It had iron in it, vitamins, minerals ... all those vitamins you need, the water had in it, and of course you would feel better,” Cathryn Smith, who owned the property in 2009, told The Times that year. “The women would get their rest, the children would have to play, you didn’t have to cook, you were taken care of and people were escaping malaria.” New Holland Springs, which operated in what is now the New Holland area of Gainesville, was also popular with tourists, especially from Atlanta. A brochure from 1888 described its waters as “efficacious for indigestion, general debility, and especially recommended for teething infants and children.” Hall County gained access to a hospital in 1908, when Dr. James Downey opened one in his home. Downey Hospital was on South Sycamore Street, now E.E. Butler Parkway. Downey is known Downey for his “fracture table” invention, which allowed broken limbs to be set at an angle so patients could recover from a wheelchair. Before that, pulleys and weights were used to set fractures, which forced patients to lie on their backs while their broken limbs healed. Many local patients also got treatment through home visits and other small medical practices that doctors operated out of their homes, according to a video produced for the Northeast Georgia History Center in 2009. Dr. Emmett Etheridge Butler, the namesake of E.E. Butler Parkway, served the African-American community’s medical needs from 1936 until his death in 1955. Butler was also considerate of his Butler patients’ financial needs, according to Glen Kyle, executive director of the Northeast Georgia History Center. “He had apparently a very progressive sliding pay scale,” Kyle said. “He would basically charge people what he thought they could afford.” Butler was the first black member of the Gainesville Board of Education and organized the Men’s Progressive Club. A high school in Gainesville was named after Butler but closed six years after it was opened, as students transferred to Gainesville High School after desegregation. Congress passed the Hill-Burton Act
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Photo courtesy Northeast Georgia History Center
The White Sulphur Springs Hotel had wide porches, double parlors, a dining room to accommodate about 100 people and many bedrooms with private baths, sleeping porches, numerous cottages — each with running water, electric lights and baths. The hotel burned in 1933. The spring had been a noted health resort for more than half a century.
Times file photo
The Northeast Georgia Medical Center has campuses in Gainesville, Braselton and Winder. Pictured is the Gainesville location.
Photo courtesy Northeast Georgia History Center
The Hall County Hospital is shown during construction. It opened in 1951.
in 1946, giving grants to states to build or expand hospitals. In September 1951, the 90-bed Hall County Hospital opened with 14 physicians on staff. Herman Talmadge, then governor of Georgia, attended the grand opening. The hospital also included an almshouse for the poor and elderly, and many Hall County residents thought the hospital was too large. “No one believed the area could support such an institution,” former Gainesville Mayor John Morrow told The Times in 1994. In 1976, that hospital became
Northeast Georgia Medical Center. The Northeast Georgia Health System now has hospitals in Gainesville, Braselton and Winder, and the Gainesville location has 557 beds. But locals may also remember Lanier Park Hospital, opened by Dr. P.K. Dixon in 1977. The 124-bed facility was a private hospital, which Dixon previously told The Times offered more opportunities for physician involvement in the hospital board. NGHS acquired Lanier Park Hospital in 2001. The hospital shut down in
2009, then became an inpatient facility in 2012. The property on White Sulphur Road in Gainesville is now known as New Horizons Lanier Park. Hall County has also served as a place for health care providers to learn the trade. The Hall County School of Nursing graduated its first class of 10 nurses in 1963. Until 1978, the nursing school was part of the Hall County Hospital. In 1978, the program merged with then-Brenau College. The Longstreet Clinic is also a major health care provider for the county, with several locations in Hall providing services such as urgent care, primary care, surgery and cancer treatments. The Longstreet Clinic was formed in 1994 from the merger of three medical practices and now employs more than 750 people. Northeast Georgia Medical Center is now the largest employer in Hall County, according to 2017 data from the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce. The Longstreet Clinic is No. 15 on that list.
200 Years of Hall
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Poultry
Jesse Jewell’s vertical integration revolutionized both the industry and the region BY DAVID B. STRICKLAND Poultry Times
The “Poultry Capital of the World” doesn’t get this name just from the raising of broiler chickens. Gainesville is the epicenter of many varied segments of the poultry industry, all vital to production not just locally, but state and nationwide. Gainesville is home to not only chicken Jewell and egg farms, but to processing companies, companies that manufacture processing machinery, cold storage warehouses, transportation and logistics companies and pharmaceutical and animal health companies. According to the City of Gainesville’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, poultry companies represent three of the top five employers for the city — Fieldale Farms, 2,400 employees; Pilgrim’s, 1,600; and Mar-Jac Poultry, 1,250 — second, third and fourth, respectively. Broilers represent cash receipts of $4.38 billion for Georgia, with a production of 1.36 billion birds (No. 1 in the nation); as well as sixth in the nation for eggs (4.96 billion), according to the USDA. “The poultry industry is the heart and the backbone of the economy in Gainesville and Hall County,” said Abit Massey, president emeritus of the Georgia Poultry Federation. “The commercial industry began at the time of World War II and has continued to grow and to make and keep this area as the ‘Poultry Capital of the World.’ While some companies and industries are exporting facilities and jobs, the poultry industry is exporting chicken and eggs, importing dollars and providing jobs and farm opportunities.” Many factors, as well as many individuals contributed to the growth of what is Georgia’s No. 1 agricultural commodity. But the individual attributed with catapulting the poultry industry forward through changes in how the agricultural business was structured is Jesse D. Jewell. He is given the title of the pioneer of “vertical integration,” which is the business model of all aspects of poultry under one roof of a poultry company — from chicks, to feed, to grower contracts, to processing, to products and marketing. Jewell was born in Gainesville in 1902. A graduate of Gainesville High School, he studied at both Georgia Tech and the University of Alabama, before returning home in 1922 to work with the family’s feed business. During the 1930s and ’40s, farmers had working relationships with the feed and seed shops, where the shop owners would provide fertilizer, feed and perhaps even groceries to farmers, and would collect when the crops came in. It was the core of this idea that Jewell applied to chicken farming. He formed a business that not only included the needed feed, but the chicks to get started, as well as
200 Years of Hall
Courtesy Hall County Library System
A drawing made in the 1940s shows the J. D. Jewell poultry plant in Gainesville. Jewell became famous for producing frozen chicken that was shipped around the world.
processing the birds later. Gordon Sawyer, who chronicled much of North Georgia’s history in his books, and who, in 1954, was the first editor of the national trade publication Poultry Times, wrote in his book, The Agribusiness Poultry Industry: A History of its Development, “Many people literally felt it was ‘wrong’ to get into all phases of the business. After all, in other areas a hatcheryman had to have his profit, and a feed dealer had to have his profit, and the feed mill had to have its profit, and the grower had to have his profit, and the marketer had to have his profit — and Jesse Jewell was putting them all under one roof where he only needed one profit. And his profit could naturally be a lot smaller than that needed when all segments were separate.” Jewell also made advancements in the way chicken products were sold. Post-World War II, most chicken sold in markets were whole, fresh and dressed birds. But with advancements in refrigeration and processing, chicken products were made more consumerfriendly with frozen items and cut parts that extended how products could be marketed and sold. “The pattern was set. Vertical integration had come to the poultry industry,” Sawyer wrote. “Jesse Jewell was an optimist and a great salesman, and some of his longtime friends will say that these two characteristics took him all the way.” J.D. Jewell Inc. was sold in the early 1960s and ceased operations in the
early 1970s, but the business model he used continued on in Gainesville and around the nation with the large poultry companies today still using a similar template. “Gainesville’s poultry industry is vibrant and growing today because of the pioneering leaders who took risks and figured out the most efficient ways to run a modern poultry operation,” said Mike Giles, president of the Georgia Poultry Federation. “At the same time, the poultry industry has benefited from the goods and services provided by allied companies in the area that evolved and grew over time alongside the processors.” “New money comes to the economy through agriculture, manufacturing and processing and tourism and meetings — poultry is rare in doing it extensively in all three categories,” Massey added. In the 1960s, poultry companies began using television and print media to sell their branded product. Currently, approximately 95 percent of all chicken sold in retail outlets carries a brand name. Consumers also made the switch to purchasing more processed chicken parts, as opposed to whole birds. In 1992, chicken became the most popular protein choice for consumers, surpassing beef. In the 1970s, there were continued advancements in disease eradication, genetics and automation and mechanization. Georgia’s poultry lab was located in the 1960s in Oakwood. A state-of-theart facility was opened off Ga. 365 in 2014, and offers a range of services for
the poultry industry, including disease monitoring and testing, chick quality assurance and hatchery inspections. “Driven by industry advancements, the broiler produced today is meatier, more affordable to the consumer, and more wholesome than the broiler of 50 years ago — or even 15 years ago,” the National Chicken Council notes. “The industry employs the most advanced scientific technology available and is constantly seeking new methods to ensure wholesomeness and enhance quality for the consumer.”
