Garrett's Views of the Piedmont Chautauqua

Students and friends alike have often asked me how I became interested in history.   Was it a special teacher?   A family friend?   Perhaps a grandparent was a history buff and ignited this flame that basically rules my life these days…….

Actually….it’s a combination of many things including…..family members sharing stories, old buildings on a family farm, books on the Civil War given to me as a child and hearing this man on local television discuss Atlanta’s rich history:
 

 

 

The man to the left is Franklin Garrett...the only official historian the city of Atlanta has known. Garrett spent 28 years as the historian of the Coca Cola Company and researched various aspects of Atlanta's history as well during that time.

His book….Atlanta and Its Environs is one of my most favorite go-to resources regarding the history of the metro area and Douglas County and Douglasville does have a mention here and there.

 

During the 1880s one of the largest events held in Douglas County and perhaps never equaled since  happened to be the Piedmont Chautauqua.   I’ve written about it before here.

 

Franklin Garrett included a section about the Chautauqua in his book mainly centering on Henry W. Grady, editor of the Constitituion and cheerleader for the New South and Marion C. Kiser, Grady’s partner in the Chautauqua.    Grady is pictured below....

 

 Mr. Garrett provides an interesting view of the Chautauqua as well as a humorous remembrance from the opening remarks of Mr. Kiser. Here's what he had to say:

During the summer of 1888,…..[Henry W. Grady…] was engrossed is plans for the Piedmont Chautauqua….

The institution of the Chautauqua had attained great popularity in the United States since 1874, when the first Chautauqua Institution was founded on the shores of Lake Chautauqua, New York, to promote the training of Sunday school teachers.  Since then some 42 other Chautauquas had been organized in various parts of the country.

 

The Piedmont Chautauqua patterned after the original, was largely the inspiration of Grady.   In March, 1888, he called a meeting to explain the movement to a group of Atlantans.

 

A plan was evolved for asking 200 citizens to subscribe $100 each toward the undertaking, after which the Piedmont Chautauqua was incorporated, with Marion C. Kiser, wealthy wholesale shoe and dry goods merchant as president, and Grady as vice president.

The site selected for the new enterprise was the little resort town on the Georgia Pacific Railroad, then known as Salt Springs, though now and for many years past it has been called Lithia Springs.   A spring-fed stream offered possibilities for an artificial lake and other attractions. 

 

Salt Springs already had one resort hotel, advertised as “the most sumptuous summer hotel in the South,” and the promoters of the Chautauqua proposed to erect two smaller hotels.  In addition, plans called for a classroom building, a restaurant accommodating one thousand persons, and a tabernacle seating seven thousand.

 

Yes….you read that right.   Seven thousand people.

 

Lots for summer cottages were staked out and offered for sale, space was provided for various outdoor sports, and the stream was dammed to provide  boating and swimming facilities.  

The Chautauqua grounds are seen in the picture below......

The Georgia Pacific promised to run special trains, making the 21-mile run from Atlanta to the grounds, three miles west of Austell, in 35 minutes.

The Chautauqua announced that it would have instructors in Bible, English, foreign languages, the natural sciences, the fine arts, physical education, and ‘every chair of a first-class university’.   The entire curriculum cost $10.  Any single department was open for a $5 fee.

 

Grady realized that the success of the Chautauqua hinged, not upon the relatively small number expected to register for classes, but upon the size of the crowds  coming out for the special attractions at night and for Sunday sermons.

 

A number of celebrities were signed up for the program.  Congressman William McKinley and Roger Q. Mills came down from Washington to give Georgians contrasting views on the tariff, then a particularly warm issue.  Dr. Talmadge delivered his lecture on “The Bright Side of Things”; and Thomas Nelson Page gave a reading of his “Unc’ Edinburg’s Drowndin’”.

There were sermons, chalk talks and scientific demonstrations by lesser personalities.   A “Hungarian orchestra” gave daily concerts, and several large bands appeared from time to time.   Four leading manufacturers of fireworks produced striking displays in competition for the “Chautauqua championship” and a $1,000 prize.

