USA > Georgia > Tift County > History of Tift County > Part 9
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"I. That the said party of the first part has this day granted to the parties of the second part, their successors or assigns, the exclusive right and privilege for the period of ten years to build, equip, maintain, and operate in and along the streets of the city of Tifton, a street railway . . .
"July 12-Iroquois Tribe, No. 73 Hunting Grounds of Tifton, Reserva-
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HISTORY OF TIFT COUNTY
tion of Georgia, Improved Order of Red Men, was organized Friday night of last week with the following officers: J. A. Ryals, C. C. Hall, W. C. Spurling, O. F. Sheppard, Wm. M. Sellars, A. G. Dickard, E. F. Conley, R. G. Coarsey, R. M. Manning, J. A. Peterson, E. O'Quinn, C. M. Bos- well, C. R. Dickart, W. S. Smith, S. C. Dorsey, J. M. Jones, R. A. Smith.
"Aug. 1-The Georgia-Florida Sawmill Association has decided that every mill operated by a member of the association will close during the month of August.
"Aug. 23-The mills have decided to stay shut down. Labor conditions have improved, but prices continue entirely too low to warrant cutting timber bought on a high market.
"Sept. 6-Postal receipts for the fiscal year 1907 are $15,000.
"Sept. 20-Ty Ty-Mrs. C. E. Pitt is Ty Ty's pioneer merchant, having been in business for twenty years. W. E. Williams, J. R. Willis, B. F. Crum, and Jehee Whiddon are among Ty Ty's merchants. The farmer's cotton warehouse handles about 3,000 bales of cotton annually.
"Nov. 8-Yesterday officials of the four banks of Tifton met and or- ganized the Tifton Clearing House Association ; H. H. Tift was elected president, J. M. Paulk, vice-president, and Frank Scarboro, secretary. Four trustees were elected to take charge of its affairs: J. J. L. Phillips, W. H. Hendricks, E. A. Buck, and E. P. Bowen.
"It was decided that, in order to make the cotton crop move without de- lay, to maintain the price of the staple and to meet the demands of local business, clearing house certificates to the amount of $50,000 would be issued, and this was done at once, the certificates being in circulation this morning.
"This issue is backed by a deposit of $75,000 in gilt-edged collateral, made necessary only by the fact that local banks have been unable to obtain currency, due to the recent money panic in the North and East.
1908
"Jan. 3-A survey shows that the total property owned by corpora- tions have paid $3,326.73 to the county treasury for general county pur- poses and $3,584.52 under the special school levy.
"The corporations include : Western Union Telegraph Company, South- ern Express Company, Postal Telegraph Company, Southern Bell Tele- phone Company, A. C. L., G. S. & F., A. B. & C., and the Tifton Ice & Power Company.
"Feb. 20-Tifton made a holiday of Wednesday. Stores, banks, busi- ness houses and the public school closed and all joined in celebrating the opening of the Agricultural School.
"April 3-A large crowd of girls left the high school at recess, All Fools' Day, and were immediately followed by Professor Sewell on horse-
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back, and Professor Scarboro in a road cart. The girls were rounded up near the A. B. and A. depot and driven into town like herded cattle.
"May 1-C. L. Parker yesterday took Joe Brown and J. B. Murrow, Hoke Smith for a five-hundred-dollar bet on the governor's race. The stakes were placed in the hands of R. W. Padrick.
"May 8-Tifton Lodge No. 1114, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, was organized last night with the following officers: H. H. Coombs, W. T. Smith, R. W. Padrick, C. D. Fish, Geo. E. Simpson, Frank Scar- boro, H. H. Tift, Jr., C. C. Guest, W. W. Banks, and S. M. Clyatt.
"May 29-In consolidating the school census of the city of Tifton, there are many items of public interest: there are in the city, 409 white children of school age and 130 colored. There is one white boy over ten years of age who can read but cannot write. There are 21 colored boys who neither read nor write. 304 children attended school over 5 months during 1907. Six have never attended any school. There are no deaf, dumb, blind, or idiotic children in Tifton. ›
"Sept. 25-'Ty Ty-There are twelve stores, two barber shops, two ginneries, a sawmill, cotton warehouse, and livery stable. An excellent hotel of 14 rooms is conducted by Mrs. Leila Stephens.' Correspondent.
"Chula-'The town has four stores, a cotton gin, and a blacksmith and woodworking shop. The two-teacher school has an enrollment of 70 pu- pils.' Correspondent.
"Nov. 6-The Tifton Cotton Mills resumed operation Monday morn- ing after being closed down a year.
