21 June 1901: Paving Milledge Avenue

On this day in 1901, the Athens Banner reported that paving of Milledge Avenue would happen that summer, after delays of wet weather and a city full of alumni, friends, and family of graduates from the many schools in the Athens area.

MILLEDGE PAVING BEGINS MONDAY.

The Work Will be Pushed Rapidly to an Early Completion.

     The city authorities were unable, after all, to begin the paving of Milledge avenue before the commencement season.     First, the continued rains some time before prevented the beginning of the work, and when it became dry enough to start work, it was decided that inasmuch as it was so close to the commencencements, that the work be postponed until the visitors had left Athens.     Work will be started on Milledge avenue by the city next Monday morning. There is not much time left to complete the work by next winter, but the paving will be rushed as much as possible. A large force of hands will go to work at that time.

--Athens Daily Banner, 21 June 1901, p. 3, col. 5.

The work was scheduled to begin on Monday, June 24th, during a heat wave of two days that the Banner reported "brought most forcibly to mind the tales that Rudyard Kipling relas of the heat in India." Both days reached into the 90s by noon, until a strong overnight thunderstorm calmed the heat. 


This was the initial paving of Milledge, and was not completed until November. Rather than the more industrial block paving used downtown, Milledge was macadamized,  which means layers of broken stone were spread across the leveled road surface, then sealed with a binder. It was much cheaper to pave with this system, and repairs were not as expensive, as well. 


The entire length of the street was not paved, but the paper still declared it "one of the prettiest streets in the South." It was repaved in 1906, with the Athens Electric & Railway Company paying for part of the work, as they laid rail to Lumpkin Street. The costs were split between the city, the railway company, and the property owners. 


By 1914, Milledge was paved from Hill Street to Henderson Avenue. Two years later, 75 property owners petitioned to have the street paved from Springdale to Lumpkin. It was only paved to Woodlawn Avenue, so the following year, after complaints from residents about a Milledge Avenue that was "ankle deep in mud for the past three or four weeks," the city finally paved the road two blocks past Lumpkin Street. The longer paving was likely due to the new residences that had started to develop in the Five Points area on University Drive.


By 1923, Athens had spent nearly $1 million to have 105 miles of paved streets, and spent approximately $100,000.00 per year in maintenance and improvements. More than 50 miles of these streets had sidewalks, such as the brick ones recently restored along Hancock Street.




Learn More: 

• Athens Daily Banner, Feb. 1901 - Oct. 1901 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection in the Digital Library of Georgia.
• A Postcard History of Athens, Georgia by Gary L. Doster in the Heritage and general collections.
• History of Athens and Clarke County, Georgia by H. J. Rowe in the Heritage and general collections.
• Minutes of the Mayor and Council of the City of Athens, Georgia on Microfilm in the Heritage collection. 
• A Place to Remember: Using History to Build Community by Robert R. Archibald in the general collection.
• Asphalt Nation by Jane Holtz Kay in the general collection.
• The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift in the New Books collection.
• Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling in the fiction collection.
• The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling in the fiction collection.

26 January 1890: "Athens Beats Atlanta."

On this day in 1890, the Athens Daily Banner ran this retort to those in Atlanta who claimed they had the best gentleman gardener in Georgia:

ATHENS BEATS ATLANTA.
And Mr. E.K. Lumpkin Leads the State with Fine Vegetables.

The Atlanta papers have been crowing quite considerably lately about an Atlanta garden that has contrary to the laws of great nature, brought forth in midwinter luxuriant turnip, lettuce and onions.

Athens, however, has shown up far ahead of the Gate City in this line, and Mr. E.K. Lumpkin walks off with the palm and championship of the State. From his private garden he has sent yesterday to the BANNER office an immense waiter fraught with fine vegetables of a most superior quality and almost endless variety. The waiter contained cabbage, carrots, parsnips, salsify, turnips, kale, endive, fresh Irish potatoes, celery, onions, leeks and beets, all of which are fresh from the soil, and which has attained a most luxurant [sic] maturity. Such vegetables are rarely seen even in early summer when nature is at her best.

