History: Old Courthouse Museum Is Full of It

Before you travel outside of Douglas County to soak in a little history try stopping by Douglasville's own museum housed in the old courthouse located at 6754 West Broad Street in downtown Douglasville.

The old courthouse building is only fifty-five years old which in the whole scheme of history makes it a fairly young building, but once the Douglas County Courthouse moved to Hospital Drive some notation in the location had to be made so people  wouldn't arrive at the wrong place to file a deed, pay a fine, or get a copy of a birth certificate.

Since 2002, the old courthouse building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building passed muster to be added to the prestigious list because it was built in the International Style of architecture, a style that actually emerged in the 1920s and 30s and matured during World War II. Books regarding architecture advise the style characteristics include square or rectangle footprints and all facades have 90 degree angles.Building elements are made up of cubes. Even the windows tend to run in broken horizontal rows and forms grids.

The International Style is not without critics. Many call the structures ugly or sterile. Our 1956 courthouse certainly stands out among the older style buildings in downtown historic district, but I tend to like the clean lines the building possesses. From the Broad Street entrance the structure appears to have only one level, but it actually is a two-story structure with 52 rooms and over 36,000 square feet.

The spot where the Old Courthouse Museum sits today is the location of three previous Douglas County courthouses including the 1896 courthouse that burned. The Georgia Info website provides more information regarding the old courthouse and the move to today's Hospital Drive location.

Whether you like the International Style of architecture or not, our community owes a great deal of gratitude to the local Tourism and History Commission for convincing county government to save the old courthouse from demolition and to use the structure as a museum space. We have allowed too many structures to disappear from our past, and it's refreshing to know there are groups who will fight to save it.

From the museum's webpage:

The Douglas County Tourism and History Commission persuaded the Board of Commissioners to  save the building because of its unique architectural style and for use by the community. The old courthouse now houses the Douglas County Museum of History and Art which contain rotating exhibits of mid-20th century items from private collections to reflect the 1956 date of the courthouse.

Not too long ago I stopped by just to see what the building and museum had to offer, and for close to three hours I was enthralled as I went from room to room. I was amazed at the wealth of artifacts and information the museum contains. Steve Lawler stepped in as my guide, and I was more than impressed with his wealth of knowledge regarding the museum collections and Douglas County history in general.'

The Douglas County Museum of History and Art is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m., but special arrangements can be made for groups who wish to tour at other times. School groups from the local area tour the museum as well as various club groups.

In the lobby you will find an exhibit regarding past time capsules that were stored in prior courthouse buildings.

Many of the collections the museum houses are on loan from area residents who are generous enough to allow the public to view their items. Some of the exhibits are quite extensive such as the Coca-Cola exhibit which contains several hundred pieces of memorabilia. Some of the items I recognized from my childhood while other advertisements, bottles, and promotional items were from the earliest days of the company.

I really connected with the lunch box collection and quickly picked out the designs I carried to school as a young girl. I was amazed to see older forms of lunch pails that were used in the 19th century by mill workers and other laborers.

The children's record player collection also elicited a squeal of delight from me as I recognized many designs my friends owned including the round plastic containers we used to store our 45 rpm records. You didn't attend a slumber party without taking along your own 45 collection so the tunes could be played all night long!

One exhibit that taught me a thing or two was the TV lamp exhibit. These lamps were very popular in the 1950s and 1960s. During the early days of television it was generally felt having a lamp on while watching television would help the viewer from damaging his or her eyes. The light from the lamp would diffuse the light from the television. TV lamps don't have shades like regular lamps. A bulb is located behind it, so it actually casts a light on the wall behind the TV. The lamps came in all sorts of designs and apparently are very collectible.

While the museum collection mainly contains items that are contemporary to the building's time period, there is an exhibit dedicated specifically to Douglasville history where one of the first traffic signals in the downtown area can be seen along with many other artifacts dating back to our earliest settlers. One area contains many articles from R.L. Cousins High School which existed in the county during the struggle for civil rights and before integration.

Other exhibits include medical items and the desk of Dr. Claude Vansant, one of the county's first medical doctors, and an extensive collection from the Clinton farm including many household items and furnishings. Today the Clinton farm is owned by Douglas County and is part of Clinton Nature Preserve. If you are into music you will want to see the piano once used by Alabama's Jeff Cook and Jerry Lee Lewis.

