Friday, July 29, 2016

THE BEST DAY EVER


THE BEST DAY EVER

July 21, 1891, one hundred and twenty five years ago today, was arguably the most important day in the history of Dublin and Laurens County. That superlative statement could be argued about, but it was on that hot humid summer day when the first train from Macon, Georgia arrived in town and it was the first time that people and vehicles crossed the first permanent passenger bridge over the Oconee River at Dublin.





In the cool of that Monday morning, a small crowd gathered at the depot at the lower end of Walnut Street in Macon.  They were there to celebrate the completion of the 54-mile railroad, subsidized by the investment of more than one hundred thousand dollars by large and small farmers. The four-year project's success was assured when H.S. Morse was appointed as the superintendent and James T. Wright was elected president.  The Illinois and Georgia Improvement Company supplied the rest of the capital investment.  The new railroad would shorten the distance to Macon by 35 miles by eliminating the need to travel through Wrightsville and Tennille to the Central before making a left turn back to Macon.

Not one, but two, trains, crammed with railroad officials, their wives and a host of influential investors and supporters under the direction of Conductor J.B. Maxon pulled out the depot eastward bound.  D.G. Hughes of Danville and  H.S. Morse, president of the Illinois and Georgia Improvement Company, headed the list of dignitaries on board.  


   Passing through stops at Swift Creek, Dry Branch, Pike’s Peak and Fitzpatrick, the  trains stopped in the booming community of Jeffersonville, the capital of Twiggs County, where a jubilation erupted.  Railroad vice president and founder,  Dudley M. Hughes, (left)  boarded the train during a celebration in his hometown of Allentown.

A large delegation of Dubliners and Laurens Countians, commanded by Mercer Haynes, E.E. Hicks, Charles Brantley, and Dr. Wood, boarded and commandeered the lead train, which was quickly and handsomely decorated with flowers and evergreens by the ladies of Dublin and Allentown.  The trains rushed through the infant towns of Montrose, the home of the orchards of founder, Col.  John M. Stubbs, and Elsie (Dudley) to the shouts of unrestrained joy.

In Dublin, an estimated crowd of 3000 people - believed to have been one of the largest crowds ever to assemble in town -  was excitedly waiting, ready for the train and what it would mean to their communities.

And then the wail of the whistle blew sending the crowd into a frenzy.  The train stopped and all of its passengers deboarded for a short walk over to a shady grove of trees where a barbecue was held.  Off to the east, the passengers could hear the sounds of brass music and the report of canon saluting their arrival. There was no estimate of how much meat was consumed that day, but more than a thousand loaves of bread were served to the hungry throng.

While the feast ensued, the train moved down the road to the center of town. Another celebration erupted.  Everyone, dressed in their best attire, smiled and cheered as Dublin’s rise from the previous dormant decades following the late war was really and truly beginning.  The Dublin Light Infantry, led by Lieutenant J.M. Adams, performed snappy maneuvers for the crowds.

Then the unthinkable happened.  The heavens opened up and a torrent of rain fell in a futile attempt to extinguish the excitement.   Everyone scattered into the stores and  homes in the area.  The grounds that were saturated with people only minutes before were nearly deserted.

Col. Stubbs' (left) family played host to some honored guests.  His home was located on his  farm which stretched east to west from North Church Street to Calhoun Street and north to south from Bellevue Avenue to Moore Street.  At 4:00, the train, now carrying all of the passenger cars, returned to Macon.

Some of the first freight trains carried off loads of the evil whiskey, which Dublin’s prohibitionists had recently succeeding in banning from the town.

Railroad officials intended to complete the road to Savannah at once. When a nationwide financial  panic occurred,  the effort was abandoned.  A number of times capitalists offered to buy any number of bonds the road might issue in order to enable it to finish the line to Savannah, but those offers were summarily declined, as the price offered for the bonds were not considered enough.

The Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad began its eastward expansion in 1901 to Vidalia and eventually on to its terminus in Savannah.  As railroads go, the M.D. & S.  was fairly successful but it could never quite effectively compete with the all powerful Central of Georgia.   Today, the tracks are still in operation.

