Bandy Heritage Center For Northwest Georgia

Looking to do something fun ahead of tonight’s Halloween festivities? Head up to the 6th Cavalry Museum for WWI Living History Day, starting at 10AM! See below for details:

It's #ThrowbackThursday at the Bandy Heritage Center, and we hope everyone is safe after Zeta barreled through our region in the early hours this morning. This is the last Throwback Thursday post before the 2020 Election takes place next Tuesday--to suit the event, today's featured document is an October 1888 handout listing the Republican candidates for President and Vice President, Benjamin Harrison and Levi Morton, along with the Republican electors for the state of Georgi...a, listed by district. Daltonian Jesse A. Glenn served as the Republican elector from our district, referred to in the Atlanta Constitution as "the bloody 7th." The original owner of this elector list appears to have broken with the Republican ticket on the issue of the 9th district Congressional Representative, however, by writing in "T. Pickett" (for independent candidate Rev. Thaddeus Pickett) instead of the Republican candidate put forth for that office, U.S. District Attorney Sion A. Darnell. Neither man won--Democrat Judson Clements was reelected instead. Pictured: Republican presidential candidates and state electors for Georgia, with Thaddeus Pickett's name handwritten in as candidate for the 9th District Representative in the 51st Congress, October 1888. David Stevenson Collection, Bandy Heritage Center Archives.

Congratulations to longtime Murray County educator and historian Tim Howard on his well-deserved receipt of a 2020 lifetime achievement award from the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC)! Tim’s contributions to the cause of preserving and sharing Northwest Georgia history are as varied as they are significant. He is truly an institution in Northwest Georgia history, and we’re thrilled to see his work recognized!

Check out this AJC article about high school students’ responses to how they’ll remember the pandemic in their yearbooks and school annuals. The Bandy Heritage Center continues to accept photos, documents, objects, and other items evocative of Northwest Georgia’s experience of the pandemic for our 2020 Collection. To arrange a donation or to inquire about the suitability of a contribution, please send us a message!

It's #ThrowbackThursday at the Bandy Heritage Center! It's mid-October, and that means it's time for the North Georgia Ag Fair! The latest we've heard is that the 2020 fair is still on as scheduled and begins tonight, but will have no indoor components (no livestock displays, etc). They'll still have rides/attractions and food, though. Today's featured document takes us back to the 1913 Whitfield County Fair, of which B.R. Bowen (of Bowen Brothers Concrete & Groceries) was a ...member. Pictured: B.R. Bowen's membership ticket to the 1913 Whitfield County Fair. Bowen Brothers Collection, Bandy Heritage Center archives. #tbt #countyfair #whitfieldcounty #daltonga #bandyheritagecenter

#OnThisDay in 1832, the state government of Georgia began the Cherokee land lottery. Consider the timeline into which this historic event entered. In 1828, gold was discovered in the mountains of North Georgia near Dahlonega. Two years later, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which provided for the exchange of land between the Federal government and indigenous nations, and for the costs of transporting indigenous communities who accepted offers of land voluntarily.... Notably, the Indian Removal Act did not authorize the Federal government to forcibly remove indigenous communities. Several members of the Cherokee Nation filed lawsuits, the most historic of which was the 1832 decision in Worcester v. Georgia, decided in favor of the Cherokee plaintiffs and in which Chief Justice John Marshall wrote "The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this Nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States." Jackson ignored the Supreme Court decision, which ignited nationwide outrage. He pushed for the negotiation of the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, which demanded the Cherokee people of Georgia vacate their lands within two years. The treaty splintered solidarity within the Cherokee Nation, with some assenting to relocation and others resisting. Between 1837 and 1839, some 16,000 Cherokees and 2,000 enslaved people of African descent were forcibly removed to lands west of the Mississippi River on a years-long series of death marches now called the Trail of Tears. From the discovery of gold to the forced removal of the remaining Cherokees, all these events fell in a span of one decade. The fever of American expansion for land and gold was intense, and legal documents like this land-lottery deed provided a veneer of legality and authenticity to authorize violations of Supreme Court rulings regarding the Constitutional powers of the Federal government.

Watching the 2020 World Series between two baseball teams that aren’t our Atlanta Braves? The teams might not be from Georgia, but the playing surface is from right here in Dalton! Check out the article below about the playing surface at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX, provided by Shaw Sports Turf!