I enjoyed my time at the museum very much.. In fact, the only reason why I left was because they were turning the lights off and locking the doors!

I highly recommend every citizen of Douglas County stop by and soak in a little history.

You can reach the Douglas County Museum of History and Art by email or phone:  info@douglascountymuseum.com, 770-949-4090

This post first appeared at Douglasville Patch on April 4, 2011.

Welcome to Douglasville

During the middle of February when we began to have more sun than snow I ventured out one Sunday afternoon to walk around downtown Douglasville and to take a few pictures of this and that.

One of the locations where I spent a few minutes snapping away was along O'Neal Plaza at the old Douglasville Banking Company space. The Georgia General Assembly chartered the bank in 1886 (see the Act here), and they moved into the Broad Street location in in 1904. Many of the city's founders were instrumental in getting the bank opened including Joseph S. James, John P. Watson, Samuel N. Dorsett, as well as John T. Duncan who was the first president of the financial institution per the walking brochure the City of Douglasville published and has available at the Welcome Center.

The building itself is a lovely example of Beaux-Arts architecture!

Many buildings erected from 1880 to 1920 exhibit Beaux-Arts influence including flat roofs, arched windows, and as the old bank building exhibits - lots of sculptural decoration.  The building is constructed of Chattanooga pressed brick with marble trimming.  Inside, the large arched windows look out on the traffic along Broad Street and the water fountain in O'Neal Plaza.

Once inside the location I couldn't take my eyes from the stamped tin ceiling, moldings, and the classic light fixtures. The tin ceiling is original to the location and more than likely it was originally painted white as it is today because tin ceilings were used as a substitute for more expensive hand-carved or molded plaster. Painting the tin white helped to give it a rich appearance folks desired at the time.

Today the Douglasville Banking Company space is home to the City of Douglasville Welcome Center and Broad Street Gifts. At first thought I know many residents in Douglas County might be quick to question the need for a visitor's center, but I think those same citizens would be most surprised to realize how many out of town visitors stop by the center every year.

Pat Smith was on duty at the center when I arrived last Friday afternoon for a second visit, and she shared the center's guest book with me. I was amazed to see entries from folks from various states and countries including Germany.

All sorts of information can be found at the center regarding Douglasville as well as other travel destinations across the state. In fact, before my next Georgia road trip I'm going to stop in and pick up some travel brochures right here in Douglasville instead of waiting to reach a rest stop.

While the gift shop is a nice touch for visitors I plan to stop in again within the next few days because I eyed quite a few things I might want.  Broad Street Gifts is the only location that I know of where post cards can be purchased with present day scenes of Douglasville and some from the past.

Before I went on my way Smith asked me if I knew about the owl.

"Owl?  What owl? I inquired.

She walked outside with me and pointed up. There it was up on the edge of the building overlooking the traffic on Broad Street.  I'm pretty sure after doing a little research the owl is up there to scare away birds and keep them from "decorating" the side of the building, but it is an interesting addition.

The Candler Building in Atlanta also follows the Beaux-Arts style. I've written about and share some pictures at one of my weblogs, Georgia on my Mind.

This post first appeared at Douglasville Patch, March 28, 2011.

Snapshots From the 50s and 60s

Note...This post contains several pictures.  Feel free to click on each one to isolate/enlarge it if you need to.

 

When I was a tween and teen in the 1970s we were in love with the 1950s. My girlfriends and I loved to look at the pictures from that time period and fell in love with the music and clothing. The long, swinging skirts, the bobby-sox and saddle oxfords, the pony tails for girls and the slicked back hair for boys seemed like great fun for us.

 

I can remember having days set aside for us at school to dress in the 50s style. The music was fun and reminded us of a time when boys and girls touched hands while they danced and girls were twirled this way and that. Our generation was so in love with the 1950s we heartily welcomed movies like American Graffiti and stage shows like Grease followed by the very popular Happy Days television show.

 

I realize now those Hollywood productions were just romanticized versions of life back then, but based on our hurried, frenzied, gadget filled lives today I think a short visit to that time is in order.

 

During the 1950s the city of Douglasville could boast a hospital, a bank, bus and rail transportation, cafes and a fairly large selection of local businesses. The county had a new water plant, a new post office and a health center.