While most of the fervent excitement and media attention was focused on the railroad, an equally  important, but less visible, occurrence happening that day, was the opening of the first permanent passenger bridge over the Oconee at the foot of East Jackson Street.

The bridge was the dream of John T. Duncan, Laurens County’s Judge of the Court of Ordinary. Judge Duncan spearheaded the effort to build a passenger bridge to replace the outdated and inefficient Dublin Ferry.   Turned down primarily by voters in the outlying areas of the county, Judge Duncan never lost sight of his goal.

A wooden bridge was constructed in conjunction with Dr. Robert Hightower, but it fell victim to a torrential freshet which washed it away.   Duncan, the unofficial county manager, issued an order in 1888 to sell bonds in the amount of $15,000.00 to complete the a sturdy concrete and steel bridge.  Engineer George H. Crafts, of Atlanta, brought the project to a completion, slightly over his budget, but substantially on time.

On August 3, 1891, just twelve days after his dream came true, Judge Duncan died. The pall cast over the city of one of its most beloved citizens quickly lifted as the populace realized what an enduring legacy the judge had left to the city.

In conjunction with the opening of the new bridge was the completion of the bridge of the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad opening the way for two railroads to come into Dublin.

So it was on these hot, humid days in the summer of 1891, that a new era for Dublin and Laurens County began.  It was a new and golden age, one, with few exceptions, which has lasted for 125 years and spanning three centuries.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

LEAVING ON A PROP PLANE


LEAVING ON A PROP PLANE


Just before noon on June 15 1971, local history was made.  Two twin-engine Beech Air South aircraft filled with county, state and airline officials arrived at the Laurens County airport. Although many fortune-seeking entrepreneurs had tried and failed, for the first time ever a regional airline was scheduling flights in and out of Dublin and twice a day to boot.

The effort to establish airline service came in the spring of 1971 through the cooperative effort of the Dublin-Laurens Chamber of Commerce and the Laurens County Commissioners along with their counterparts in Statesboro and Bulloch County.  With the financial aid of Georgia’s trade and industrial commissions and Georgia’s governor, the necessary changes were made to extend the runway’s landing lights to 4,000 feet, cut trees along the approaches and adjust the slope of the runway, along with a local $10,000.00 allocation.



Air South began operations in 1969 with flights between Waycross, Albany and Brunswick. Once the necessary approvals were made, the Laurens County commissioners hired Cecil Willis as operations manager  and Richard Hurd as ticket manager and weather agent  to manage the local operation.  For Willis and Hurd, one of their first tasks was to learn how to operate the National Weather Service station at the airport.  The new equipment aided the Air South pilots as well as other local pilots.  Willis and Hurd reported daily to the Macon bureau the local weather information.



Just after eleven o’clock on the morning of June 15, the occupants of the two planes deplaned in view of a large crowd of eyewitnesses to history.  Many came to see the planes while others came to see Georgia’s newly inaugurated governor.  Little did the gathering know that within six years, their governor, Jimmy Carter, would become the President of the United States.

Gov. Carter, (left)  who was all smiles that late spring day,  outlined how the coming of Air South to Dublin and Statesboro became a reality.

Chamber of Commerce Chairman, Ed Herrin, acted as the master of ceremonies along with the charming help of Dublin’s eternally affable mayor, Lester Porter. County Commissioner H.D. Hobbs welcomed the crowd before Mayor Porter introduced Governor Carter.  Air South President F.E. Howe offer his company’s gratitude and honor for being chosen as the carrier between the three city route.

Flying with Governor Carter and his staff in the lead plane were commissioners H.D. Hobbs, Robert Beacham and J.B. Fordham, Chamber President Herrin, and County Attorney H. Dale Thompson, a former naval pilot in World War II.

Porter presented Air South President Howe with the mayor’s patented Dublin keepsake a shillelagh. The Heart of Georgia Commission presented Governor Carter and each official a potted chrysanthemum.



