Construction in Douglasville

This find within the "Atlanta Georgian and News" for April 14, 1908 was very welcomed by me because it gives some exact dates regarding certain town buildings.

A contract was made here Saturday with Baggett & Sebert of this place to erect four stone mercantile buildings on Broad Street to replace the frame structures that now occupy this place.

This will make eight new brick and stone mercantile buildings erected her in the past six months.

Stewart Brothers, I & J Goodinski and W.J. Stringfellow will occupy these buildings.

The location for the Stewart Brothers was still standing until just recently.  It was the Smith-Dabbs location that was torn down making a cut-through to the Plaza East walkway. During the Stewart brother's day (Dr. FM and Rader Stewart) the store took up the Smith-Dabbs location as well as the present-day Gold-N-Goodies store.  The Stringfellow location is next to the Irish Bred Pub (Selman/O'Neal Drugs), I think. W.J. Stingfellow had a barbershop in the earliest days of Douglasville, and Sanborn maps show a barbershop in that location. If it was a stone building like the Stewart Brothers' location the building was great altered at some point since it's brick today. 

The Douglasville Banking Company moved into its new marble and brick building on Broad Street and Price Avenue yesterday. The building has been completed at a cost of $7,000.

We have an exact move-in date and cost!

The Lois Cotton Mills are installing machinery in a few months this $500,000 mill will be in operation. It will be one of the largest and most modern mills in the state.

I'm thinking the $500,000 may be a typo in the paper....one too many zeroes.

Fourteen new residences have been built here in the last three months and eight or ten are in the course of  construction.

Careful What You Look For: The Millstone

I love to visit the Irish Bred Pub & Restaurant in downtown Douglasville. I like the exposed old brick inside the dining room, the tall windows at the front, and the old photographs of Douglasville as it used to be handing along the walls. The food and the fellowship are great ingredients, too!

Earlier this month I had lunch at the pub with a friend to discuss local history. It was the perfect location since the pub building itself has a long history as does the entire commercial district along Broad Street.

The day was cold and rainy, and since Broad Street was closed due to the train accident and subsequent clean up I hurried through O'Neal Plaza and into the pub without much notice of my surroundings. Had my visit to the pub been during the early 1970s or much earlier during the 1940s or even back to the 1920s, I would have seen a round item encased in the cement resembling a wheel of some sort in front of the storefront.

I would have seen a millstone, items long associated with harvest and hospitality. This particular millstone has quite a history and according to a past county historian it symbolizes the gratitude of a people for their time of great need.

The stone is actually from a mill that was located along the banks of Anneewakee Creek. 

Arnold Mill was built by pioneer Alston Arnold after he came to Georgia via South Carolina in the 1830s. He situated the mill at the mouth of Anneewakee Creek, and it later provided to be a most advantageous spot for him and for the people of Douglas County.

The mill was quite an enterprise for its day. Local historians advise the mill was three stories high and also had the capability of sawing wood as well. A small community even sprang up around the water-powered business.

During the 1880s a terrible drought lasting six months hit north Georgia including Douglas County. Many of the mills could no longer grind grain and corn because the water powering the millstones had dried up.

However, due to its position at the mouth of the creek Arnold Mill was able to put precious corn meal into the hands of hungry settlers...



THANK YOU for visiting “Every Now and Then” and reading the first few paragraphs of “Careful What You Look For: The Millstone“ which is now one of the 140 chapters in my book “Every Now and Then: The Amazing Tales of Douglas County, Volume I”. 

Visit the Amazon link by clicking the book cover below where you can explore the table of contents and read a few pages of the book…plus make a purchase if you choose!