Times file photo
A life-size chicken sits atop of the poultry monument near downtown Gainesville.
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Business
Six major economic sectors have deep history and influence in Hall County BY JEFF GILL
jgill@gainesvilletimes.com
Hall County has always been industrious. It may have evolved to become the “Poultry Capital of the world,” but the county has been diverse in many other economic ways — from mining to manufacturing. Here’s a look at Hall’s business and industrial development over the years.
Agriculture, farming With its many lush pastures and mountain foothills, Hall has long been a haven for farmers. Poultry has been the mainstay, but Hall has had a healthy share of dairy, cattle and other farms dotting its landscape. Cotton was the money crop from the mid-1880s to the turn of the century. In 1887, Gainesville handled 11,000 bales of cotton. Cotton not only meant cash for farmers but also to merchants selling supplies to farmers. Hay would emerge as a huge part of agriculture in the early 1880s. Garden vegetables were in large supply from the mid-1800s on, including cabbage, tomatoes, snap beans, pumpkins, okra and asparagus. Fruit and berry orchards also became popular. Every year since 1995, the Hall County Cooperative Extension and the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce hold the Farm City Breakfast in observance of National Farm City Week to recognize local farmers, along with those working in agriculture and agribusiness. Another longstanding tradition has been the agribusiness community bringing locally grown produce to farmers markets. The Hall County Farmers Market on Jesse Jewell Parkway near Interstate 985 began as small operation in the early 1970s, starting at Lakeshore Mall off Pearl Nix Parkway.
Photos courtesy Hall County Library System
Founders of Citizens Bank stand behind the counter June 23, 1913.
Manufacturing, textile
Banking Hall County also has served as a financial hub through much of its history. First National Bank chartered in 1889 on the west side of the downtown Gainesville square. Gainesville National Bank — which later became First Atlanta, Wachovia and now Wells Fargo — opened in 1905 on South Bradford Street. Joining the flurry of financial institutions was The Citizens Bank in 1913 and First Federal Savings and Loan in 1927. Home Federal Savings and Loan opened in 1957 on North Green Street. In later years, two banks — Wells Fargo and Regions — would give Gainesville something of a skyline by operating opposite of each other on Jesse Jewell Parkway at E.E. Butler Parkway. Wells Fargo left in May 2017, opening new offices off Jesse Jewell Parkway in New Holland. Banks have come and gone over the years, some hurt by the 2007-09 Great Recession. Several have been consolidating in recent years.
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A farmer and his mule plow the field for spring planting.
Among them is State Bank Financial Corp., based in Atlanta with a branch at 500 Jesse Jewell Parkway and going through its second name change in as many years. State Bank will become Cadence Bancorporation, possibly by the end of the 2018.
Logistics Its position off Interstate 985 north of Atlanta and northwest of Interstate 85 — plus its booming poultry industry — has made Hall County a longtime trucking hotbed. And with commerce evolving into e-commerce, the logistics industry is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the area. Hall County has 80 logistics companies
employing some 4,800 people, according to a Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce report. Syfan Logistics, a company dating in one form or another to 1984, announced a recent expansion, adding 100-plus workers over the next three years. Others, such as Tribe Transport and XPO Logistics, have grown to hundreds of employees, as well. “Logistics service providers in Gainesville-Hall County have a strong concentration of customers in the region’s manufacturing and distribution sectors,” states the chamber. “And Georgia’s importance in trade routes and the international transportation network allows local logistics service providers to compete on a global scale.”
As one of Hall County’s biggest economic sectors, manufacturing has long been a part of the local business scene. That’s especially true with the emergence of textile mills — and mill villages — in the 1900s. Pacolet Manufacturing Co. in New Holland was one of the largest employers in Gainesville in the early 20th century. Pacolet Pacolet bought 850 acres on which to eventually build the five-story cotton mill, along with 200 homes, a recreation building, store, school, church, athletic fields and offices. Milliken & Co. would later operate the mill, although a company bearing both names, Pacolet Milliken Enterprises, would later go on to thrive, owning the property where the New Holland Market shopping center stands. Construction began in 1926 on the Chicopee Mill off what is now Atlanta Highway/Ga. 13 to build a mill and 250 homes with indoor plumbing, electricity and hot water — unheard of amenities for many at the time. The Gainesville Mill also operated off Georgia Avenue. Pacolet Manufacturing Co. bought Gainesville Mill in 1943, making it Pacolet No. 6. Pacolet became part of the Milliken Co., which ceased operations there in 1985. In recent decades, many of Hall’s manufacturers have been linked to the automotive industry, particularly ZF, which operates four plants in the area. Another huge employer that has expanded in recent years is Kubota, which makes tractors and rough-terrain vehicles.
200 Years of Hall
Mining
Tourism
Overshadowed by Dahlonega’s gold mines, this industry was big business in Hall at one time. While the gold rush in Lumpkin County took place in the 1820s, a lot of prospectors came into Lumpkin County from Hall. The discovery of a diamond in Hall had everybody looking for precious gems. That spread to a search for gold. A couple of mines opened in Flowery Branch and one in Gainesville, said former Times’ editor Johnny Vardeman in a Hall Tales podcast. Mica mineral mining became popular in the late 1800s, stretching into the 1940s, with mines springing up through the area, including one off Thompson Bridge Road. Hall County soil also lent itself toward the manufacture of bricks, and three or more sizable brickyards were operating in the early 1990s with a capacity of 20 million bricks a year. Three of those were east of the railroad depot, site of the present Norfolk Southern station. The soil in that area was of a clay composition, which was good for making bricks. One of the largest and best known was Hudson Brick Co., operated by M.D. Hudson, known as a pioneer and innovator in brick manufacturing. He had been making brick in Hall County since 1874 and applied the most modern methods available at that time. His plant apparently was located just east of the present Athens Street. It covered several acres and could produce 4 million bricks per year.
Hall County’s draw to visitors didn’t begin with that big water body that hugs much of Hall County’s western border. Lake Lanier is huge today, but water also played a huge role in tourism during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Tourism was such a big deal that local newspapers would publish the number of guests in hotels and resorts, sometimes even listing their names and hometowns. Resorts at springs like White Sulphur in East Hall and Gower off what is now Thompson Bridge Road in Gainesville drew people to the region. An Atlanta chemist had analyzed the water from Gower Springs resort, concluding, “This is one of the best chalybeate waters I have ever examined.” Confederate Gen. James Longstreet moved to Gainesville after the Civil War, operating the Piedmont Hotel off Maple Street and near the railroad line running through town. Local lore tells of the fried chicken served in the Piedmont’s dining room as the precursor to Gainesville’s reputation as a poultry haven. Remnants of the Piedmont serve today as headquarters for the Longstreet Society, a group dedicated to preserving the general’s legacy, but also as a tourist stop — the building has a museum-like quality, with its artifacts and items from Longstreet’s day. In modern times, Lake Lanier has become one of Hall’s major stops for visitors. A resort with golf and hotels, Lake Lanier Islands is today Margaritaville at Lanier Islands. Racing also has something of a history, including Lanier National Speedway off
200 Years of Hall
A 1951 photo shows the First National Bank. The bank moved from Main Street on the square to a new location on the corner of North Green and East Washington streets. The pictured building later became the Home Federal Savings and Loan Association.
Winder Highway in South Hall. The track closed in 2012 after 30 years. Nearby Road Atlanta in Braselton got a boost in 2006 when it was bought by pharmaceutical entrepreneur Don Panoz, who “embarked on a major improvement
program, drastically updating the circuit,” according to Road Atlanta. Road Atlanta will become Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in January when the tire company receives naming rights to the 750-acre racing facility.
