Spring 2024

Description

SPRING 2024 • VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS

4
Along the Backroads: Bookends
From the Jacks River to Jekyll Island, Georgia offers a remarkable variety of lovely scenery.
BY DANIEL M. ROPER • MURRAY, FANNIN & GLYNN COUNTIES
6
Vanishing Georgia: Portraits of the Great Depression
The final feature in our four-part series about Farm Security Administration photographers who covered the state in the late 1930s and early ’40s.
BY DANIEL M. ROPER • STATEWIDE
14
The Night Tina Came to Tifton
Fortunes for the Queen of Rock ‘n roll were fading when she performed at ABAC’s 1974 homecoming, but nobody can keep a goodhearted woman down.
BY FRED BOYLES • TIFT COUNTY
18
Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote
With the nation at war, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 became a priority for Governor Ellis Arnall.
BY MAX LONGLEY • STATEWIDE
22
Escape Through the Mountains
Dozens of Union prisoners who fled a South Carolina prison in 1864 made the long, hazardous journey across Georgia’s high country to friendly lines.
BY STEVE PROCKO • NORTHEAST GEORGIA
28
Top Tin ArtistSelf-taught folk artist Leonard Jones rose from obscurity to fame by painting rural scenes on old tin roofing.

BY TOM POLAND • LINCOLN COUNTY
32
Thwarted Alien Invasion
The nation gasped when a Cobb County police officer found three men with an alien corpse on a rural road one midnight in 1953.
BY JAY JARVIS • FULTON & COBB COUNTIES
34
Historic Rural Churches of Georgia: County Line Baptist and the Story of Francisco Hidalgo
An infamous Wild West gunfighter and his adopted brother had deep roots in Georgia.
BY CLAYTON H. RAMSEY • BUTTS COUNTY
39
Sam Mayer – Phenomenal Fielder

For Sam Mayer and other Jewish big leaguers, baseball was a pastime, vocation, and refuge.

BY CLAYTON H. RAMSEY • FULTON COUNTY
44
Discovering the Magic Behind the Mall
Surprising pockets of beauty and serenity sometimes survive near congested highays and commercial aeas like Town Center Mall.
BY MARLA AYCOCK • COBB COUNTY
48
Quirky, Colorful, Quaint: The Columbus Collective Museum

Come enjoy this historic collection of memorabilia including lunchboxes, antique cars, soda pop bottles, radio state equipment, and snackables.

BY BILL BAAB • MUSCOGEE COUNTY
50
The Shooting of Joe Ben Jenkins

The slaying of a chief of police triggered the last lynching in this northwest Georgia county in 1930.

BY JOSEPH W. CWIK • BARTOW COUNTY
53
Soul of a Southerner
A southerner fondly writes about growing up, and living, in the South.
BY MARY ANN ANDERSON • GEORGIA
55
It would be a Sin to Pass Up Some Fresh Air!

A famous roadside barbecue restaurant draws customers from near and far.

BY BRYAN MIMS • BUTTS COUNTY
58
Restoring Hiawassee’s Hidden Gem

The newly restored Berrong-Oakley House is one of this city’s few remaining historic residences.

BY TYLER OSBORN • TOWNS COUNTY
61
Civil War Portrait

Private William D. Purcell saw heavy action at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.

BY DAVID W. VAUGHAN • FRANKLIN COUNTY