Marion C. Kiser is pictured below.....
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 4, 1888, was selected as the appropriate day upon which to open the Chautauqua grounds.  The featured event being a barbeque.   President  Kiser was slated for an address of welcome.   Successful businessman, sterling citizen and civic leader though he was, [Kiser] was no public speaker nor did he profess to be.  Born and reared on a Fulton County (old Campbell) farm, he had had limited educational advantages.   As a young man he had lived at Powder Springs, not far from Salt Springs, and had, in fact, begun his mercantile career there in a store owned by two older brothers, W.J. and M.P. Kiser [His Atlanta store was located at the corner of Pryor and Wall Streets].

Henry W. Grady, Jr., and his young friend and future [son-in-law], Eugene R. black, were ticket-takers upon the occasion of the Chautauqua opening.   Both recalled an incident in connection with President Kiser’s address of welcome.

The speech had been written out in advance by Grady, but when Kiser rose he fumbled around in his pocket without being able to find the manuscript.  Finally, he looked out upon the crowd and began hesitatingly by saying, “Right down thar is whar I used to hunt foxes.”

Not being able to think of any further extemporaneous remarks he turned to those closest to him and asked, “Whar’s Grady?”

 

The ‘Constitution’ of the next morning reported that “President Kiser’s speech was a model of good sense and good humor, well and briefly expressed.  It was just such a sensible talk as was to be expected from so sensible a man.”

 

The Chuatauqua’s largest crowd assembled on August 28 to hear the closing address by its impresario, Grady, on the subject of ‘Cranks, Croakers, and Creditors’.   The “cranks” were identified as those who started the enterprise, the “croakers” , the fault-finders who predicted failure, and the “creditors” those whose patience and cooperation enabled the Chautauqua to weather a successful season.

  The primary purpose of the Chautauqua was the diffusion of knowledge.  Grady believed so firmly in this objective he personally advanced $5,000 to complete the buildings and $2,500 towards making up a deficit on the teacher’s salaries.
 

This is the front gate of the Piedmont Chatauqua

 

Certainly the idea for the Chautauqua in Atlanta was sound, though the directors erred in locating it so far from the city - because some of the backers happened to own land there. In spite of this handicap, however, the Piedmont Chautauqua continued for many years to carry on the work Grady had started.

Garrett’s main source regarding his Piedmont Chautauqua section was Raymond Nixon’s biography of Grady titled Henry W. Grady:  Spokesman of the New South.  Garrett refers to Eugene R. Black as Grady’s brother-in-law, but other sources including an obituary state Black married Grady’s daughter.

The Sweetwater Park Hotel: Gaining Some Focus

The website WikiAnswers advises that we spend approximately six months of our entire lifetime waiting at traffic lights. 

Sitting – waiting – bored – even though there are several things you can do to pass the time.  You can return a phone call, check your e-mail, send a text, check your list of things to do, or my personal favorite…..I just sit and think.

More often than not I sit and think about my surroundings and contemplate how those places have changed over time.  It seems natural that you would try to visualize certain areas regarding how they looked fifty to one hundred years ago, and I do try and do that. I guess it’s just a symptom of researching and writing about the history of certain areas.

Some locations are fairly simple.   As I head up Broad Street from Fairburn Road towards the Old Courthouse Museum I can easily visualize the look of the town in 1940 or even back to 1900.   The buildings are basically the same, and several landmarks such as the railroad are still there.  It’s actually very easy to visualize the spires of the once grand courthouse that stood up on the ridge rising up above the various businesses along Broad Street.

Photographs of certain areas help me to visualize as well, but some areas are more difficult.   Some locations are just impossible.

Take this image of Lithia Springs…..

Sweetwater Park Hotel, Lithia Springs, Georgia

This is a well-published image of the Sweetwater Park Hotel that was located in downtown Lithia Springs at the turn of the century.    When  I sit at the red light at Veterans Memorial (Bankhead) and S. Sweetwater Road I try to visualize the hotel and how my surroundings looked back then.  

I try.   It’s hard.   The Sweetwater Park Hotel was located just southwest of the intersection of Veterans Memorial and S. Sweetwater covering many acres where there are now residential areas.   It’s amazing to think such a complex of buildings and beautiful grounds were ever located there, but it did exist.