"Dec. 11-H. H. Tift is in receipt of advice from Secretary Cortelyou, of the Treasury Department, that the lot offered by him on Love Avenue had been accepted by the Department as the site for Tifton's new post office building. The price paid was $7,000.
I 909
"Feb. 19-At first, J. C. Britton, who is in charge of the soil survey of Tift County, thought the soil in Tift was of the variety known as the Norfolk series, but since the work has progressed he is convinced that it is superior to the Norfolk, and a grade that he has never yet found in any other county during his survey of Georgia.
"Wednesday, L. E. Lapham, field superintendent and inspector of soil survey, with headquarters, came to Tifton and in company with Mr. Britton and Clarence Wood, spent Thursday going over the survey made. He confirmed the opinion previously formed by them that the soil in Tift County was of a new and distinct series and they have named it the Tif- ton loam and Tifton Sandy loam, and by that name it will be known in the future.
"Feb. 26-Mrs. N. Peterson went over to Ty Ty Saturday, the 13th,
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where she organized a club in that little city styled the Ty Ty Improve- ment Club, with the following officers: Miss Dowd, president; Mrs. Frank Pickett, vice-president ; Miss Mary Nelson, recording secretary; and Mrs. R. R. Pickett, treasurer.
"Aug. 6-The old village of Tifton is going some when she gains a hundred thousand dollars in tax values during as bad a year as the past twelve months have been.
"Aug. 27-Twelve names had been sent in up to yesterday to the Tif- ton Chapter, U. D. C., by Confederate veterans who are entitled to crosses of honor, as follows: D. A. Fulwood, J. J. F. Goodman, T. S. Moore, D. R. Willis, R. H. Hutchinson, Sr., J. A. Dickinson, O. L. Chesnutt, J. M. Eason, Robert Henderson, J. J. Baker, W. A. Patton. and W. H. Partridge.
"Sept. 10-Omega has a population of 300 people, but there are pos- sibly twice this number supplied by her merchants. The Omega Grocery Co. is one of the strong mercantile establishments of this section and en- joys a large patronage. The company has been doing business in Omega five years, and each year has shown a steady and substantial growth over the previous year. Guy A. Cox is manager of the company and is the Omega postmaster.
"Miles Cowart is a pioneer in general merchandise. Joseph Marchant has a meat market. There is a cotton warehouse, two cotton gins, and a grist mill at Omega.
"Sept. 17-W. O. Tift, Tifton's postmaster died Sept. 14 at 3:00 o'clock in Mystic, Conn., of paresis. He was sixty-seven years old. He came to Tifton in 1876, was appointed postmaster and held that position until 1890.
"Sept. 24-The Myers Seed & Plant Company, of Tifton, shipped last week 100,000 strawberry plants. They are shipping about 10,000 daily this week.
"Oct. 15-First Boys' Fair :
"Corn Prizes-First ($10) C. H. Fletcher of Chula School. Second ($5) Paul Bolton, of the Fender School, Third ($2.50) Homer Bolton, of the Fender School.
"Cotton Prizes-First ($10) Paul Bolton, Fender School. Second ($5) Lonnie Exum, Brookfield School. Wilbur Long third ($2.50) Chula School. Those receiving $1 each for cotton exhibits: Houston Overby, Lloyd Crum, Eddie Yen, Lonnie Exum, Paul Bolton, Wilburn Long, and Hughy Johnson.
"Those receiving (?) each for corn exhibits: Ben Jones, R. L. Sum- mers, Emory Logue, Houston Overby, Geo. Shannon, J. H. Lieneberger, Ernest Dauce, Homer Crum, Etheridge Gay, and Clifford Whiddon. C. W. Fulwood also presented each with a pocket knife.
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"Oct. 22-The Gazette carries to its Tift County readers this week an announcement that means more for the city of Tifton and Tift County, than any move that has been made since the legislative act creating Tift County. The woodlands belonging to H. H. Tift will be put on the mar- ket. Mr. Tift owns 28,736 acres of land in Tift County, nearly all of which is woodland. The woodland lots of 490 acres each, will be cut up into tracts of 100 acres, or in varying sizes to suit the purchasers, the land cleared and fenced and houses built thereon, and sold on comparatively easy terms to those desiring homes."
CHAPTER X PROGRESS FROM 1910-1917
The year 1910 was ushered in by literary programs in Tifton. The Author's Club dedicated its first program to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Later "Enoch Arden" was interpreted by Mrs. Frederick Herr Jones, with the accompanying music of Richard Strauss by Miss Deborah McRae. The Twentieth Century Library Club celebrated its fifth anniversary with a literary and musical program.