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Media
Multiple newspapers and radio stations have come and gone since early days BY JOHNNY VARDEMAN For The Times
Two hundred years ago, Hall County residents probably primarily communicated through word of mouth, though in the early years some enterprising individuals might have developed what would be called newsletters today. Hall County residents for the most part in the early years didn’t have a formal form of communication, but depended on newspapers such as one in Athens to get their news, advertise their wares or place their legal advertising. It wasn’t until 1860 when a press first turned out a Hall County newspaper, the weekly Eagle, which was the predecessor decades later of The Times, a daily. William Henry Jamison Mitchell started the Eagle, but when the Civil War broke out, he joined the Confederate Army and suspended publication of the paper. He died in battle in 1862. W.W. Hood and W.J. Sloan restarted the Eagle after the war, but sold it in 1867 to John Redwine, who sold it in 1874 to M. Van Estes. It came out three times a week for a while, but Redwine bought it back the next year. It ran through a number of owners through the years, including the nationally known humorist and lecturer H.W.J. Ham. Joseph Butt and John Blats later acquired it, and it was operated by Austin Dean when Charles and Lessie Smithgall bought it in 1947 and converted into the Gainesville Daily Times. Charles Smithgall, though he became highly successful acquiring other media properties, including another newspaper, radio and cable TV, told an interviewer after he retired, “The worst mistake I ever made was getting into the newspaper business,” saying it was harder to make it profitable than other ventures he entered. However, he was proud of the influence and impact the paper had on the community and its respect throughout the Southeast. Gannett Inc., a national media operation, bought the paper in 1981 and later traded it to Morris Multimedia in 2004. The paper this year came under the ownership of a new Morris company headed by Charles Hill Morris Jr., Metro Market Media. During the late 1800s, besides the Eagle, some other weeklies came and went, including the Southron and the Argus. The Southron was a popular paper that minced no words in its criticism of individuals and local leaders. The paper quit when a fire destroyed the building it occupied with the Eagle. The Eagle had some colorful editors and publishers during its time, including the Craig family, headed by Harve Craig, a well-traveled and distinguished journalist who had worked on the Washington Post and numerous other publications before landing in Gainesville. A son, Britt, worked on the Eagle before joining the Atlanta papers and the New York Sun. Another son, Pete, also
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Times file photo
Staff members work inside The Times’ newsroom in the 1990s.
worked on the Atlanta papers and drove race cars. H.H. Dean bought the Eagle in 1923, and his son, Austin, eventually became its editor before the Smithgalls bought it. Austin Dean became well known statewide and even nationally for his writing. Defining an editor, he once wrote that “readers expect the editor to be a combination of sheriff and minister ... to play both sides against the middle, to be right always and to fail never in championing every cause. In politics, the editor is supposed to be infallible. If he is a Democrat, Republicans spurn him, and vice-versa. He must be the know-all of it all, the Alpha and Omega, the sum and substance of those things that are, have been and are to be. It’s impossible, but who wouldn’t be an editor? It’s the only life.” Two other newspapers operated at the same time as The Eagle. The Herald started in the early 1900s, but eventually merged with the Eagle. A Herald manager, Dan Bickers, brother of Hall County Humane Society founder Bessie Bickers, became editor of the Savannah newspaper. J.I. Toner founded the Gainesville Industrial News in 1888. He sold it to Ham, who renamed it the Georgia Cracker, which operated until 1877. Albert Hardy took over the Cracker, renaming it the Gainesville News. He became prominent nationally, leading both the Georgia Press Association and the National Editorial Association and was host in Gainesville for their conventions.
The Hardy family ran the News until 1955, when Albert Hardy’s son Charles turned it into the daily Morning News. It was the first offset-printed daily in the state and only the third in the nation, but it lasted only a year. John Jacobs Jr., founder of radio station WDUN, started the weekly Gainesville Tribune in 1959, sold it to Ted Oglesby in 1961, who later was joined by Ernest Palmour Jr. and Howard James before it halted publication a few years later. A couple of other weekly newspapers came on the scene, but also went out of business. Although The Times is considered Hall County’s first daily newspaper, I.M. Merlinjones, an Episcopal priest, during one of the Eagle’s changes in ownership, started a daily that shortly fell into bankruptcy. Ray Hull was the Gainesville Daily Times’ first editor, but he left shortly because of health reasons, and Smithgall briefly served as editor before turning the newsroom over to Sylvan Meyer. Meyer, the Smithgalls, publisher Lou Fockele and production manager A.B. Carter were the major stockholders until the paper sold in 1981. The newspaper also started The Poultry Times, which remains in publication and part of the Morris ownership. Two journalists who got their start on The Times won Pulitzer Prizes. Mike duCille won twice for photography with the Miami Herald and the Washington Post. Deborah Blum won a Pulitzer for
her writing with the Sacramento Bee. Additionally, two journalists with Hall County connections won Pulitzers. Malcolm Malone Johnson, a native of Clermont and Gainesville High School graduate, earned a Pulitzer for articles he did on crime on New York’s waterfront. The movie “On the Waterfront” starring Marlon Brando was based on his writings. His son, Haynes, won a Pulitzer while with the Washington Post covering civil rights unrest in Selma, Ala., in 1966. Brenau University claims the first radio station in Hall County. WKAY was a limited-range station that lasted less than two years because of stricter government regulations. WGGA first broadcast its signal in 1941 under the ownership of Gainesvillians Austin Dean, Charles Smithgall and L.H. Christian of Athens. The station started on what was then Athens Highway before moving into the Press-Radio Center on West Spring Street with the then-Gainesville Daily Times. Smithgall became sole owner and operated the station until he sold it in 1967 to James L. Kirk. WDUN went on the air in 1949 behind a group of investors and John W. Jacobs Jr., general manager. His son, Jay, then brought WDUN, WGGA and WMJE together under Radio Center. The company now has three radio stations WDUN 550 AM, WDUN 102.9 FM and The Lake, FM 94.5 and AM 1240. The Radio Center company is now called Jacobs Media and besides the
200 Years of Hall
Times file photo
Charles and Lessie Smithgall, founders of The Times.
radio stations has an online news service, AccessWDUN, formed in 1999 as AccessNorthGa. Ernest Reynolds Jr. founded WFOX in 1965, sold it to Norfleet Johnston, who then sold it to Christian in 1972, and he sold it to Shamrock Broadcasting. Reynolds also founded WLBA in 1957 and sold that property to Johnston, too, in the 1960s when the call letters became WNRJ. Another change in ownership brought the name back to WLBA, and it became a Hispanic station in 1993 after a few months off the air. Other Hispanic stations also broadcast
in Hall County. Brenau University has been back in the radio business since 1976 and maintains its WBCX studios in the former Gainesville National Bank building on Green Street. In the 1960s, Jacobs Jr. and his partner, James (Bubba) Dunlap launched Gainesville Cablevision, latching onto the cable TV wave sweeping the country. They kept it going until 1982 when they sold it to Daniels & Co. of Denver, Colo. It has since changed hands until it now operates as part of Charter Communications’ Spectrum brand. Its offices continue off Oak Tree Drive in Gainesville.
Photo courtesy Northeast Georgia History Center
The front page of the Gainesville Eagle Thursday, Aug. 5, 1943, has the paper’s “V for Victory” feature depicting Hall County veterans serving during the war.
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Railroads
Trains brought money and growth early on to Hall County BY NICK WATSON
nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com
When the railroad comes, so comes the money, power and everything else you could want. In the 1820s, Hall County had a population of roughly 8,245. In the 1870s, it had jumped to 9,607. Gainesville had become the terminus for the railroad line. To move products to wider markets with possibly better prices, the railroad was the way to go, Northeast Georgia History Center Executive Director Glen Kyle said. The train often took products south, but the northbound train to Gainesville was bringing manufactured goods, labor and money into the local economy. Brenau University would open in 1878, and other functions around town started to grow as well. “From the booming of the railroad is when Gainesville elected its first police chief,” said retired Gainesville Police Capt. Chad White of Thomas Haney. Haney, who later became a railroad detective, was believed to be part of a group responsible for catching the infamous train robber Bill Miner. In 1911, Miner and his posse used dynamite on a safe, destroying the top of an express car. The loot was roughly $800 American cash and $770 in Mexican money. With more railroad lines later adjoining to Gainesville, Kyle said
Photos courtesy Hall County Library System
Left: The infamous train robber Bill Miner and his posse are shown. Right: The Gainesville Midland is shown May 25, 1915, en route to a barbecue at Helen. Spring Street is in the background.