L-R - Laurens County Attorney, H. Dale Thompson, Commissioner Robert Beacham,
Air South President Pete Howe, Commissioner J.B. Fordham, Gov. Jimmy Carter,
Commissioner H.D. Hobbs, Mayor Lester Porter, Chamber President, Ed Herrin,
and Fred Steele Federal Rep. Coastal Plains Regional Commission.  


After the ceremony, the governor, airline officials and a host of Bulloch County boosters climbed aboard the planes, which took off to the east for a similar ceremony in their Statesboro.


Crowd awaiting arrival of inaugural Air South flight. 


Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter


County Commissioners - Robert Beacham, H.D. Hobbs and J.B. Fordham 


Cecil Passmore and Gov. Jimmy Carter


Air South Plane in Atlanta


Dublin Mayor - Lester Porter


All of Dublin was excited as merchants welcomed Air South to Dublin in newspaper ads.  The airline hoped to entice couples to leave Dublin on Saturday morning, stay at any of the eight Mark Inns in the Atlanta area, and return on Sunday evening for the unbelievably low price of less than $78.00.

Each morning the flights would begin in Statesboro at 7:30 a.m for the 20-minute trip to Dublin.  After a 15-minute layover, passengers departed Dublin at 8:05 and arrived some 35 minutes later at the Atlanta Airport.   The return flight left Atlanta at 10:30 and arrived in Dublin at 11:05 and landed back to Statesboro before 11:30.  The flight schedule would allow a Dublin resident to leave Dublin at 8:05, pick up a relative or business client and be back in Dublin in three hours. A second flight out of Dublin left for Atlanta at 12:30 p.m..

Ten Dollars would buy you a ticket to Statesboro, not a bad dealing considering there was no Interstate Highway 16 open in the early days.  For $18.50 a Dubliner could fly to the Atlanta Airport and avoid the even then hectic Atlanta traffic.



By the end of 1971, Air South added evening flight 172 which arrived from Brunswick at 8:15 p.m,  left Dublin at 8:30 p.m. and arrived in Atlanta 40 minutes later.  The new flight was added to alleviate the morning Flight 412 which was frequently plagued by foggy morning conditions.  With the new flight, other changes were made in the timing of the other flights on the schedule.

Shortly after air service was initiated in Dublin, the directors of Air South elected a new president, Bartlett M. Shaw, a veteran executive with Scandanavian Airlines.  Eventually the company would move from Atlanta to Saint Simons Island, Shaw’s home, for economic reasons.

Passenger traffic aboard Air South planes continued to soar in the next year.  June 1972 was a company record for passengers.  In the first year,  overall traffic increased by 25 percent.

The news of increased passenger levels was made even better by the announcement that on June 1, 1972, service to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina would be added.  During the summer of 1972, passenger levels continued to rise.

In the early autumn of 1972, Air South staged a promotional tour among the cities it served. Dublin businessmen Thomas Curry, Louie Livingston and Mayor Lester Porter traveled aboard a 44- passenger British turbo prop as it toured across the state.

One of the most famous passengers aboard an Air South flight arrived in Dublin on March 9, 1973 in time for the annual St. Patrick’s Festival that year.  Eileen Fulton, (left)  who starred in the legendary role of “Lisa” on the soap opera, “As The World Turns,” landed in town before a large
crowd of admirers.

At the end of its second year, June 1973 was once again an all time monthly record for the airlines.  Air South officials began to look at buying newer and better aircraft to meet the demands of their passengers.

After three years, the airline was still setting records.  Beaufort, South Carolina was added in 1974 bringing the June total to 9,351.

As good as the numbers were, the number of passengers flying on the Statesboro-Dublin legs of the flight were dropping to an economically unsustainable level.

Just before Christmas, the board of Air South voted to terminate the flights to Dublin.  The last plane  left Dublin on December 28, 1974.

In the future, passenger service may return to Dublin.  But for now, we have to turn on our memories of those days when you could leave Dublin on a prop plane, complete your business in Atlanta, and return home, just in time for a late supper with your family