The Glorious Fourth

So, here it is – another Fourth of July!  

How are you spending it? Did you make it to the parade this morning down Church Street? Did you stop by the SHARE Festival going on all day at Hunter Park?

Perhaps you had a bite to eat at the American Legion Post 145 BBQ, or maybe you headed off to Sweetwater Creek State Park to fish a little.  Then again if you are like me you just stayed close to the house to grill some burgers and take a dip in the pool.

No matter your choice of activities to celebrate the Fourth, most folks who live in Douglasville and the surrounding area head out when the day is done and dusk is rapidly turning to night in order to claim a prime location to view the annual Fireworks display sponsored by the City of Douglasville.    

Say what you want about the fireworks including complaints about the traffic afterward, but I think you really get a sense of the Douglasville community as people fill up parking lots, grassy areas on the side of the road, and any other spot you can think of to see the lightshow.   The annual fireworks are one of the few events I think can be correctly termed as a community-wide event. 

You might think such gatherings are something new, but they aren’t.   Fourth of July celebrations have been a big deal in Douglasville going all the way back to 1886 when the town was a mere 12 years old.

Beginning in the late 1800s Douglasville was one of THE places to be in the Atlanta area to celebrate the Fourth. In fact, a large number of folks from Atlanta would trek to Douglasville for the festivities, and according to historian Fannie Mae Davis special rates were secured for the day so that the event was open to more people.

The Weekly Star estimated the crowds in 1886 ranged from three to four thousand people. Davis states, “The morning trains brought into town well-known political leaders who occupied a speaker’s platform for the day.

A politician of Tom Watson's or Hoke Smith's stature could hold the attention of an audience for two hours regardless of the heat and crying babies.”

One of the areas of town serving as the main focal point for the celebration was a grove of trees east of today’s historic district.

Yes! A grove of trees along Broad Street.

I can’t even imagine it – a small grove of virgin oak trees … located directly east of, and adjoining today’s building, extending about 300 feet east and west, and running north and south from Broad Street to Church Street.

The trees were the remnant of the great forest that had covered the ridgeline where Douglasville’s historic district stands today. Eventually the stand of trees became known as James’ Grove since Joseph James was the owner of the land.

If you really want to get back to Douglasville’s Fourth of July roots then that plot of land east of Hartley, Rowe & Fowler is where you need to focus your attention. From Douglasville’s earliest days, Joseph James allowed the town to use the grove of trees for picnics, political meetings, and of course, Fourth of July celebrations.

In 1886, the Fourth of July that year fell on a Sunday, so the bash was scheduled for Saturday, the third. Serving as a kick-off on Friday night was a balloon launch. The balloon was so large it could be seen eight to 10 miles away. An “amateur musician’s festival” was also
held that night.

On Saturday prayers were offered up, an address of welcome was made and then W.T. Roberts, the focus of one of my past columns seen , read the Declaration of Independence. It stirred the crowd and from that point on the reading of the document became a tradition for Fourth of July celebrations, and why not? It’s the whole purpose of the holiday in the first place. If you haven’t read it lately you can find the text of the Declaration of Independence here.

The main speaker in 1886 was Colonel P.L. Mynatt, candidate for the nomination for Congress from the Douglasville area. A comedian followed Col. Mynatt and then a mid-day meal described as a “free-for-all-feast” was served in the shady grove.

Photographers from Atlanta were available to take pictures, so people could have a memento of the day’s festivities, and in the afternoon there was plenty of time for courting, dancing, baseball, horse racing, foot racing, a wheel barrow race and in the evening another balloon launch.

In 1915, a group of ladies took on the grove of trees as a service project. They cleaned up the area and installed swings, benches, tables, planted flower beds and enclosed the grove with a fence. They bestowed a more formal name on the grove calling it Civic Park.

By 1920, the celebration was just as big and as grand as the first one.  It must have been quite a party because the festivities that year started on Saturday and didn’t conclude until Monday. The Douglas County Sentinel advised 5,000 people attended, and stated, “It was one of the biggest events in the history of Douglasville, and one that will not soon be forgotten by those who attended, and the fellow who failed to come will be kicking himself the rest of his days for missing the great affair.”

A ballgame and dinner served by the ladies of the Methodist Church was held on Saturday followed by an all-day singing on Sunday. On Monday a baseball game was held between the city of Douglasville and the city of Acworth with Acworth coming out on top with a score of 10 to 6.

Hon. Thomas W. Hardwick, a U.S. Senator who would go on to be Georgia’s governor from 1921 to 1923,  spoke in the grove and Dr. T.R. Whitley announced he would be  candidate for representative. J.L. Selman & Son provided ice water for Sunday’s crowd free of charge.

1920 was the last year the grove was used as a venue for the Fourth of July celebrations because Joseph James sold the stand of trees to R.E. Edwards and “the tract was cleared of the fine old oaks and the haven-like park was no more.”

While we don’t have the stand of oak trees anymore to use as a meeting spot to celebrate our nation’s birth as a community, we still understand the importance to gather somewhere and make a statement with our exclamations over parade floats and the red, white and blue fireworks. No matter the current political climate the need to gather and celebrate together is one of the reasons I’m proud to be an American and proud to make my home in Douglasville.