Gainesville turned from a terminus to a hub. With it brought the new need for a hospitality and tourism industry. In 1904, Gainesville, Jefferson and Southern Railroad became Gainesville Midland, which started carrying passengers in 1906 and mail the next year. In 1938, it was sold to Georgia Car and Locomotive Co. for $127,000. Small townships and municipalities all started to spring up along the tracks
of the railroad, such as the charter for Lula in 1905, at a time when people were looking for a railroad junction between Hall County and Athens. Despite being only 39 miles from Athens to Lula and the requirement of 40 miles by law to get a charter, an extra mile was laid into the hills that was never used. In that time, Lula would thrive with more than a dozen stores, multiple hotels, a shoe repair shop, a bank and more. The depot had a platform big enough
to line up 150 bales of cotton. Clermont’s story has a similar ring, as the Gainesville Northwestern Railroad ran through mostly for timber out of the Robertstown area near Helen. Another line would be added to bring pyrite from the mines in Dahlonega. This boom brought with it the Clermont Hotel built in 1905, used primarily by traveling salesmen and railroad men. It was purchased in 2012 and is known as The Clermont Venue.
The Midland Railroad served Gainesville around the turn of the century. Engine 209 was reported to have been built for the tsar of Russia. The Russian Revolution canceled the order. It made the last steam-powered trip Sept. 19, 1959.
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200 Years of Hall
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Historical figures
Many left their mark on Hall, and some names are memorialized on streets, buildings E.E. Butler
Emmett Etheridge Butler served as doctor to the African-American community in the days of segregation. Born in Jeffersonville in 1908, Butler came to the Gainesville area in 1936, shortly after attending medical school in Nashville, Tenn. “At the time, he was the only black physician in Gainesville,” said James Brooks, member of the Gainesville-Hall County Black History Society and the Men’s Progressive Club. “He really cared about the black community.” Brooks said many people around Gainesville still have a memory of Butler, including himself. “He delivered me, and I had an injury when I was very young,” Brooks said. “My mother called him, and he came to the house and treated me.” He said he also remembers Butler for his support of athletics. “He was very, very interested in what the students were doing athletically,” Brooks said. “I remember I played football one year and he was always on the field. I don’t ever remember a player getting seriously injured, but he was always there at the football games.” But Butler’s reach went beyond just the medical field. “He did a lot of things to help improve the situation of the black population,” Brooks said. He was a founder of the Men’s Progressive Club, which Brooks described as a group of black men who were concerned about the overall welfare of the black community at that time. “Also he was the first black person to be a member of the Gainesville Board of Education,’” Brooks said. “He did a lot of good.”
“Jack is a diversely educated and well-rounded individual, but his heart and soul are in the arts and in music,” said Ed Schrader, current president of Brenau. “And his training is along the lines of liberal arts, which is the core of this university.” Schrader said Burd has always been a supporter of both the musical and performing arts as well as studio arts at the school. “Brenau has a wonderful, I mean absolutely world-class, collection of fine art.” he said. “And Jack started that all on his own through his contacts in the art community. When the school needed a performing arts center and the trustees and the development professionals raised the money and put it together to build one, it just made, I’m sure, the greatest sense in the world to name it after Jack.” And although he’s retired, Burd is still active at Brenau. “Since he retired in 2005, he’s maintained an office here on campus,” he said. “He’s remained active in keeping Brenau connected with the professional art world and has worked to continue to cultivate donors of fine art.”
Allen Candler
Allen Daniel Candler was governor of Georgia 1898-1902. He was born Nov. 4, 1834, in Auraria and graduated from Mercer University in Macon. He served in the Civil War as a first lieutenant in the Confederate army. After the war, Candler worked in agriculture, manufacturing and the railroad industry before entering politics. He was elected mayor of Gainesville in 1872 and became a state legislator the next year. He was a member of the House of Representatives of Georgia 1873-1878, a senator 1878-1880, a member of U.S. House of Representatives 1883-1891 and Georgia secretary of state 1894-1898. Candler died Oct. 26, 1910, and is buried in Alta Vista Cemetery in Gainesville.
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tornado. Dunlap, who held appointed posts related to Roosevelt’s New Deal, personally sought White House aid for the devastated community. Among the results: a new city hall, courthouse and the eventual construction of the Gainesville Civic Center. Dunlap was politically powerful, and was an ally of Roosevelt in his unsuccessful effort to oust popular U.S. Sen. Walter F. George.
Edmund P. Gaines
J.H. Downey
John S. Burd
Dr. John S. “Jack” Burd served as president of Brenau University from 1985 to 2005, and some of his major contributions to the university included advancements in the arts and music. Brenau’s performing arts center is named for him.
He attended Mercer University in Macon, where he was active in ROTC, the debate team and served as student body president. After earning a law degree in 1966, he served as a captain in the U.S. Army at Fort Gordon in Augusta and then moved to his wife’s hometown of Gainesville to start a private law practice. Prior to running for governor, Deal served as an assistant district attorney in Northeast Georgia and a juvenile court judge in Hall County. He was a state senator 1981-1993, and was then part of the Democratic Party. In 1992 he was elected as congressman for Georgia’s 9th District and served nine terms, during which he switched to the Republican Party. At 66 years old, he announced his decision to run for governor of Georgia in May 2009 and resigned from Congress the following year. In August 2010, Deal defeated former Secretary of State Karen Handel in a runoff for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s governor race. He then defeated Democratic opponent Roy Barnes in November. He was elected to serve a second term in office in 2014, when he defeated Democratic state Sen. Jason Carter.
In 1909, Dr. J.H. Downey built the first hospital between Greenville, S.C., and Atlanta in Gainesville. An innovator in medicine, he developed a medical device, the Downey Fracture Table, in 1911. By 1912, the hospital, which started with just six rooms, had grown to 36 beds and was the first accredited hospital in the state. The hospital also included a nursing school, which according to a 1937 news account had 24 students. Downey was joined later by Dr. Cleveland D. Whelchel and Dr. John K. Burns.
Edgar B. Dunlap
Nathan Deal Nathan Deal has served as governor of Georgia since 2011. He was born Aug. 25, 1942, in Millen and graduated from Washington County High School.
Edgar B. Dunlap was a Gainesville attorney who used his connections to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help his home city during one of its darkest hours, the aftermath of the 1936
Gen. Edmund Gaines is the namesake of Gainesville, but he wasn’t a Georgia native. He was born March 20, 1777, in Culpeper County, Virginia, but considered Tennessee his home. “His military service probably took him (there), and he basically ended up calling that place home even though he was stationed all over,” said Glen Kyle, executive director of Northeast Georgia History Center. Kyle said the general may have visited Gainesville only once during his career in the military. “I found one source that said he spent the night here,” he said. “That is unconfirmable though.” Gaines was a prominent military leader during the early 1800s, serving in both the War of 1812 and the Seminole Indian War. He was also a military surveyor and road builder. “He was military his entire life,” he said. “Basically from the time he could join up until his death, he was in uniform. He kept rising in the ranks, and he was put in charge of several different areas around the relatively young United States.” And that dedicated service is why the city is named after him, Kyle explained. The name was selected in 1821 by John Vance Cotter, one of the justices of
200 Years of Hall
Inferior Court of Hall County, who had fought under Gaines’ command. Gaines died in New Orleans on June 6, 1849.
Lyman Hall Lyman Hall, namesake of Hall County, was one of the three signers of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia. Born April 12, 1724, in Wallington, Conn., Hall moved to Georgia and became involved in the independence movement. Hall also was an ordained minister and doctor with a medical practice in Savannah, and he served as governor of Georgia 1783-1784. He helped establish what’s now known as the University of Georgia, too. “He did basically create the system whereby there would be a state university,” he said. “And of course, that university was the University of Georgia. He basically shepherded it through the legislation and signed it.” Hall died in Burke County on Oct. 19, 1790, and is buried in Augusta. A monument there is dedicated to him and the other Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Jesse Jewell A Gainesville native, Jesse Jewell decided to go into the poultry business because of his family. “His family owned a feed store, and he started placing chicks with farmers,” said Abit Massey, Abit Massey, president emeritus of the Georgia Poultry Federation. “And then later he built a
processing plant and starting growing chickens on contract with farmers. So that was the beginning of that contract system that’s enabled the poultry industry to grow so rapidly over the years.” From there, Jewell’s accomplishments in poultry only grew. “He, for Georgia and the United States, is one of the best known names in the poultry industry,” Massey said. He was one of the organizers and the first chairman of the National Chicken Council. “He was the first to have frozen chicken,” Massey said. Jewell was also an organizer and past chairman of the Southeast Poultry & Egg Association, which later became the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association. “We created a Georgia Poultry Hall of Fame many years ago and he was the first person inducted,” Massey said. Jewell was involved in other ways in Gainesville, too. “He was one of the founders and organizers of the Chattahoochee Country Club,” he said. “He was one of those that helped pick out the site for the club.”
