When it comes to Vidalias, no one ever says “hold the onions.” Looking for a new cash crop during the Great Depression, Mose Coleman of Toombs County tried onions, thinking they would be hot. Instead they turned out sweet….and popular. Other farmers followed his lead and an industry was born. During the 1940s, the state […]
His teammates called him “Mad Dog” or “Professor.” We can’t say what opposing batters called him. He was unhittable, one of the best pitchers in Major League history. Greg Maddux was born in San Angelo, Texas, in 1966. Drafted by the Chicago Cubs, he struggled after making his Major League debut in 1986, so he […]
Build it and they will come. Atlanta Stadium was the city’s field of dreams, the brainchild of Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., who promised in his 1961 mayoral campaign to bring major league sports to Atlanta. With financial support from C&S Bank president Mills B. Lane, Jr., they chose a 62-acre site that had been a […]
His basketball skills were so great that he was called the “human highlight film.” Dominique Wilkins was born in 1960 in France, where his father was serving in the Air Force. After playing high school basketball in North Carolina, Wilkins came to the University of Georgia in 1979 to play for coach Hugh Durham. Wilkins […]
A Masters from Georgia. Not a degree in Athens –- a golf tournament in Augusta. And it was a hit off the first tee. After golfer Bobby Jones retired, he and businessman Clifford Roberts developed a national landmark. Jones brought credibility, while Roberts had business savvy. Jones and noted golf course architect Alister Mackenzie designed […]
Georgia Indians traveling to London in 1734 was hardly an everyday thing. One year after James Oglethorpe founded the Georgia colony, he returned to London to report to the Trustees–and took a group of Georgia’s Yamacraw Indians with him. Led by Chief Tomochichi, they wanted to make requests for education and fair trade directly to […]
She was one of Georgia’s most famous literary figures. Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah in 1925 and graduated from Georgia State College for Women. Then it was on to the University of Iowa, home to the famous Writers’ Workshop, where she rubbed elbows with some of America’s leading writers. Moving to New York, […]
The man had sax appeal: tenor, alto, and soprano. James Moody, born in Savannah in 1925, began playing the saxophone at 16, despite being hard of hearing. After an Army Air Force hitch in World War II, he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, mastering and helping create the complex, challenging new jazz called be-bop. His […]
Before Margaret Mitchell, before Flannery O’Connor, Georgia produced a female author who was just as famous in her day. Corra Harris was born in Elbert County in 1869. Her writing career began out of economic necessity because of her minister husband’s alcoholism and depression. Harris wrote a letter to a New York magazine defending the […]
The heavyweight boxing champion called the “Cincinnati Cobra” was actually a Georgia native. Ezzard Charles was born in Lawrenceville in 1921 and moved to Cincinnati when he was young. He fought in boxing’s golden age, when the sport was second only to baseball in popularity. Charles is among the pantheon of great boxers and he […]
