Rome Area History Museum - Legendary Locals of Rome

LEGENDARY LOCALS

OF

ROME

GEORGIA

Downtown in 1856
This sketch was made from Myrtle Hill, showing the fast-growing town in its infancy. It was included in Ballous Pictorial Drawing Room Companion on November 1, 1856. Its detail is very accurate. (Courtesy of the Rome Area History Museum.)

: Broad Street in 1890
This 1890 photograph looks south from the corner of Third Avenue and Broad Street. After over 100 years, this part of Broad still looks much like it did back then. (Courtesy of the Rome Area History Museum.)

LEGENDARY LOCALS

OF

ROME

GEORGIA

ROME AREA HISTORY MUSEUM
Russell McClanahan, Editor

Copyright 2014 by Rome Area History Museum
ISBN 978-1-4671-0171-4
Ebook ISBN 9781439648674

Legendary Locals is an imprint of Arcadia Publishing
Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934524

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Dedication

To Nim Russell and George Pullen, two living legends of Rome who sadly and suddenly left us too soon in 2014

On the Cover: Clockwise from top left:
Predetha Thomas, pioneer educator, with pupils (Courtesy Wyatt Collection; see ).

On the Back Cover: From left to right:
Mary T. Banks, with her pupils (Courtesy Wyatt Collection; see ).

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Rome Area History Museum would like to thank all the past and present local historians, such as George M. Battey, Roger Aycock, John L. Harris, Johnny E. Davis, Mike Ragland, Morrell Darko, Selena Tilley, Shirley Kinney, Pat Millican, and Ann Culpepper, to name only a few. This book would not have been possible without the help of the Rome News-Tribune and its predecessors. Special thanks to the Mooney family for permission to use articles and images from the Rome News-Tribune. The Wyatt family has provided the foundation of the museums collection with their generous donation of the former McClellans store building to house the museum. The anchor of our present archives is the C.J. Wyatt Collection, consisting of photographs and documents that Dr. Wyatt collected over a period of 80 years or more.

Thanks to the board members, especially Hank Adams, who serves as our chairman for 2014, and to the museum founders, C.J. Wyatt, Bobby and Tere McElwee, John Carruth, Ed Byars, and David Oswalt. We thank the many volunteers who have helped with the museum and this book, including Johnny Davis, Dennis Nordeman, and Nancy Smith. Thanks to Joe Smith, Rome city clerk, and Phil Hart, Floyd County court administrator, for providing facts and for their willingness to help. We are grateful for Janet Byingtons indomitable spirit in getting things done, and to those who have generously come through during difficult financial times, especially Bernard Neal and Gardner Wright.

There are at least two organizations in Rome that already honor Romes legends: Redmond Hospitals Heart of the Community organization recognizes those who have given unselfishly back to our community, and the Rome-Floyd Sports Hall of Fame recognizes outstanding athletes in our area. We are grateful to both of these fine organizations for allowing us to use their archives in the printing of this book. Special thanks to Tommy Tatum for his support in editing and doing the table of contents and index. Thanks to Leigh Barba and Donna Shaw, who keep the museum running, and especially to my wife, Stephanie, and children Rhiannon, Trace, Billie Ann, and Rebecca Jane for their support and patience in the writing of this book.

All images appear courtesy of the Rome Area History Museum unless noted as follows: the Rome News-Tribune (RN-T), George Magruder Batteys History of Rome and Floyd County (GMB), and the Rome-Floyd Sports Hall of Fame (RFSHF).

The author is grateful to all prior historians of Rome and Floyd County whose works serve as a foundation for this volume, including George Magruder Battey, Roger Aycock, Lavada Dillard, Frank Barron Jr., Morrell Darko, Jerry Desmond, Dr. C.J. Wyatt, and writers for the Rome News-Tribune.

INTRODUCTION

For over 8,000 years, the juncture of three rivers has felt the footsteps of mankind, and for only a short period is there an historic record for this area. That record began in 1540, when Hernando DeSoto brought his band of over 600 through this region, wreaking havoc with the locals and leaving disease and confusion in his wake. Fortunately, he had several scribes with him who wrote down for future generations the first historical record of this area. Who knows what legends of mankind preceded him here? What heroic feats of mankind or acts of self-sacrifice occurred on or near the riverbanks of what is now our home? And, truly, this is our home, the people whose families who have been here for generations, who have just recently arrived to make a life here, or folks just passing through who are mesmerized by the beauty of the hills and the rivers. These people make Rome what it is: home.

According to Calder Willingham in Eternal Fire, In this peaceful land, pretty birds sing and the woodbine twines. Violets and forget-me-nots bloom in the meadow. The wind is soft as a babys smile, and as warm and gentle as mother love. Only an occasional random tornado moils the scene and disrupts nature. True, the summer sun is a fiery furnace; it boils the blood, cooks the brain, and spreads a fever in the bones. But that same fearful orb, in collaboration with the sweet rain generated by its power, makes the little flowers grow.

Illuminating Spanish moss and great-armed oaks, dawn burst across the golden isles off the southern coast of Georgia and poured like a rosy tide toward the fair uplifted bosom of Dixieland; over the sandy barrens and past the rolling Piedmont toward proud Atlanta, and on beyond, flashing gold light into the red and green hills. Nestled in those slopes lay a patch of jewels at the juncture of two rivers, sprinkled on the earth by a mighty hand. The blue mountains in the distance, serene for ten thousand centuries, looked down through drifting white clouds upon the power of creation.

Thus, we arrive in Rome. Under the microscope of time, we have only been in Rome for a minuscule second, from the time in 1834 when five men dropped names in a hat to determine the name of the settlement they had decided to build at the juncture of these three rivers. No one knows how long the names of the Oostanaula or Etowah have followed these rivers; they are prehistoric names that came with the Native Americans who once lived on them. Since prehistoric times, before the founding of Rome, where the rivers meet was known as the Head of Coosa, as this is where the Coosa River begins its journey to the sea, later to be joined by the Tallapoosa to form the Alabama River on its journey to the ocean at Mobile Bay.

But for the luck of the draw, we may have been Hillsboro, Pittsburg, Warsaw, or even Hamburg. The name drawn from the hat was Rome, chosen by founder Daniel Mitchell, for the seven hills that surround the site. And that is where our story begins.