The Sweetwater Park Hotel was trendy for the times.   It was the place to be and be seen.   Mark Twain, members of the Vanderbilt family, and Presidents Cleveland, Taft, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt all enjoyed the many amenities of the resort which included rooms with electricity and individuals baths, wide verandahs, excellent meals with European wines, and a train schedule that allowed guests to visit Atlanta for shopping or matinees and be back at the hotel by bedtime.

While the pictures aren’t helpful to me I have found some written descriptions that do lend assistance in allowing me to appreciate the beauty of this long departed landmark for Lithia Springs.   I happened upon a few letters written by Madison J. Cawein while he stayed at the hotel during May, 1902.

Madison J. Cawein was from Louisville, Kentucky.   During his career he published 36 books and wrote over 1500 poems.  His efforts earned him the nickname “the Keats of Kentucky.”   He is touted as having a lyrical way of describing nature and after reading his descriptions of the hotel grounds and surrounding areas I would have to agree.

Madison J. Cawein at his desk

Cawein, like many visitors to the Sweetwater Park Hotel, was in poor health and was hoping the famous Lithia waters would cure him.  Cawein wasn’t alone.   During the late 1800s and into the turn of the century hundreds of people visited the hotel for health reasons as well as for recreation.  

On May 8, 1902 Cawein described the hotel and surrounds in a letter to his friend, Lucien V. Rule.  Rule was an author and Presbyterian minister.   Cawein wrote:

…It is very picturesque and romantic around Lithia Springs, whose waters are doing me a great deal of good, I think.  I am also taking the baths…..

The woods here are overgrown with wild flowers; wild honeysuckle, wild phlox and calcanthus; and ferns! – in masses, sometimes above your waist.

The brook bubbles over beds of crystal, honestly and virtually speaking, - not figuratively, - for everywhere , in the fields, on the roads, in the woods and scattered boulders and pebbles and pieces of sparkling white spar, which is crystal of some sort.  I have seen lots of it and the creeks ripple and babble musically over it.

Near the [Sweetwater Park Hotel] is a place going absolutely to ruin now; in its time it was the Chautauqua, where revivals were held, meetings of all sort, for pleasure, religion and politics.  Vast buildings, built in a forest, ….and of fantastic yet beautiful architecture of the Moorish order, with towers and turrets and loggias; also a large amphitheater capable of seating thousands are slowly moulding to decay here.   What was once an artificial lake, covering several acres, is now merely a frog-pond filled with mud and weeds in whose center an old boat is slowing rotting.

Piedmont Chatauqua Grounds, Lithia Springs, Georgia

….in one spot there is a mound some twenty to thirty feet high up [which all around winds a road].  The road is scarcely discernible now, for the entire mound is overgrown with tame honey-suckle vines, commencing to bloom, and forms a fragrant tombstone for the dead-body of the old place lying mouldering there.  I love to climb to the top of this green and fragrant monument and stand there and watch the sunset in the west, and listen to the wind in the pines that seems mourning something lost and never to be found again – Never! Never!

It is a lovely place, altogether, this hotel, with its charming people and its beautiful grounds filled with flowers and trees, the holly, the roses and fountains, syringe bushes and mountain laurel in full bloom and over it all the blue sky of Georgia vibrating with the melody of birds, the mocking bird and the thrush, whose note is the sweetest I ever heard.

The grand Piedmont Chatauqua was held in 1888, and I wrote about it here.  I find it rather sad that just a few years later the buildings were abandoned as Mr. Cawein reports in his letter.

The next day Cawein wrote Miss Jenny Loring Robbins.  Ms. Robins lived in Louisville at one point she was the guiding force behind Louisville, Kentucky’s Speed Art Museum, a museum begun by her aunt.

Mr. Cawein wrote:

…I am falling more and more in love with the hotel, its grounds, and the people in and around them, to say nothing of the woods and the waters, the latter of which  I am drinking with much gusto and, I hope, benefit.

I have found a number of old mills here – all dilapidated or going to ruin; one a total ruin.   One on Austell Run is supposed to be still in operation, but I have been there twice and neither time have I seen a soul.  On the Sweetwater Creek, six miles from here, I found an old grist-mill, below a rushing and roaring dam.  It is a great gaunt thing of frame, weather-beaten and old, but still in operation.