 

Five hundred people worked out at the Glendale Mills on Highway 78 and further down the road in Lithia Springs the drive-in theater opened in October, 1952. Today, you can barely make out where the entrance to the drive-in was located.

 

Take a quick view through the pictures I offer this week. They show the city of Douglasville from 1947 through the early 1960s - a time when our city made leaps and bounds from being a place mainly centered on agriculture to an economy more in line with a modern urban Atlanta suburb.

 

Below is an advertisement for the Alpha Theater owned by Alpha A. Fowler, Sr. and later by his son, Alpha A. Fowler, Jr. The theater was located at first on Broad Street. Later it moved to the corner of Church Street and Price Avenue where O'Neal's Clothing Store was located and where some of the city government offices are located today.

 

Sources indicate, "Saturday afternoons found the Alpha packed with excited children, ready to see the 'double feature', always westerns packed with exploits of cowboys and gunmen. Then too there were the serial adventures which, weekly, took the audience from one breathless cliffhanger situation to another. To top all this off was a slapstick comedy popular with  children and grownups alike."

 

 

  Many folks would show up at the Alpha on a Saturday with a sack lunch and sit through a double-feature twice from 1 until 9:30 p.m. "Admission to the Douglasville Alpha Theater for children 12 and under cost a nickel and both ends of a margarine carton. 'Capitola' flour tokens (cardboard rounds enclosed in 48-pound bags of flour were also accepted as 'coin of the realm' for movie admission; two tokens or nine cents sufficed for hours of high entertainment.

 

After Fowler's death, his son, Alpha, Jr., ran the theater. Both Fowler, Sr. and Jr. served as legislators for Douglas County and served on the Georgia Public Service Commission.

 

The imagine below is an advertisement from the Bomar Watkins Store - when you look at the advertisement notice the phone number, and the prices for the merchandise are quite interesting.

 

 

Next is the business district along Broad Street. In the left hand corner of the picture you see a sign indicating the official bus stop for the city. Notice one of the women has an apron around her waist - a sight rarely seen today on a city sidewalk. A person commented at Patch that even many years ago a women never wore her apron on the street, and that this woman must have worked at one of the cafes along Broad Street.

Also, notice way up the hill you can see the spire of the old courthouse building that eventually burned towering over the city. In 1954, after a rest of ten years the Douglas County Courthouse clock was electrified and able to chime the hour. 1954 was also the first time women were drawn to serve as jurors. 

 In 1950, Broad Street had parking meters except for the courthouse block. They were gone by 1953 because citizens complained a great deal, and the city council heard their cries. W.S. O'Neal, Mayor of Douglasville reported in June, 1953 the city had several newly paved streets including Strickland Street and Rose Circle. He also reported the city had a new police car - one of the latest models, "geared for high speed when high speed is necessary.

 

The next image is the interior of the Economy Auto Store along Broad Street.

 

The next image is Kirkley Chevrolet where a new car could be purchased in Douglasville for $1,595!

 

Next we have images from a Fourth of July parade during the early 1960s. The United States went through rapid changes during the Sixties, and Douglas County saw rapid growth as well. The county's population began the decade hovering at 16,731, and by 1969 it ha ballooned up to 28,600. West Pines Golf Course and Hunter Park were built, and a new public library was built on Bowden Street in 1967 (where the Sentinel is located today).

 Look at the image. Notice the B & W Rexall sign. That location today is the Irish Bred Pub. Back then the B stood for "Boggs" as in Glenn Boggs and the W stood for "Warren as in Freeman Warren, the owners of the drugstore.

The image below is from the same Fourth of July parade, but the camera is looking west down Broad Street. Notice the policeman is standing at an intersection. It was the intersection of Broad Street and Price Avenue except today the intersection doesn't exist because O'Neal Plaza takes up that section of Price. I have it on good authority Boggs wasn't exactly happy about Price Avenue being closed because many of his elderly customers could navigate the parking curb alone Price better than they could the curb along Broad Street which is extremely high in certain sections including in front of the drugstore/pub location.

 

I want to thank Bob Smith of Douglasville for providing the pictures I've published along with this week's post. I also want to encourage readers to share their pictures and memories of Douglas County history. I want to know your story!!!!   Please contact me at douglascountyhistory@gmail.com.