In 1914 this club presented in a grand opera program Signor and Madame Bernia, famous artists of the Metropolitan Grand Opera Com- pany, New York. Signor Bernia alternated in tenor roles with the great Caruso, and Madame Bernia was from the Savage English Opera Com- pany, where she was a leading soprano.
Superior to even grand opera was Nature's distinctive contribution to this period, Halley's Comet in April, 1910. People in Tift County rose early to observe this celestial phenomenon as it was visible to the naked eye in the eastern heavens from a few minutes before 4:00 a.m. until day- light. This morning star, named for Edmund Halley, English astronomer and mathematician, was so brilliant that the early rising moon appeared dull in contrast. It had appeared probably twelve times before 1910: 1373, 1456, 1531, 1607, 1682, 1755, 1835; it is probable that astronomers re- ferred to the comet in 12 B.C. and A.D. 989, 1066, 1145, and 1501.
Many people, white and colored, in Tift County thought the world was coming to an end when they saw this illumination.
In connection with Halley's Comet an interesting coincidence challenges attention. Mark Twain, internationally famous writer, who was born in 1835 during the appearance of the comet, died in 1910, the last year the comet has appeared.
During this period there were celebrations and meetings of different kinds. The great Wire Grass Exposition opened on September 27, 1911. The main building having 24,000 feet of floor space was draped in colorful bunting and brilliantly lighted with electricity. The exposition grounds, within five minutes walk from the center of Tifton, covered a space of five hundred by six hundred feet between the National Highway and the Georgia Southern and Florida and contained eight beautiful buildings.
Over fifty counties participated in the exposition. Cities had special days, Macon, Atlanta, and Savannah. On Governor's Day-also Atlanta day-Governor Hoke Smith and staff, Mayor Winn, President Paxon, and two hundred members of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce came.
The meetings of different organizations were beneficial. The eighth
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annual convention of the Masons of the Second Congressional District was held in Tifton in 1911. A Good Roads Association, having as its pur- pose the building and repairing of roads throughout the county was organ- ized. Chairman H. H. Tift, of the Central Route Association, called for a meeting of the auxiliary committee for the purpose of securing the speedy completion of the National Highway and to form a National Highway Association.
Tift County was represented on Cotton Day at State Federation of Women's Clubs in Albany. This celebration was the first of its kind in South Georgia since the War Between the States. Mrs. Jane Walker, a widow, wove the cloth on an old-fashioned loom.
Spring Day at the District Agricultural School was a success. Prizes in athletics were offered for such achievements as one-hundred-yard dash, one-fourth-mile run, one-half-mile run, one-mile run, running broad jump, running high jump, shot put, society wall scaling, greased pole, greased pig, sack race, and three-legged race.
Versatility of progress was further attested by the addition of another religious organization-the Primitive Baptist Church. Meetings were held in the Presbyterian Church until the Primitives completed their brick church. The membership consisted of twenty-five.
The great era of building which began in 1906 continued vigorously through 1916. In May, 1912, Tift County authorized an issue of sixty thousand dollars in bonds with which to pay for a site previously selected and to build a courthouse. The contract for the erection of the new build- ing was given to Edwards, Jenkins, and Company, of Ocala, Florida, for fifty thousand dollars. On December 10, of the same year, the cornerstone was laid with appropriate ceremonies conducted by the Tifton Masonic Lodge; but it was not until a year later that the Tift County commissioners met with a representative of the contractors to accept the completed build- ing. The cost of the building was fifty-four thousand, seven hundred dollars;
In an oil mill stock canvass of the city early in 1912, a committee from the Chamber of Commerce secured subscriptions amounting to sixteen thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars of the capital stock had been pledged previously by several outside oil mills that desired to establish a plant in Tifton. The seventy-five-thousand-dollar cottonseed oil mill, de- clared by an authority to be the best of its kind in the world, was completed in 1912. The petitioners for charter were, J. D. Little, John Hill, H. H. Tift, W. W. Banks, W. L. Harman, T. E. Stubbs, T. E. and J. J. L. Phillips, L. P. Thurman, H. H. Tift, Jr., and J. D. Cook.
In October of 1912 the International Chemical Company purchased from H. H. Tift fifteen acres of land in the northeastern section of the city. The company erected for about one hundred thousand dollars an acidulating plant, for the purpose of manufacturing commercial fertili-
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HISTORY OF TIFT COUNTY
zers. The contractor in charge was J. M. Davis.