A half-mile below it, under a wild hill-side, on which the dogwood was blooming in profusion, together with the wild honey-suckle, the other mill, built of rock and brick, towers five stories high.  It was burned by General Sherman during the war and stands a sad relic of that time.  It was a cotton mill, and the workers in it lived on the hillside in their cottages, but their homes were burned also and not a vestige of them is left.

Only the ruin – here is a wilderness of trees, great trees, grown up in its gaunt interior, crowding its crumbling walls, and the wild vines and creepers trailing over and covering its rocks and bricks – stands pathetically looking out upon the tumbling waters beneath and the projecting pines around.

The creek, wooded on both sides, foams and roars past it, over huge rocks and boulders, upon which it stares with its one mighty arch of stone, in which the mill-wheel once rushed and sounded and its empty windows like hollow eyes in the face of death.

An apt description of the New Manchester Mill ruins, don’t you think?

On May 11, 1902 in a letter to James Whitcomb Riley Cawein wrote:

Your note did me lots of good, coming just in the nick of time when Mr. [Robert W.] Geiger was visiting me at Sweetwater.  He and the rest of the literary clan, Harris and Stanton [Evelyn Harris and Frank L Stanton who called on Cawein] want you to come down here.

Well, here I am and delighted am I with the hotel and everybody in it.  But I can’t say that am getting well rapidly….I am not much better for all the water I drink and all the baths I take.  And so, about Friday or Saturday next will find me wending my weary way home again to commence the nauseating round of medicine taking once more.  I don’t know where it’s going to end.  Nothing seems to benefit me.  Things that benefit, that cure, other people don’t have any effect on me.

…will  probably see Joel Harris Wednesday.  He is still ailing, but sends me word he wants to see me.

At this point I think it’s necessary to identify the folks Cawein mentions.   I’m almost certain Geiger is a railroad executive who happened to live in Atlanta at the time.   Evelyn Harris is the son of Joel Chandler Harris who we remember as “Uncle Remus”, and Frank L. Stanton was a columnist for the Atlanta Constitution and was a famous American lyricist. During the 1920s he would serve as Georgia’s poet laureate.

James Whitcomb Riley, who the letter was addressed to, was also a very famous writer and poet and was very popular with children.

James Whitcomb Riley and Joel Chandler Harris

Eight days later on May 19, 1902 Cawein writes again to James Whitcomb Riley saying:

I saw Uncle Remus [in Atlanta] last week and enjoyed an hour-or-so talk with him at his beautiful home in the West End.   Stanton was with me, also Evelyn Harris [son of Joel Chandler Harris].   Joel Chandler Harris looks poorly.  He is still a very sick man.  I am sorry to say.   Mr. Geiger and Stanton were out to see me last Saturday, stayed to supper and we had quite a walk and considerable talk.  I am returning home today.   Shall go to Atlanta as the guest of Mr. Geiger for a day or so, then home once more.

 

My condition is about the same as it was when I came here.  However, I have enjoyed myself greatly wandering around the country and setting on the verandah or under the trees meeting people or watching the roses bloom.

My English volume of “Kentucky Poems”, with an introduction by Edmund Grosse, will be out sometime next month, I think, so look out for a copy; I am going to fire one at your kindly countenance.

Joel Chandler Harris’s “beautiful home in the West End of Atlanta” is of course The Wren's Nest.

Though Madison J. Cawein earned about $100 a month from his writing, a comfortable sum at the turn of the century, poor investments and the Stock Market downturn in 1912 led to most of his savings simply evaporating away.

Over the next five years Cowein’s health worsened, and he died on December 8, 1914.

At the time of his death in 1914, Cawein had been placed on the relief list with the Authors Club of New York City.

I’m grateful his letters survive giving us a little insight into how wonderful the Sweetwater Park Hotel was for folks to visit!

I found Cowein’s letters published in a biography published after his death by Otto Arthur Rothert titled  The Story of Madison Cawein:  His Intimate Life as Revealed by His Letters…found here.

Chatauqua Grounds - Site of the Barbecue Fiasco

I woke up Saturday morning with history on my mind - Lithia Springs history to be exact. I realize there is more than enough history in Douglasville proper to keep me on topic for quite some time with this column, but a factoid I had uncovered  during my research had pushed my interest button. The item I had come across advised during the summer of 1888 close to 30,000 people were pouring into Douglas County  from Atlanta and from points unknown via the railroad.