Emily Dunlap “Sissy” Lawson Emily Dunlap “Sissy” Lawson followed in the family tradition of public service as a member of the Gainesville City Council and eventually became the city’s first female mayor in 1992. She was the granddaughter of Dr. H.J. Pearce. Lawson did not attend Brenau, the school her mother and aunts attended. She instead attended Stephens College, a private college for women in Columbia, Mo., and finished with a bachelor’s of
education at the University of Georgia. Lawson has won the Rotary Club of Gainesville’s Woman of the Year Award in 2017 and Girl Scouts of Northeast Georgia’s Gainesville Woman of Distinction.
James Longstreet Imagine having a noted military figure — say, retired 4-star and former U.S. Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell — living in Hall County. That was the case for Gainesville in the late 1800s, after the Civil War. Former Confederate Gen. James Longstreet, second in command to revered Gen. Robert E. Lee, didn’t just settle in Gainesville. He served as postmaster, opened the Piedmont Hotel and, as a newly converted
Catholic, started the area’s first Catholic congregation, now St. Michael Catholic Church. He also joined the Republican Party and fought for the civil rights of former slaves — stances that weren’t popular during Southern Reconstruction. Longstreet apologized, “in effect, for what the Confederacy stood for and what it fought for,” said Glen Kyle, Northeast Georgia History Center executive director. Longstreet also was something of a military pariah, as well. Although regarded as a sharp strategist on the battlefield, his differences with Lee — particularly in the disastrous Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg — didn’t sit well with Confederate veterans. Living in Gainesville, “he was pretty much isolated politically during his lifetime,” Longstreet Society member Tom
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Rasmussen, who also does appearance as Longstreet. Gainesville-based Longstreet Society, formed in 1994, seeks to preserve the general’s legacy, operating out of remnants of the Piedmont Hotel at 827 Maple St., off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The hotel also serves a museum, containing items from the Civil War and Longstreet’s days as a hotelier.
stayed vacant for the rest of the 1950s until Pearl Nix began the first phase of a dream for a major retail complex. In 1968, construction began on what was first known as Lakeshore Plaza. Five years later, the mall, one of the first enclosed shopping venues outside of Atlanta, was complete.
Beulah Rucker Oliver
Frances Meadows
him 67 years later. However, Pearce’s influence went beyond the college. He was a founder of Riverside Military Academy, which achieved national prominence as a boarding school for boys. In 1928, Brenau created a female, residential, college-preparatory school with grades ninth through 12th. The college remained exclusively female until the early 1970s, when Brenau began offering evening and weekend classes to both men and women.
Sidney O. Smith Jr.
Willie Frances Jenkins Meadows was the first African-American to be elected to the Hall County Board of Commissioners in 1992. The popular aquatic center in Gainesville is named for her. Meadows died in 2002 while in her third term as the county’s District 4 commissioner, but she made quite a mark before her passing. “She helped anybody that she could help,” said Kerri Camp, daughter of Meadows. “She was a role model to my sister, brother and I as well as other members of the family and really of the community.” Before her time in office, Meadows was already working with the local community at Gainesville State College, which is now the University of North Georgia. She worked there for about 30 years, Camp said. “She touched a lot of people that way,” she said. “She was just awesome, outstanding.” And in addition to education, Meadows had some other interests. “She was a big proponent of the parks, which is why the aquatic center is named for her,” said Glen Kyle, executive director of Northeast Georgia History Center. “She left some big shoes to fill,” Camp said. “There’s not one word you can put on her, really.”
John W. Morrow Jr. Gainesville’s first black mayor was elected in 1985. The late mayor also served as the first black city councilman. Charles Morrow, John Morrow’s younger brother, said John got involved with politics because of his prior service in World War II. “Being a veteran, he knew that what he had fought for was equality in this country and that everything that was promised was not provided,” he said. “We — and when I say ‘we’ I mean minorities
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and such, blacks especially — were not given the same type of opportunities that we had been promised, we had fought for and a lot of us died for. Those were the things he fought for — total equality, not just part time, but all the time.” Charles said his brother was dedicated to other causes as well. “One of them was education in the school system here, making sure that there was equal education given to both the black and white schools,” he said. “The second thing is that he was interested in the political standing of minorities in the community.” He said John was also dedicated to ensuring opportunities to people of color, including employment, and truly cared about those around him. “He was totally committed to God in his life and the people of the community in which he lived,” Charles said. “That was important to him.”
Pearl Nix
Beulah Rucker Oliver was born in 1888 in Banks County. Coming to Gainesville in the early 1900s, she established a school for black children that continued in various forms until the late 1950s. The school provided educational opportunities to the region’s black youth at a time when such opportunities were rare. She established this school primarily through her own hard work and money. Her unselfish actions and her inspiring vision prompted others to act. She was a driving force in the black community before the civil rights era. The Educational Foundation and Museum of Beulah Rucker Inc. in Gainesville memorializes her efforts.
Haywood Jefferson Pearce
Pearl Nix took an incredible risk in building the region’s first enclosed shopping center, Lakeshore Mall. When her husband, Sen. Arthur J. Nix, died suddenly in 1946 at the age of 51, he left his widow, Pearl, and his only child with a large parcel of undeveloped land, which included the abandoned remnants of a sawmill. Pearl Nix ended her 36-year career as a teacher and suddenly became a developer. In the early 1950s, construction began on the first section of Lakeshore Heights, a subdivision off Dawsonville Highway. However, another portion of the Nix land, a rolling tract of peaks and valleys,
Haywood Jefferson Pearce was president of Brenau College from 1893 to 1943. It was Pearce who changed the name of the college, which was known as the Georgia Baptist Female Seminary. Pearce also convinced the community to lend the college $10,000 to build an auditorium, which would be named for
Sidney O. Smith Jr.’s career included service as a state trial court judge and as U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, serving as its chief judge for six years. He received an A.B. degree in government from Harvard College in 1947, where his classmates included the late U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He earned a law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1949. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Smith to the bench as a U.S. District Court judge in 1965. Smith served on the U.S. District Court bench until 1974, returning to private practice. At times issuing controversial orders during the civil rights era, Smith “knew that he was compelled to follow the mandate of the Supreme Court and to follow his oath of office,” attorney Bobby Lee Cook said in 2017 when Gainesville’s federal courthouse was named for Smith. Numerous state dignitaries, including U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and David Perdue and U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, attended a ceremony naming the courthouse Sidney O. Smith Jr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Spring Street. “He had too much respect for the law and for the processes of the law to ever take advantage of the situation … His strength was to bring people together, parties together and make the thing work,” Smith’s law partner Ron Reid said at the event. From 1980 to 1987, he served as a member of the University System Board of Regents. He was the fourth generation in his family to serve on the Brenau Board of Trustees, acting on the board for 35 years. Compiled by Amber Tyner, Jeff Gill, Times files
200 Years of Hall
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Minorities
African-Americans, Latinos have unique places in Hall’s history BY JOSHUA SILAVENT
justice and civil rights in the Newtown neighborhood of Gainesville adjacent to the city’s heavy industrial corridor. Today, the Florist Club is headed by Rose Johnson, who has spearheaded initiatives with club members to work for criminal justice reform, address affordable housing shortages for minorities and working-class families, and youth development. The club is currently cataloging black-owned businesses through its Strengthening Community Capacity program, and in 2018, it relaunched the Bright Teens United for a Future youth leadership group. The legacy of African-Americans in Gainesville and Hall County, from the days of slavery to the days of segregation to the days of integration, are still being uncovered and providing lessons for a new generation. In 2017, for example, more than 1,000 unmarked graves of African-Americans were memorialized with a new 7-foot-tall black granite monument between sections 16 and 17 of the city-owned Alta Vista Cemetery.
