Dear Members,
We are excited to tell you there is a lot happening at the museum!
First, the Bartow History Museum and the Etowah Valley Historical Society were recently honored to receive the Friend of Agriculture award presented by the Bartow County Farm Bureau and Bartow County Extension Service. The award was given in recognition of our work to preserve and exhibit the history of agriculture in Bartow County. We appreciate Bartow Farm Bureau for their recognition and support!
Second, I would like to announce the construction of our new online store is well under way. Soon you will be able to visit the site from the gift shop page of the museum website. Watch for more details.
In addition, we recently opened our newest temporary exhibit, From Summer Hill to the Halls of Justice: Robert Benham’s Journey to the Georgia Supreme Court. We are partnering with other community groups to put together an event to coincide with our exhibit on Justice Robert Benham to recognize his recent retirement. Watch for details of this event happening later this summer.
Also, if you’ve driven by the museum recently, you may have noticed we made some changes to the front landscaping. After more than 10 years of plant growth, we decided it was time for an updated look. Special thanks to Susan Howard for her help in getting us started on creating a new and fresher “front yard.” Over the next few seasons, the new bushes and plants will begin to fill in and provide a variety of colors throughout the year.
Lastly, later this summer, we will begin welcoming visitors back to our monthly lectures. We will continue to record the lectures and, at times, bring in speakers over Zoom, but we look forward to having in-person opportunities for learning again.
I look forward to seeing you in the museum soon!
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New Members - Don't forget to check out what's new in the Member Portal on our website. To access it, continue to use the password, bhmmembers2020.
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THANK YOU TO OUR CORPORATE SPONSORS
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History Hustle 5K
The annual History Hustle 5K took place on Saturday, May 1st. After cancelling the 2020 race for health and safety reasons, we were happy to bring back this community event that supports the education and preservation efforts of the Bartow History Museum and Rose Lawn Museum. This year’s race also marked the first time we used our official USATF-Certified 5K course!
Around 140 runners participated in this year’s event, making it our highest attended race to date, and the top three runners in each age category received a medal.
Thank you to our sponsors for making this year’s race a success: H&R Block, Corporate Health Partners, Nida Financial, Complete Cash Discount Title Pawn, Athlete’s Locker, McStatt’s Printing, and Modus Vivendi Arts.
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Charleston Tea Garden Tour & Party
We hope that all the members who participated in this Zoom event enjoyed learning about tea as much as we did! We want to give a special thanks to Mr. Bill Hall, Master Tea Taster, for sharing his time and knowledge with the group.
If you missed this event, be sure to watch for our next member appreciation event in August.
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Member Spotlight...Meet Ronny and Barbara Manning
It’s good to see friends like Ronny and Barbara Manning come into the museum. Members since 2010, we hope you’ll get to meet them at one of our events this year.
We asked them to tell us about some summer memories. Ronny remembers, “(v)acations were one-day trips riding to Lookout Mountain and coming back. We never went out for meals. We’d take sandwiches with us. Once, [Ronny’s] dad pulled up in front of Lookout Mountain. We’d driven up there in a truck with a canvas over the bed and all us kids riding in back. [Dad] went off to the store and came back angry, because they had raised the price of Coke from a nickel to a dime. He said, ‘I’m not paying a dime for any Coke.’”
Barbara, growing up near Lizella, Georgia, recalled going to Callaway Beach at Callaway Gardens in the summer. “We would take sandwiches and drinks, staying most of the day, and laying on quilts to get as much sun as we could. We also spent a lot of time during the summers at our aunts’ homes.” Both Ronny and Barbara agreed that games they played couldn’t require any equipment or money back then.
School days were also interesting for both of them. As a young student, Ronny once let curiosity take hold. Growing up in Bartow County, he lived where one bus went to Cassville and one went to Adairsville. “One day, I just decided to get on the bus to go to school in Adairsville (I later switched back to Cassville). While at Adairsville High, I played football and baseball.”