Think about that for a moment because 30,000 people were a large group coming in and out of our county every day with a purpose other than aiming to take up permanent residence.

30,000.

Daily.

Wow! Was Douglas County hosting the Olympics?

Well, it was something similar for the time period. They were here for the Piedmont Chautauqua.

Now when I first began my general research a few weeks ago I kept running across the word "Chautauqua" and figured it had something to do with Native Americans because the texts would refer to the Chautauqua Grounds. I assumed the texts were referring to hunting grounds or fighting grounds between the Cherokees and Creeks. Once resource I accessed had to do with Camp Hobson. I wrote about it here. The source stated: The Chautauqua grounds were about 1 1/4 miles west of the springs after which the town was named. This is approximately the intersection of Bankhead Highway and Baker Drive. The Chautauqua Grounds were west of Marsh Avenue.

Have you ever heard the old adage about assuming? I was wrong.

The Chautauqua had nothing to do with Native Americans or fighting. The purpose was education on a grand scale.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries people were hungry for cultural and educational opportunities. The Chautauqua caught on because the events included a mixture of instruction with play. Take the atmosphere of the fair and mix in speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers and preachers for a period lasting three to seven days mix it in with a few fireworks and you get the idea.

It's so easy today for us to hop on the Internet and visit the website for the Smithsonian or the National Gallery of Art. We can hop in the car and travel to Atlanta to see Cirque de Soleil at Atlantic Station or see a Broadway show at the Fox Theater. Here in Douglasville we have the Cultural Arts Center and the Old Courthouse Museum.  We can learn anything we want by accessing it on the Internet including college courses or by purchasing software.

For folks who lived in rural America there just wasn't an opportunity for them until the Chautauqua movement took hold across our country. The main focus was education for adults. The first Chautauqua was organized by a Methodist minister in 1874 in upstate New York as a way to provide educational training for Sunday school teachers. Other enterprising people latched onto his idea because he mixed in an outdoor setting as his venue, and put a new twist on learning. He made it fun.

The idea was copied over and over as daughter Chautauquas sprang up all over the United States. Each Chautauqua lasted for three to seven days, and each day a different headliner would perform or speak. A whole industry sprang up around the Chautauquas in order to provide the entertainment and speakers for such events similar to today's talent agencies or speaker's bureaus. President Theodore Roosevelt said, "The most American thing in America was the Chautauqua."

Several years later during World War I, President Woodrow Wilson advised the Chautauqua was "an integral part of national defense." The Chautauqua movement had its heyday in the 1920s and had tapered off by the late 1940s with the widespread use of radio and with television soon hitting the scene.

The Piedmont Chautauqua held in Lithia Springs, Georgia was the brainchild of Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and promoter of the New South following Reconstruction. Some Chautauquas across the county were on a circuit. They would breeze into small towns, set up tents, educate and entertain the people and then move on to the next town. Grady wanted the Piedmont Chautauqua to be different. He wanted it large and lavish. He wanted it permanent. He even wanted people to be able to buy or rent cottages on the grounds, so a few would have a permanent Chautauqua lodging spot though there were several large hotels in the area. I have been told that the streets behind today’s Wyatt Pharmacy in downtown Lithia Springs–Marsh Avenue, Miller Way and Kiser Avenue –are all streets that led to the area where lots were sold for cottages.

Grady chose the location of Salt Springs, Georgia because it had railroad access, it wasn’t too far from Atlanta, and the area was already established as a resort town with the magnificent Sweetwater Park Hotel. You can view the magnificent structure here or here.

It’s amazing to think such a place was right here in Douglas County–in little Lithia Springs–being visited by the likes of Presidents McKinley, Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. Members of the Astor, Vanderbilt, and Whitney families visited the hotel for the curative waters and spa treatments. They would travel in their own rail cars and then use the hotel's dummy line to reach the springs.

The Sweetwater Park Hotel property was the perfect spot for Henry W. Grady’s Chautauqua plans because if his “New South” ideals. Douglasville was a fine example of a postbellum “New South” town leaving old ways behind and attempting to embrace industry and commercial business.  Douglasville’s businessmen, professionals and politicians all adhered to Grady’s “New South” ideals.