At two in the morning on Sunday, October 23, 1892, a masked mob of 150 White men with torches stormed into the town of Dalton, the Whitfield County seat of 4,000 tucked in the foothills of the northwest Georgia mountains. They extinguished streetlights, fired guns into the air, and forced local law enforcement at gunpoint to lead them to the tenement home of two Black families. They broke down the door, shot and killed one resident, Jack Wilson, beat his wife, and whipped an...other man in front of the house. Then, as quickly as they entered, they rode off eastward into the night. Spurred by the sight of five local names during a moving visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Dalton native Sam Rauschenberg began looking back into his own community’s past of racist violence. What he discovered was a community separated by time from the one in which he grew up, but motivated by political and economic realities that appear all too familiar. Click through to read his full article at Medium below:

It's #ThrowbackThursday at the Bandy Heritage Center! What a difference thirty years can make--last week's #tbt photo featured the 1927 students of City Park School, and today's photo comes from Fort Hill School in 1957. That year, the Tufted Textile Manufacturers Association (TTMA) sponsored a school fair titled "Learning About Tufted Textiles Together," in which children from local schools displayed exhibits about various elements of the chenille tufting and nascent carpet... industries. The fair took place in the gymnasium at Fort Hill School--a location that will be unmistakable to many Daltonians who attended there. School bands and choruses performed as well, including the City Park Tonettes. Photo: "Learning About Tufted Textiles Together" exhibits on display in the Fort Hill School gymnasium and attendees listening to a performance of a local school chorus onstage, c.1957. Bandy Heritage Center photograph archives. #daltonga #daltonpublicschools #carpet #chenille #bandyheritagecenter

On #indigenouspeoplesday, the Bandy Heritage Center remembers that the land we all call home was not our own, and that our claims to Northwest Georgia Heritage must include the Cherokee Nation and the peoples who called this land home before them. Today and every day, we honor the work of Mrs. Dicksie Bandy, who worked tirelessly to ensure that Northwest Georgia’s Cherokee inhabitants, and the cruelty of their forced removal, are not forgotten.

It's #ThrowbackThursday at the Bandy Heritage Center! Today's featured image from the Bandy Center archives takes us back to the original City Park School, located on the southwest corner of Thornton Avenue and Waugh Street. This photo belonged to the family of Miss Annie Sue Reynolds, who's seated in the center of the front row and marked with a check. Annie Sue's father, Jasper Newton Reynolds, operated a grocery store and gas station a few blocks north of City Park, near... the intersection of Thornton and Tyler Street. Reynolds and his wife Minnie also operated the Busy Bee Cafe, located a couple of doors north of Cannon's at 26 N. Hamilton Street. Help us preserve Northwest Georgia history! Contact us today to arrange a donation or with any questions about the Bandy Center's archival preservation work. Photo: Students and their teacher gathered on the steps of City Park School, Dalton, GA, 1927. Bandy Heritage Center photograph archives. #tbt #DaltonGA #CITYPARKSCHOOL #bandyheritagecenter

The Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia mourns the passing of Richard Starbuck, archivist at the Moravian Archives. As Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. writes below, Starbuck's translations of Moravian mission writings illuminated the intersection of Cherokee life and culture and Moravian missionary activity among the Cherokee. His contribution to our understanding of Cherokee history in the mission era is incomparable, and he will be missed even as his work proves to be a cornerstone for generations to come.

This may sound hyperbolic, but it’s true: future historians will look to spans of just a few minutes or days in 2020our 2020to understand their own worlds. What records will they consult? How will they know what our lives were like? How has 2020 has changed your world, your family, your health, your job, your kids’ school, or other parts of your life? Consider donating materials that tell those stories to the Bandy Center’s 2020 Collection. Your story matter, and historians decades from now will seek it out. What will they find in the archives? To arrange a donation or for more information about the Center’s work collecting and preserving Northwest Georgia history, message us here on Facebook or by email at [email protected].

It’s #ThrowbackThursday at the Bandy Heritage Center! Today’s photograph takes us to Fort Oglethorpe and features nineteen-year-old Pvt. George Edward Buxton Ed York [right], the second son of famed World War I hero and Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Alvin York and the first York son to enter the Army. Gary Cooper received the 1941 Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Alvin York’s heroism in that year’s highest-grossing film, _Sergeant York_, and Ed’s 1943 call-...up to military service was a newsworthy occasion. I won’t say I can shoot as good as my dad, Pvt. York told Lieutenant Colonel (and commanding officer of the Fort Oglethorpe Reception Center) William A. Schlitter [left], but I can handle a gun. Photo: Pvt. George Edward Buxton Ed York examines what appears to be a Winchester M12 shotgun as Lieutenant Colonel William Schlitter looks on outside the Fort Oglethorpe Reception Center, May 22, 1943. Bandy Heritage Center photograph archives, Fort Oglethorpe Collection. #tbt #FortOglethorpe #medalofhonor #bandyheritagecenter #NWGAhistory

It's #ThrowbackThursday at the Bandy Heritage Center! Today's photo takes us over to the Chattooga County community of Menlo. This is one of several photographs taken in the community between 1906 and 1908 and mailed from a woman named "Maggie" (last name unknown) to her cousin, Miss Ethel Agnew, in Chattanooga. Maggie's note accompanying the photo, dated August 11, 1908, reads: "I send you a card of Lee & all the little boys in town on the 'Thruster' & I marked Lee. I hope ...you are better. I received your Mama's letter today. She must write us every day. Your cousin, Maggie." Photograph: Boys and and young men standing on and around a 1906 Aultman & Taylor steam traction engine, Menlo, GA, August 11, 1908. Bandy Heritage Center photograph archives. #tbt #bandyheritagecenter #antiquetractor #MenloGA #chattoogacounty #steampowered