· To Tifton housewives there was an enterprise even more important than this acidulating plant-a broom factory. Many housekeepers pantomimed the saw, "a new broom sweeps clean." The factory was on First Street.
Business men were as interested in Tifton's first cotton compress, for which the Chamber of Commerce was responsible, as the ladies were in the broom factory. This compress pressed the first bale of cotton in 1912.
Farmers had a day of rejoicing in 1913, when contracts between J. H. Bowen, a Missouri owner of the patents for the Common Sense Harrow, and the Tifton Foundry and Machine Company, then recently organized, were signed. The latter company took the exclusive manufacture of Brown's invention for the Southern territory. The contracts required a minimum output of fifty thousand harrows annually, requiring the purchase of twenty thousand dollars worth of new equipment by the foundry.
During the years before the United States entered World War I many people rejoiced over the building program. The following list shows ap- proximate cost of projects in 1916 : paving, $50,000; high school building, $30,000 ; waterworks extension, $25,000; fire department, $6,000; Central Grocery Company, $30,000; Rickerson Grocery Company, $25,000; Tif- ton Packing Company, $150,000; peanut Oil Mill, $25,000; Southern Utilities Light and Ice Plant improvements, $40,000; T. W. Tift Theater Building, $15,000; and new residences, $50,000.
Another significant mark of progress was the revival of enthusiasm for a new packing plant in Tifton. H. H. Tift, E. P. Bowen, and W. W. Banks agreed to1 "underwrite sixty thousand dollars worth of the stock if the city would raise forty thousand dollars and the people outside the town, fifty thousand dollars." The fifty thousand dollars to be raised outside the city could be paid in cash, cattle, or hogs, payable on or before October 1, 1917.
Early in 1917 a board of directors was elected for the packing plant : H. H. Tift, E. P. Bowen, W. W. Banks, B. E. Smith, I. C. Touchstone, R. C. Ellis, Briggs Carson, J. D. Cook, W. D. Fountain, J. J. L. Phil- lips, M E. Hendry, H. H. Tift, Jr., Frank Scarboro, W. L. Harmon, C. W. Fulwood. The officers were: W. W. Banks, president; H. H. Tift and M. E. Hendry, vice-presidents ; Frank Scarboro, secretary; and R. W. Goodman, treasurer. A short time afterwards contracts were given for the construction of our one hundred thousand dollars worth of buildings. R. V. LaBarre, of Jacksonville, had charge of most of the work.
In the building program Uncle Sam had a part. The contract for the erection of a post office building was given in 1913 to James Devault, of Canton, Ohio; the Treasury Department approved of his bid April 16. The cost of the building was forty-six thousand five hundred dollars. Three
1. Fred Shaw's manuscript about the history of Tift County.
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HISTORY OF TIFT COUNTY
years later the directors of the Bank of Tifton decided to erect an even more imposing edifice than the post office-a fifty thousand dollar bank structure.
Tifton in 1917 authorized bond issue of thirty-seven thousand dollars for addition in the waterworks system, for improvements in the fire depart- ment and for the erection of a new school house. The new building was to be used for high school, and the old, for grammar. The contract for high school building was given to V. C. Parker and Company, of Waycross ; the plumbing to a local firm, Morgan, Johnston, and Morgan.
During this period there was distinctive progress in education. The Twentieth Century Library Club had a conspicuous part in the develop- ment of the rural schools. At that time Mrs. Nicholas Peterson was chair- man of the education committee. From the beginning she encouraged the teachers in the poverty-stricken schools of Tift County to confide in her. Mrs. Peterson, a former school teacher herself, was determined to effect a reformation in the rural schools. She struggled for an idea-finally it came. There were twenty-five rural schools in the county and fifty women on her committee. Every two members would adopt a school and inspire it to depart from its antiquated methods.
When the women had been selected for the different schools, they on the first visits were impressed by the fact that there was no money, no interest from parents, no equipment, no school house that had a shred of self respect, no roads that could be worthy of the name for several months in the year, no provision made for housing the teachers; it was one long unvarying tale.
"This survey of the ground was the first step. Mrs. Peterson needed to do more proselyting. Everyone of the fifty women-and the large number she had found necessary to add to that original group-was as interested and enthusiastic as she herself. From then on the Tift County rural schools changed, sometimes by leaps and bounds, sometimes slowly .. . Every magazine. pamphlet, or book that had any bearing on rural schools was eagerly seized upon. The women found out what art companies supplied pictures and casts for school use and learned their catalogs by heart. They wrote to the Bureau of Education, at Washington, D. C., to send its bulle- tins regularly and for the very complete handbook on athletic games for schools, issued by the Philippine Bureau of Education ; and to the Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri, for their plan by which any school could have a complete modern sanitary system for three hundred and fifty dol- lars.