Henry W. Grady was already friends with several of the movers and shakers in Douglasville and worked with them directly to get the project off the ground including Thomas R. Whitley, John B. Duncan, and Charles O. Peavey (see article here), editor of the Weekly Star, Douglasville’s newspaper at the time.   Joseph S. James, Douglasville’s first mayor among many other positions he held over his lifetime, was an investor along with Grady’s partner, Marion C. Kiser, a Fulton County Commissioner. Grady hired an architect and landscaper–L.B. Wheeler and Joseph Forsyth Johnston respectively–to get busy designing and building the Chautauqua grounds.

Take a look at what they came up with here.   What a wonderful structure for education and entertainment and right here in Douglas County!  The Lithia water site advises:The  Chautauqua buildings were built after the Moorish style, with plain wings and towers and minarets clustering to the center.  The Tabernacle seated seven thousand people and was located in an immense grove with exquisite gardens and lawns, rose mounds, and a reflecting lake.

In the days leading up the Piedmont Chautauqua the papers heightened anticipation regarding the Chautauqua by giving a daily progress update. Fannie Mae Davis recounted in her book, Douglas County, Georgia: from Indian Trail to I-20, a June 15 headline read, “ONLY 25,032 MINUTES REMAINING INCLUDING NIGHTS.” To celebrate some of the progress made by the end of June Chautauqua organizers decided to sell tickets to a barbeque meal where the proceeds would benefit the Confederate Veterans Home. The event was advertised far and wide and even made the Atlanta paper. The food was prepared including 30 kids, 10 young calves, 12 sheep, 300 pounds of butter, 50 dozen lemons, 200 ears of corn and 20 bushels of tomatoes. What the promoters didn’t anticipate was the timing it took to have that amount of food cooked when people showed up. They also forgot  the fence surrounding the grounds had not been finished.  It was estimated approximately 3,000 non-ticket holders managed to get on the grounds. Chaos ensued when there wasn’t enough food to serve everyone. The newspapers advised the Piedmont Chautauqua had its first and its last barbeque!

The barbeque fiasco was just a little set back. The Piedmont Chautauqua opened in fine style.  The Lithia Springs Mineral Water site advises:  [Henry W. Grady] went to great lengths to secure twenty-one eminent professors from such schools as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, John Hopkins, Vanderbilt, and the University of Virginia. The Summer College offered courses in English Language and Literature, German Language and Literature, French Language and Literature, …Latin and Greek, Physics, Botany, Chemistry, History and Pedagogies, New Testament, Arabic, Assyrian, and Hebrew Language and Literature.  The Assembly Schools included Physical Culture, Decorative Arts, Fine Arts, Elocution and Music.  In keeping with the Chautauqua program, a two-day program offered “Sunday school days” for workers and children.

Grady had intended to hire several well known writers of the time including Atlanta’s own Joel Chandler Harris aka Uncle Remus to perform readings of their works at the Chautauqua, but from a list of six famous authors he was only able to secure one–Thomas Nelson Page. The Atlanta Constitution for August 2, 1888 stated: Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, the famous southern author, arrived in Atlanta yesterday morning.  He spent the day in visiting points of interest about the city with Mr. Clarence Knowles [an Atlanta politician], and last evening went to Chautauqua.  Tonight he will give readings from his works. Page ended up reading from his "Unc' Edinburg's Drowndin" to the delight of those in attendance.

The Lithia Springs Water site further advises:  The Piedmont Chautauqua formally opened on Sunday, July 8, 1888, with sermons by three famous preachers and an illumination by ten thousand colored lights.The Eighth Calvary Regiment Band of the Republic of Mexico, proved to be such a sensation, the trains from Atlanta to the Chautauqua were packed at every scheduled run. After a rendition of “Dixie and the Star Spangled Banner” at each performance, the Band received “vociferous applause.”
Indeed, Grady’s Chautauqua had exceeded all expectations.

Sadly, Henry W. Grady would be dead with the year, but his grand Piedmont Chautauqua lives on in the history books even if the grand hotel and magnificent Chautauqua buildings are a distant Douglas County memory.