jsilavent@gainesvilletimes.com
History of African-American experience Slaves were the first African-Americans in Hall County, though they were fewer in number than communities in the Piedmont and southern Georgia, where cotton plantations were plentiful. The 1820 census reported 399 slaves locally, and six free African-Americans. But by 1850, the number of slaves had grown with the population to include at least 1,336. The Civil War, however, never brought its conflict to Northeast Georgia. Residents of some of the most mountainous North Georgia counties, where Scotch-Irish settlers had staked a claim of independence in formerly held Native American lands, even voted against secession from the Union, according to the Northeast Georgia History Center. After emancipation, African-Americans were left to fend for their own, establishing neighborhoods on the southside of Gainesville. Census records confirm a mass exodus of African-Americans from Forsyth County, with thousands moving between 1912 and 1920, likely seeking refuge from white lynch mobs in the neighboring county. And African-Americans from Jefferson County matriculated to the Gainesville area as it urbanized and offered broader economic opportunities. Through the days of segregation, African-Americans owned a network of businesses on the south side of Gainesville to serve the needs of local minorities, who were often precluded from entering “whites-only” pharmacies, grocery stores and other establishments across the city. African-American leaders also founded schools to educate black children. Northwestern School was a private school started by the Northwestern Baptist Association under the leadership of the Rev. Green Hunter, who was born a slave, and whose name would adorn a public housing complex as midtown Gainesville developed in the 1950s. After several grades at Northwestern, students moved up to Fair Street. Fair Street elementary and high opened in 1937 to serve African-American students from the city, county and region in grades first through 11th. The high school portion was separated in the 1960s when E.E. Butler High School was built, named for the black community’s beloved local doctor. Butler High was closed when schools in Gainesville were racially integrated by 1970. But its impact on the community remains, and plans are in the works to develop a park near the old school and potentially renovate its gymnasium. According to Linda Hutchens, coauthor of the Black America series book “Hall County Georgia,” prior to actual public schools being built, black students attended class at one of two African-
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History of Latino experience
JEFF GILL | The Times
A 7-foot-tall black granite monument memorializes more than 1,000 unmarked graves of African-Americans at Alta Vista Cemetery.
American churches, either what is now St. Paul United Methodist or First Baptist on today’s Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Hutchens said. An Industrial School on Athens Highway in Gainesville served black students from 1914 to 1958. It was founded by Beulah Rucker Oliver, and students learned the usual lessons of mathematics, reading and writing but also commercial skills like carpentry and hatmaking. The museum now is housed in the former school house. According to a 1994 story in The Times, the school was twofold, housing the Industrial High School and Timber Ridge Elementary School. The school operated through the 1950s as an elementary school that some students attended before they went to Fair Street. The first public school built was Summer Hill High School, known on its degrees and documents as Gainesville
Colored School. It wasn’t until after the 1936 tornado that the original red brick building of Fair Street High sprung up. When Hall County consolidated its schools in the 1950s, black students from Lula, Mount Zion, Cross Trains and others areas were bused to Fair Street. Many prominent African-Americans have played leading roles across the Gainesville community over the last several generations, in both civic and political life. For example, according to Hutchens’ book, The Gainesville Messenger was published in the early 1900s as a news source for the local African-American community. C.E. Williams, principal of Summer Hill School, was the editor. A still politically active organization, the Newtown Florist Club began more than 60 years ago by collecting flowers and donating wreaths for funerals. It developed into an advocate for environmental
Gainesville’s renown as the poultry capital of the world has drawn Latino immigrants to Hall County since the 1970s, with major influxes over the ensuing decades. Between 2000 and 2010, for example, the Latino population of Hall County grew more than 72 percent to 46,906 residents from 27,248 residents. According to 2017 census estimates, more than 57,000 Latinos currently reside in Hall County, nearly 29 percent of the population. In the city of Gainesville, Latinos make up more than 40 percent of the population. Many organizations have launched in response to this growing demographic. Good News at Noon, a Gainesville mission, opened in 1987 to serve residents of the Melrose public housing complex, where large concentrations of Latino residents had begun to locate. Hall County Schools now operates a Newcomer Academy, which serves as an intensive immersion program for immigrant students of high school age. The Hispanic Alliance GA launched in 2016, with Vanesa Sarazua as executive director, to support and strengthen the local community through English classes, outreach and advocacy, plus initiatives, collaborations and services to open educational, health, financial and immigration resources for those in need. In 2017, Northeast Georgia Latino Chamber of Commerce was launched to tap an established and still growing corridor of Latino-owned businesses and residential neighborhoods locally by educating them on financial opportunities available. And in 2018, Gainesville High School had its first Latino valedictorian, Guillermo Beltran, who is now attending Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
200 Years of Hall
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Sports
Hall County boasts many talented athletes and coaches, and has ties to professional sports The greatest athletes who cultivated their talents in Hall County are local legends. However, some have risen to national fame. At times, the amount of talent dwarfed the population of the once-rural part of Northeast Georgia that only saw a boom in the number of citizens with the growth of industries, most notably poultry. In 2018, everyone knows about Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, who guided Gainesville High to a state title and was twice a Heisman finalist at Clemson. Forty-five years ago, Gainesville’s Tommy Aaron slipped on the green jacket at Augusta National and unified an entire community with his come-from-behind win at The Masters. Others from Hall County have also had a claim to fame in the sports world. Gainesville’s Billy Lothridge was a Heisman runner-up in 1963 from Georgia Tech, who went on to be a journeyman quarterback in the NFL over the next decade. Mike ‘Moonpie’ Wilson was a starter in the trenches for the Cincinnati Bengals and was part of their run to the 1982 Super Bowl. Cris Carpenter was a three-sport star at Gainesville High in the early 1980s, before playing baseball and football at the University of Georgia, then enjoyed a lengthy career pitching in the big leagues. Others who have been put Hall County on the map in sports did so in the coaching ranks. None have been more successful than Seth Vining, who spent 39 years coaching basketball with 745 career wins and four state titles at East Hall. At Gainesville High, the football program had a rejuvenation with a long list of star athletes in the 2000s under coach Bruce Miller, who won 77 percent of his games from 2002-2017 with the Red Elephants, and also led the program on two trips to state championship games (2009 and 2012). Meanwhile, Hall County has also served as the location for wonderful sports memories, most notably when Lake Lanier hosted the canoe and kayak events during the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. Flowery Branch has served as the headquarters for the Atlanta Falcons since 2005.
Associated Press photos
Deshaun Watson holds up the championship trophy after the NCAA college football playoff championship game against Alabama in 2017. He is a graduate of Gainesville High School.
Aaron is one of only two Georgians to win at The Masters. The following day, a blustery and windy afternoon with snow flurries in Gainesville, Aaron was welcomed home with a number of festivities. One of those was a parade down Green Street in a convertible with his wife, Jimmye, and two children in the car with him. Aaron would go on to win three PGA events during his career. In 1972, he finished tied for second at the PGA Championship. In 2000, at age 63, Aaron made history as the oldest player to make the weekend cut at The Masters. Aaron, 81, remains active in Hall County. He facilitates the Tommy Aaron/Charlie Aaron Foundation scholarship, which goes to graduating seniors from Hall County or Gainesville City Schools.
Tommy Aaron April 9, 1973 is a date that will forever be special to sports fans in Hall County. On that day, Gainesville’s Tommy Aaron rallied from four-shots back to open the day and carded a final-round 68 to claim a onestroke victory at The Masters in Augusta. Aaron closed the gap fast with birdies on the first three holes and another on No. 8 to make the turn at 32 on Sunday. On the first hole, Aaron, 36, knocked down a long uphill putt. Then on No. 2, Aaron had the right touch on a 40-foot downhill putt that ran into the cup, which Times sports editor Phil Jackson described vividly in the following day’s newspaper. “That ball rolled into the cup like a gopher in a hurry to get home,” Jackson said. After going back and forth for the lead with JC Snead and Peter Oosterhuis, Aaron claimed the lead for good on No. 15 when
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Deshaun Watson
Gallery reacts to birdie putt made by Tommy Aaron on the second hole, April 9, 1973, in final round of the Masters at Augusta.
his delicate downhill chip shot came to rest only a couple feet from the hole, which he tapped in for birdie. Once he finished his round, Aaron sat and watched from the clubhouse as Snead rolled his downhill birdie putt on No. 18 go past the hole, solidifying the only major victory of Aaron’s long and successful career.
On the back nine, the fans began to get even louder for Aaron as he closed in on his win. A large contingent of fans from Gainesville were on hand. “Toward the end, the people were getting so enthusiastic ... I had to kind of gear myself down.” Aaron said on the television broadcast after his win.