Mr. Lumpkin, besides being one of Georgia's ablest and most gifted lawyers is among the most successful gardeners and is thoroughly posted on all phases of this pursuit. Moreover, there is not a more genial gentleman to be found than Mr. Lumpkin.

Athens Daily Banner, p. 8, col. 4.

Edwin King Lumpkin and his wife, Mary Bryan Thomas Lumpkin were both avid gardeners. The weather was unseasonably warm in Georgia in January, 1890, which likely explains the luck gardeners in both cities had that month.

The following January, Mrs. Lumpkin would start the nation's first Ladies' Garden Club, meeting at her home on Prince Avenue, where Mr. Lumpkin's vegetables "of a most superior quality and almost endless variety" were grown.

Learn More:

• Athens Weekly Banner, Jan. 1890 - Dec. 1890 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Daily Banner, 26 January 1890, in the Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection of the Digital Library of Georgia.
• Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia, Volume I by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• Historic Houses of Athens by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• Ladies' Garden Club, Athens, Georgia, Organized 1891: America's First Garden Club prepared by Mrs. Madison G. Nicholson in the Heritage collection.
• Atlanta in 1890: The Gate City by the Atlanta Historical Society in the Heritage collection.
• Gardening for the South, or How to Grow Vegetables and Fruits by William N. White in the Heritage collection.
• Herbs, Fruits, and Vegetables for Georgia by James A. Fizzell in the general collection.
• The Winter Garden: Planning and Planting for the Southeast by H. Peter Loewer in the general collection.
• The New Organic Grower's Four-Season Harvest: How to Harvest Fresh Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman in the general collection.
• The Harvest Gardener: Growing for Maximum Yield, Prime Flavor, and Garden-Fresh Storage by Susan McClure in the general collection.
• The Cook's Garden: Growing and Using the Best-Tasting Vegetable Varieties by Shepherd Ogden in the general collection.
• Homegrown Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs: A Bountiful, Healthful Garden for Lean Times by James W. Wilson in the general collection.
  

17 January 1872: Cedar Hill Place for Sale

On this day in 1872, the following ad ran at the bottom of the front page of the Southern Watchman:

The "Cedar Hill Place," the residence of Gov. Wilson Lumpkin for the last thirty-five years. It contains one hundred and sixty three acres of land, more or less, all within the corporate limits of Athens. About the centre of the land, on a high eminence, most beautifully situated, is an excellently built stone house, containing 12 rooms, with fireplaces. The place is near a square, and bounded on the east by the Oconee river, on which is a shoal with fall of water sufficient to carry on a cotton Factory or Mill. One half of the shoal belongs to the place.

There are no liens or mortgages on the property, and good titles can be given.

Anyone wishing to buy or know more, can apply to M. W. Lumpkin, on the premises. I am desirous of selling all the place together but would sell the shoal and a very convenient way to it separate.

Former Governor Lumpkin died December 28, 1870. The "M. W. Lumpkin" who placed the ad is likely his daughter, Martha Wilson Lumpkin, who inherited the property. She sold off acreage to the expanding University over the years, but would not sell the last of it, including the house, until 1907. As part of the sale contract, the house must be kept in its original location and never be manually destroyed, or else the land's ownership would revert to the Lumpkin family heirs. UGA bought the land for $12,000.00 with plans to build a new agricultural building on the property.

The house is one of few still around made with the metamorphic bedrock called Athens Gneiss that underlies most of Clarke County. It is no longer used for building, as it tends to break irregularly and browns from an original creamy white color with age. The original "Cedar Hill Place" had much smoother, lighter exterior walls.



Learn More:

• Southern Watchman, 1871-1873 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Historic Homes of Athens by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• A Pictorial History of the University of Georgia by F. N. Boney in the Heritage and general collections.
  
• Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia, Volume I by Charlotte Thomas Marshall in the Heritage and general collections.
• Buildings and Building Stone: The Lumpkin House web page by UGA Geology Professor Bruce Railsback.
• The Rock House on the Carl Vinson Institute of Government website.