The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced last week that eight new places had been added to the state historic register. The Georgia National Register Review Board voted on the entries back in August before sending them off to the National Park Service for National Register of Historic Places listing. The Historic Preservation Division (HPD) is a unit of the DNR and is in charge of administering the program.
The new places listed are scattered across the state – from Atlanta to Lookout Mountain to Sandersville. Some of them are historic districts, some are schools – also, a library, a hotel and a commercial building.
The new, officially historic places are:
· Cascade Heights Commercial Historic District, Atlanta, Fulton County – Cascade Heights in southwest Atlanta goes back to the time of the Creek tribes in the area. Sandtown Trail was an ancient path that ran from Stone Mountain to the Creek settle of Sandtown. The area was the sight of some intense battles during the Civil War and a small resort developed around the Cascade Springs in the late nineteenth century. In the 1960’s it became a prime example of the “white flight” movement happening at the time. It quickly evolved into a majority black community and became one of the most affluent black communities in the city.
· East Atlanta Historic District, Atlanta, DeKalb County – Just like Cascade Heights, the Sandtown Trail ran through the area and was home to the Creek tribe. Following the removal of the Creeks in the 1830s, the area was quickly bought up in the Georgia land lotteries. By the 20th century, the intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Flat Shoals Road had quickly become a small but thriving commercial center. It was also a prime white-flight area but recovered and is a very popular bar and restaurant area in that same commercial center that formerly housed stores to find goods for farms.
· Sandersville High School, Sandersville, Washington County –The school opened in 1939, designed by Atlanta-based architect William J.J. Chase who designed over 100 schools in the state of Georgia. It served grades 1-11 in the northern half of Washington County. The school still retains its original E-shaped plan and Colonial Revival-style elements. The auditorium is the largest in the county.
· Atlanta-Fulton Central Library, Atlanta, Fulton County – One of the best examples of Brutalist architecture in the city, the library was close to the wrecking ball in the last few years. It was designed by Marcel Breuer, part of the Bauhaus Movement popular at the time. That movement became…less popular. The few windows and extensive use of concrete fell out of favor and some critics wanted a new building altogether. It is certainly unique and is now undergoing renovations. The outside will still be brutalist but the inside is aimed to be more welcoming.
· Oconee Street School, Athens, Athens-Clarke County – Part of the school-building boom in early-20th century Athens, it is the only example remaining from the period in Athens. It was built in 1909 and designed by William E. Spink to serve the East Athens mill community.
· M.C. Kiser Company Building, Atlanta, Fulton County – A three-story masonry building built to house the M.C. Kiser Compnay’s Shield Brand Shoe line in 1923. The first floor was wholesale retail and the top two floors were manufacturing and distribution operations.
· Lookout Mountain Hotel, Lookout Mountain, Dade County – Nicknamed the “Castle in the Clouds,” its crenellated towers, parapeted gables, false half-timbering, and stucco cladding are great representations of the Tudor Revival-style. It was built in 1927 and was a grand resort hotel, part of the 1920’s auto-based tourism boom.
· English Avenue School, Atlanta, Fulton County – The site of a bombing in 1960 that was believed to be racially motivated, the school had been formally converted from a white to black school in the still-segregated system of 1950. It was a Jacobethan Revival-style built in two phases in 1911 and 1923. Its significant for its association of the demographic changes in Atlanta and its history of the evolution of public education in Georgia.