The most prolific athlete to ever come out of Gainesville has now found the national spotlight. Despite all the attention, the overly modest football star continues to thrive. Deshaun Watson has earned a name as one of the top young quarterbacks in the NFL, now in his second year with the Houston Texans. As a rookie in 2017, the Gainesville High graduate was well on his way to being NFL Rookie of the Year with 1,699 passing yards in just seven games, before a knee injury brought an abrupt end to the his season. His college career put Watson on the national scene, even though he was already a household name in the state for all his accolades for the Red Elephants from 201013.
200 Years of Hall
During his three years in Clemson, Watson was twice a Heisman finalist and guided the Tigers to a thrilling lastsecond touchdown to win the national championship for the 2016 season. As a Tiger, Watson threw for more than 10,000 yards and rushed for almost 2,000, which was the driving force behind the dual-threat quarterback going No. 12 overall in the 2017 NFL draft. Watson was the top-ranked high school quarterback nationally in the Class of 2014. Everywhere he went, fans packed the bleachers on Friday nights to see the phenom with lightning speed and a cannon for a right arm make one amazing play after another — which could include running over a defender, hurdling another player or dropping a long pass right into the arms of his striding wide receiver. Watson started every game during his high school career, guiding the Red Elephants to a 46-9 record, 2012 state championship and two appearances in the state semifinals. His talent as a young quarterback went national quickly. By the time he was a junior, he had accrued more than 40 offers from Division-I programs. However, he made his intentions known verbally his sophomore year that he would attend Clemson, which he followed through with and signed as an early enrollment in 2014. Once Watson was through in high school, he owned state records for career passing yards (13,135), passing touchdowns (155) and all-purpose touchdowns (218). Once Watson graduated from high school, his coach Bruce Miller knew a player like that would never grace his school again. “When Deshaun graduated, I said, ‘There goes 17,000 (career) yards of offense walking out the door,’” Bruce Miller said in 2014. “It
East Hall’s and Gainesville College’s girls teams and Johnson’s boys team, he returned to East Hall to begin the most dominant stretch of his career with the Vikings boys squad. Between 1993 and 2004, Vining won nearly 300 games, reaching the 30-win mark twice over that period. Later on in his career, Vining moved to Lakeview Academy, taking over a thenmediocre program and turning it into a winner. He reached 20 wins twice during his tenure with the Lions, taking the team to its first region championship in program history. Vining retired in 2013 with 745 career wins, all of them coming at Hall County schools.
Wayne Vickery Georgia forward Tasha Humphrey drives between defenders in the first half of a college basketball game in 2008. She began her basketball career at Gainesville High School.
is just hard to believe one kid can amass that much offense in one high school career.”
Tasha Humphrey Humphrey began her basketball career at Gainesville High School, where she led the team to three state titles in Class AAA. Along the way, Humphrey was named Miss Georgia Basketball by the Atlanta JournalConstitution in 2001, 2003 and 2004, as well as Gatorade Georgia Player of the Year in 2003 and 2004. After graduating from Gainesville, Humphrey took her talents to Athens, where she played for the University of Georgia between 2004 and 2008. She was a four-time All-SEC selection at Georgia, and finished her career with the Bulldogs as the program’s second leading scorer and fourth leading rebounder. She was drafted 11th overall in the 2008 WNBA draft by the
Detroit Shock. Humphrey spent her career playing for the Shock, the Washington Mystics and the Minnesota Lynx. She was also a gold medal winner at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a member of Team USA.
Seth Vining Seth Vining — who coached basketball at Johnson, East Hall and Lakeview during his 39-year career — is one of the most decorated coaches in Hall County history. He led East Hall’s girls team to state championships in 1979 and 1980, matching that with state titles at the helm of East Hall’s boys team in 2001 and 2003. Vining also won 15 Lanierland titles and led 26 teams to state playoff qualification. Vining began his career in 1974 as a teacher at East Hall. After stints of coaching
When it comes to Georgia high school baseball, there are few names that carry as much weight as Wayne Vickery. Vickery, a 2006 Georgia Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, coached baseball at Gainesville for 20 years, and served as athletic director for 16. During his tenure as a coach, the Red Elephants went 470-129 and won five state titles as well as 12 region championships. Vickery’s first three state championships came in back-to-back-to-back fashion, when his Red Elephants won Class AA titles in 1996, ’97 and ’98. Gainesville eventually moved up to Class AAA, but it didn’t slow down Vickery’s group, who went on to win championships at the new classification in 2001 and ’02. Vickery was named Georgia Coach of the Year five times, and was National Coach of the Year in 2001. Between 1999 and 2008, Vickery served as both baseball coach and AD at Gainesville, but gave up his coaching career in May of 2008. He stayed on with
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Gainesville as AD before parting ways with the school in 2015. In addition to his induction to the Georgia Baseball Hall of Fame, Vickery was also awarded Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame honors in 2010, and was added to the Northeast Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 2009. He was named to the National Sunbelt Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012.
Bruce Miller Miller’s 16 years as the head coach of the Gainesville High football team are nothing short of legendary. During Miller’s tenure, the Red Elephants never failed to qualify for state playoffs, winning a state championship in 2012 and coming one failed two-point conversion away from winning another in 2009. Miller’s teams won nine region titles along the way, and several elite athletes emerged from the program, some even excelling at the next level. Players like AJ Johnson and Blake Sims began their football careers under Miller, only to go on to have successful careers in the SEC. Miller’s most accomplished protégé Deshaun Watson — the signal caller for 2012’s championship team — won a national championship and was a two-time Heisman finalist with Clemson before being drafted in the first round by the Houston Texans in 2017. Miller chose to step away from the Gainesville following the 2017 season. He finished his career there with 157 wins to just 46 losses. Shortly after resigning as head coach at Gainesville, Miller accepted a job as an assistant with the Lakeview Academy football team.
Bobby Gruhn Gruhn is the longest-tenured coach in Gainesville High football history, leading the program for 30 years between 1963 and 1992. He’s also the winningest coach the school has ever seen, notching 254 victories in his 358 games at the helm for the Red Elephants. His 254 wins is the 25th most of any coach in the history of Georgia high school football. Gruhn started his career with three straight 3-7 seasons, but then went on to have 22 consecutive years without a losing record thereafter. During that interval, Gruhn’s teams went undefeated during the regular season twice, and lost just one regular season game on 10 other occasions. Following his coaching career, Gainesville’s stadium at City Park was named after the coach. Gruhn died in 1995, but the family name is carried on in Hall County football coaching, as his son — Matthew Gruhn — remains the head coach at Lakeview Academy.
Cris Carpenter Carpenter was a multi-sport athlete at Gainesville in the ’80s, excelling in baseball, basketball and football, and winning state titles with the Red Elephants in both baseball and basketball. Following his high school career, Carpenter went on to play baseball at Georgia, and was also the Bulldogs’ punter. Carpenter finished his collegiate career with the second-most saves in Georgia history, fifth-most wins and seventh-most strikeouts. He also ranked second in school history in net punting average with 40 yards per punt. Carpenter was drafted in the first round of the 1987 MLB amateur draft by the St. Louis Cardinals. He spent eight years in the big leagues, making appearances with the Cardinals, the Florida Marlins, the
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SCOTT ROGERS | The Times
Head Coach Bruce Miller hoists the Class AAAAA state championship trophy after the Red Elephants win over Ware County at the Georgia Dome.
Texas Rangers and the Milwaukee Brewers. Carpenter finished his career with 27 wins, 252 strikeouts and a career ERA of 3.91.
team also paddle for the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club, another group that utilizes the park for practices.
Sally Bell
Falcons move to Flowery Branch
In her 33 years as a basketball official, Sally Bell experienced a lot. The longtime Gainesville resident refereed 7,000 games — the bulk of those at the college level that included 15 Women’s Final Fours (13 consecutive from 1992 to 2017). In addition, she officiated the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, and spent eight seasons in WNBA. Her tireless dedication to the sport did not go unnoticed either. On June 10, 2017, Bell was enshrined in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, joining a long list of individuals who made big waves in the sport on-and-off the court. Bell was accompanied by WNBA All-Star and Olympic gold Medalist Sheryl Swoopes, former pro player and Olympic gold medalist Kara Wolters, Middle Tennessee coach Rick Insell, and founder of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women Christine Grant in the 2017 HOF class. Upon stepping down as an official in 2008, Bell applied her craft elsewhere in the sport as Coordinator of Women’s Basketball Officials from 2011-2018. She served six major college conferences for women’s basketball (SEC, Sun Belt, Southland, SWAC, Atlantic Sun and Ohio Valley Conference) while overseeing approximately 250 officials. Bell announced her retirement from the position on April 9.