After school, Ronny kept busy “in the field or hunting. I’d pick peas, corn, potatoes and butter beans. I spent free time with friends playing marbles or baseball with whatever you could find.” Barbara often babysat or worked at the library in Griffin.
The Manning's favorite part about being a Bartow History Museum member is “being able to remember the things in the exhibits” and “seeing things that spark memories.”
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Upcoming Events...
Here is a list of upcoming events. Be sure to check the website or monthly event email for more details and ticket information.
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Lunch & Learn
Leslie Barker Thomas, past president of the Georgia Trail of Tears Association, will discuss preserving Cherokee history in Georgia.
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Members only appreciation event - Movie Night at the Grand Theatre
Free to members, but tickets are required. Socialize with other members and watch Father's Little Dividend, the 1951 sequel to Father of the Bride and starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and Elizabeth Taylor.
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History of Cocktails
Join us for snacks and a signature concoction as we delve into the history of cocktails. Meet a professional brewer, see moments in cocktail history, and view some lesser known objects from our collection.
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Bartow County Bus Tour
Take a lovely bus tour through one of the most picturesque corners of Bartow County with us. Visit some of the communities that "sprang" up around some of the beautiful springs between Kingston and Adairsville, including those at Spring Bank.
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Moonshine Sip & Stroll
Take a guided tour of downtown Cartersville and hear stories of Bartow County's history of prohibition, moonshining, and more.
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We need your help..."Pick Your Poison" is coming soon! |
Comic book character Poison Ivy captivated Mr. Freeze with her charming dust concoctions, and that pesky vine creeps into my yard every summer. My son has been slathered in calamine lotion many times in his brief life. Perhaps you can relate! We all have stories about ivy in our yards, on our skin, around the eyes, and so many other places. We want to hear your first-hand stories about poison ivy or other poison
plants.
This is your opportunity to be part of the planning of an upcoming museum experience this fall. Send us your horrific encounters with castor oil and poison ivy. You can email your stories to info@bartowhistorymuseum.org, mail them to 4 East Church Street, Cartersville GA, 30120, or give us a call at 770-387-2774. Stories need to be submitted by August 15. These stories will be used in the planning and creation of our “Pick Your Poison” event coming in October.
Shanna Latimer, BHM Membership Manager
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National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force
Savannah, Georgia
If you are traveling through Savannah this summer, you might want to include a trip to the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force. Your membership at the Bartow History Museum gets you free general admission into the museum.
Located only minutes from Downtown Savannah, where the Eighth Air Force was activated in 1942, the Museum features over 90,000 square feet of exhibits, interactive displays, historical artifacts and a magnificent collection of aviation art. See a visually realistic mission experience, a world renowned research Center and beautiful Memorial Garden. The World War II B-17 Flying Fortress, “City of Savannah,” is undergoing a complete restoration inside the Museum’s Combat Gallery.
The National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force is located at 175 Bourne Avenue, Pooler, GA 31322.
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"Mr. Bridge"
Charles Goren, aka “Mr. Bridge” was born March 4, 1901, in Philadelphia. He began playing bridge in college, and he earned a law degree in 1922. His passion for bridge, however, led him to leave his practice in 1935, and he began focusing entirely on bridge. Goren consistently finished at or near the top of tournaments and won several national bridge events. He was also writing newspaper columns on playing bridge. In 1950s, Goren won the world championship, appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, and even had a television show for six years - “Championship Bridge with Charles Goren.” During Goren’s career in bridge, he authored approximately three dozen books that sold an estimated 10 million copies, in addition to winning 34 national championships and one world championship.
On the local scene, many of Bartow’s citizens enjoyed playing bridge. In the local newspaper, the society section featured detailed descriptions of daytime bridge parties, listing the hostess, the attendees, the decorative floral arrangements, and the prizes. There could be as many as three bridge parties each week. There were also bridge parties in the evenings for the women who worked, and for men to attend. While canasta was also popular, bridge seemed to be the favorite.