"The first big step was to get money. Georgia, as the women soon found out by looking up the law, has a regular school tax apportioned out to each county, according to the number of children. In addition, it has the county unit plan whereby a county may ask that the question of levying a local
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HISTORY OF TIFT COUNTY
tax be submitted to the vote of its people, a two-thirds majority being re- quired to carry it. Mrs. Peterson immediately saw her opportunity. The women all became politicians and not a person in the county was allowed to go unmolested until he had been convinced by one means or another that a local school tax was the one preeminently desirable thing. As a result, when the measure was brought up, it received an overwhelming majority vote. With that money, new buildings were secured, the term lengthened to seven months, and the teachers' salaries raised to forty dollars, monthly, and in some instances to fifty.
"The first year Mrs. Peterson and her band of workers had many dis- couragements. They learned that a rural school does not grow up like a beanstalk, and that once adopted it has to stay in the family for a good many years. Although many of the reforms they wanted to institute needed only money, the majority demanded the cooperation of not only the teacher, but of the children and their parents as well."2
The attainment of state requirements for a standard country school was the goal of all school mothers; after the struggles of these sponsors for five years, sixteen schools qualified for their diplomas, and six or eight were lacking in only one point.
'Mrs. Peterson has a typical story to tell of the Camp Creek School, which she took into her charge.
" "The first thing I did was to go to my school. I naturally felt timid about going on a mission of this kind ; but I mustered up courage, and one morning I invited some friends to join Dr. Peterson and myself in a little picnic on the river about three miles beyond the school. In my car I car- ried a delightful reader, one who could entertain children by the hour. I told her what I was going to do and urged her to come to my rescue and do her best. First, I spoke to the children and told them that I wanted to help them make their school the best in the country ... ; then I had this friend recite, and she completely captured the children. When I asked them if they would like to have me bring her back again, they responded as one.
"'Next, I sent them "Miss Minerva and William Green Hill" for the teacher to read to them. Very soon I went again, this time taking some pic- tures I had left from my school work. I carried tacks and hammer and had the children help me group them and put them up. Asking questions about those I knew they were familiar with and telling them about others. This pleased them.
" "They had their stove set in a box of sand that had never been emptied and in which all expectorated ; so I talked to them on sanitary health topics, told them dangers of such things, and asked if they would not take it up and send to town to get a piece of tin. They did this right away. I also
2. McCall's Magazine, November 1915.
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HISTORY OF TIFT COUNTY
called their attention to the need of cleanliness and of washing windows and polishing the stove. The very next Saturday, when the teacher came to town, he asked me where to buy polish, as the girls had told him not to come back without it. I also gave him a waste-paper basket and several story books. Then I offered a medal for scholarship, a prize for penman- ship, a prize to the neatest and cleanest child in the school, and to the child who used only his own drinking cup.
"'On one visit I asked the children if they would like to own their own library. Of course, they said "yes." I told them, then, if they would make up enough money to buy a good bookcase that I would give them the library, never dreaming that they would do it that term. This was on Tuesday morning. The teacher came to town on Saturday with twenty dollars the children had sent for me to buy their bookcase. You can imagine my surprise as well as delight. I canvassed every agency I could think of and in a few days I had it filled. When I carried the books down, I had the teacher dismiss the school and let the children help fix them. I believe they were the happiest children I have ever seen in my life. But I have never been quite so extravagant in my promises since.
"'Our attendance was increasing so steadily on account of the new things being done for the school that a new room was in sight, and by Christmas we had to add it and employ another teacher. Next, we planned to improve the grounds. I went down and spent the day, and while the men plowed the ground, and put up a fence, the women and children planted the seed and plants that I had brought them. It looked very nice at dark when I left for town. At the same time I had an old piano which the Tifton Board of Education had discarded taken out to them. Since then, we have kept adding improvements, from time to time, until we have beautiful grounds, two rooms filled with good pictures, piano, books, water cooler, tables with nice covers, pretty pot plants in jardinieres, shades and curtains to all windows, cloakrooms, and large clock. The little girls exhibited at our fair whole suits of underwear, luncheon-sets, towels, pillow- cases, scarfs, centerpieces, caps, aprons, dresses, in fact, everything that you can think of. They have also been taught canning, preserving, cake-bak- ing, candy-making, and the boys woodwork. We have had our diploma from the State Board of Education for over a year'."2
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