1996 Olympics Twenty-two years later, the original timing tower of Lake Lanier Olympic Park stands strong, while the vibrant painted figures covering the structure is a constant reminder of an important part of Hall County’s history. Once the site of the canoe/kayak and rowing competitions during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, this landmark in Gainesville is the last remaining venue of the Summer Olympics and continues to be used for many major water sport competitions. Those include the 2016 Pan American Championships and the more recent 2018 ICF Dragon Boat World Championships, where Team USA raced to a Nation’s Cup victory on Sept. 16, 2018. Twenty nine of the 112 athletes representing the U.S. national
It’s a move that strengthened the bond between one NFL franchise and its fanbase. When rumors were floating around in the spring of 1999 that the Atlanta Falcons were looking to relocate their headquarters to Stone Mountain, real estate executive Frank Norton Jr. wasn’t going to let that fly. Norton was one of those few to think outside the box and pitch a move to the Flowery Branch community in South Hall, a site that essentially would bring one of Atlanta’s beloved franchises closer to its fanbase after spending nearly 21 years in Suwanee. In July 1999, Norton received a call from Atlanta Falcons legend Tommy Nobis — who was also former vice president of corporate development — asking if Hall’s “deal was still back on the table,” according to a previous report by the Gainesville Times. Norton recalled spending the entire vacation reorganizing his team, and put a patch of property under contract in Flowery Branch — the first choice. He then conducted a major presentation at Davis Middle School, a brand-new institution at the time and currently resides right across the street. Lo and behold, the efforts of all those involved paid off big time. Four days later, the Falcons announced the team would be making the move to Hall County. The team finally settled in to their brand-new home, $15 million home in 2005. “We thought big, and we won,” Norton told the Times in the 2017 report. The Falcons’ 50-acre headquarters sits on 4400 Falcon Parkway, near Interstate 985 and across the street from the Hog Mountain Sports Complex. At 75,000 square feet, the facility has all the amenities needed to house an NFL team: Practice fields, one indoor practice facility, locker room, office space and living quarters for players during training camp. Nearly 14 years later, you can say it’s all copacetic between the Atlanta Falcons and Flowery Branch community.
Connor Shaw Very few in Hall County can say they’ve
reached the highest rank in football that is the NFL. Connor Shaw can certainly be included on that short list. Shaw, the former standout quarterback to lead Flowery Branch High to a Class 3A state title appearance in 2008, blossomed as a three-year starter for South Carolina, where he set numerous program records. His 27-5 mark made him the winningest passer in Gamecocks history, and still holds the program completion percentage record (65.5 percent). In 2013, Shaw was a finalist for the Johnny Unitas Award — an accolade presented to the nation’s top senior college quarterback — and finished his career having led the Gamecocks to three bowl victories. The Flowery Branch native was an undrafted NFL free agent in 2014, and spent four years with the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears. He spent most of his rookie season on the practice squad before making his debut against the Ravens later that year, throwing for 177 yards and an interception in a 20-10 road loss. That was Shaw’s only start, and injuries unfortunately plagued him for the remainder of his career. Shaw initially joined the staff a Furman University as a tight ends coach earlier this year. But in August, he resigned from his position to take on a “private business venture” (per NBC Sports).
Gainesville High’s ‘Two Billys’ There have been only a few athletes to leave a lasting footprint on the grass of the ageless City Park Stadium. Billy Lothridge and Billy Martin — nicknamed the ‘Two Billys’ — were a pair to contribute to the longstanding tradition of Gainesville High’s football program in the 1950s. Martin, known to many in the Gainesville community as ‘The Jolly Giant’ for his towering stature and infectious personality on the football team, died March 17 at the age of 75. Martin was a force at tight end and defensive end for the Red Elephants. One of the biggest moments of his varsity career occurred in a region title game against stateranked Avondale, where Martin caught a few passes to set up Lothridge’s go-ahead score and made a late interception to seal a 13-12 victory. Martin’s heroics occurred days after undergoing an appendectomy and was initially sidelined for the game, but convinced his coach he could still provide a boost for his team. “(Martin) was one of the two most talented players on our team; one of the Two Billys,” former Gainesville teammate Bobby Chambers said in a previous Times report. “He was a great person and a great teammate. He carried us at times on the football field.” A formidable duo in high school, they were even quite the combo in the passing game under legendary coach Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech, where tight end Martin caught 56 balls for 777 yards and six touchdowns — mostly from Lothridge — in three seasons, good enough to earn All-American and All-SEC honors during his career. Martin was named voted to Georgia Tech’s all-time team in 1991. Lothridge meanwhile, was the Heisman Trophy runner-up to Roger Staubach in 1963, and was later inducted into the Georgia Tech Hall of Fame in 1969. Both went on to have successful careers in the NFL ranks, Martin having stints with the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons. Lothridge was an All-Pro punter and won the NFL’s punting title in 1967 with the Atlanta Falcons.
Bill Murphy, Nathan Berg and Sarah Woodall contributed
200 Years of Hall
Celebrating 200 Years of Service
TO THE CITIZENS OF HALL COUNTY DECEMBER 15, 2018
Tornadoes
1903, 1936 storms killed hundreds, but community triumphed over tragedy BY NICK WATSON
nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com
As the April 6, 1936, tornado began tearing through town, all one could do was hide. Fred Smith went into the freezer of Wright’s ice cream store, while his wife Rae Smith hunkered down at their house next to the train depot. Smith’s sister Victoria Pass was pregnant and going into labor. “She was carried down to Atlanta by (an) Elberton mortician in the ambulance, and she gave birth down there the day after the tornado,” said Chad White, a retired Gainesville Police captain. When Fred Smith ran to the square, he could hear the screams of the women in the Cooper Pants Factory, where more than 70 people burned to death. “There was no chance for anyone to get to those inside and no chance for the girls to get out. We could hear them crying but there was nothing we could do. We had no water to fight the fire and we knew that to go near the blazing structure meant certain death.” Gainesville Police Chief Jack Hopkins told the Atlanta Constitution at the time. When the skies cleared, locals estimated more than 200 people died and more than 1,000 people injured. Hundreds of businesses were damaged, leading to roughly $13 million in damages. It had only been 33 years since a tornado had killed more than 100 people and left more than 1,500 people homeless in 1903. Beyond the human toll, the tornado in 1936 is believed to have destroyed minute books from city hall, White said. From listening to the stories of survivors, Northeast Georgia History Center Executive Director Glen Kyle said there is a certain “spirit of ’36” that prevented a place like Gainesville from crumbling under a massive tragedy. “That would have killed a lot of communities. That would have been it, but it didn’t because everyone came together,” he said. Citizens banded together to have the streets cleared within the next 36 hours, turning a shared tragedy to a “shared experience of triumph,” Kyle said. While hundreds of lives were lost, the storm came at a time that allowed the county to rebuild. The destruction meant new housing and infrastructure during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time in office. “Because this was during the New Deal, we had all kinds of federal government money to help come and pay for this,” Kyle said. Roosevelt stopped at the train station three days after the storm, promising to help in the revitalization of the town. He returned on March 23, 1938. “I urge you to work for the good of the whole people and the whole nation. We need that spirit in Gainesville today — and throughout the nation,” the president said. Tens of thousands of residents came to hear the president, who is the namesake
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Photos courtesy Northeast Georgia History Center
A view up Main Street toward the square after the 1936 tornado.
People clean Washington Street on the day of the 1936 storm.
‘I urge you to work for the good of the whole people and the whole nation. We need that spirit in Gainesville today — and throughout the nation.’ President Franklin D. Roosevelt
for Roosevelt Square in downtown Gainesville. “When the leader of the nation, who is getting you through the Depression, comes and speaks to you directly about how well you’ve done in rebuilding from disaster, that strikes a note,” Kyle said. The history center recently discovered a roughly 90-second recording of Roosevelt’s speech.
Courtesy Hall County Library System
The Gainesville Cotton Mill pictured after the June 1, 1903, tornado.
200 Years of Hall
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