The 1967 Goren Bridge Tutor pictured here was donated to the Bartow History Museum last year.
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You never know when the work we do here at the Bartow History Museum is going to impact someone’s life, and sometimes the person it impacts is a member of our staff! Joshua Graham, our Manager of Programs, is a Floyd County native that grew up in both Rome and Cave Spring.
Joshua has a hand in planning events from children’s programs to Sip and Strolls. Now that we are hard at work planning for the 2021-2022 year, Joshua has been doing a lot of hard work to populate our calendar of events.
One of the events Joshua has been putting together is a bus tour of several of the historic communities in the area between Kingston and Adairsville. During his research he came across something that ended up having a lot of special significance to him – his own family!
While visiting the cemeteries at Snow Springs Baptist Church and Dry Creek Baptist Church, Joshua noticed some names that he felt were familiar. As he continued to research interesting facts about these cemeteries for this tour, he realized why these names caught his attention - they were his second-great-grandparents and third-great-grandparents on his maternal grandmother’s side.
“It was really interesting to have a first hand look at the type of work we do here at the Bartow History Museum.” Joshua said. “My grandmother had a stroke before she was able to pass on some important aspects of family history to us, and her mother had died fairly young so there were already gaps there to start with. Once I noticed the names at the cemetery I was able to use resources like our newspapers, archives, and Bartow GenWeb here at the History Museum to start connecting some of those missing dots. I think I’ll have a much different perspective when our next researcher comes in.”
We always love researching different areas of Bartow County history, but rarely does it hit this close to home for us. If you have any questions about history from the area, don’t hesitate to reach out!
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September 23, 2021 is Checkers Day?
While you might think this day has something to do with games pieces and a board, it doesn't. Follow this link to learn more.
By the way, if you like this story, be sure to stop by and check out our latest photo wall exhibit featuring residents of Bartow County and their four legged friends.
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The founder of the Georgia colony, James Edward Oglethorpe, tried to introduce the cultivation of grapes as a part of his economic plan to sustain the colony as early as 1732. Diseases and insects made that venture unsuccessful.
Beginning in 1886, there was a flurry of grape cultivation in northeastern Georgia resulting in approximately 20,000 acres of land covered with vineyards. But, Georgia voted for Prohibition in 1907 which effectively wiped out those operations.
Moving forward in time to 1979, a Bartow County woman planted three acres with wine grapes outside Cartersville and called it Split Rail Vineyards. Gay Dellinger, the owner of the vineyards, eventually added five more acres to the vineyard and sold her grapes to a winery in Mississippi, and her Pinot Blanc became the first Georgia wine to medal at a national competition. Dellinger operated the vineyards for twelve years.
Today, the land is part of the Pettit Environmental Preserve.
This 1980s bottle of Etowah Ridges wine, made from grapes from Dellinger's vineyard, was recently donated to the Bartow History Museum.
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Museum Archives
One of the most used resources in the Bartow History Museum archives for doing research is our collection of local newspapers. With the archives opening back up to the public after being closed during the pandemic, we recently welcomed Jill McAllister as our first in-house researcher. Jill was wanting to look through the newspapers for information about Georgia Power's Plant Bowen, which is celebrating 50 years of service.
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Have you heard? We are getting an online store. Watch for details. |
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Trey Gaines, Director
Tina Shadden, Registrar
Sandy Moore, Archives Assistant
Joshua Graham, Manager of Programs
Sarah Strickland, Program Support
Lauren Storey, Program Support
Lisa Romans, Marketing Manager
Pat Taff, Guest Services Manager
Shanna Latimer, Guest and Membership Services
Brenda Harris, Guest Services
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Our Mission is to preserve Bartow County History, educate a diverse community of students and visitors about its unique heritage, and to celebrate its sense of place through exhibits, programs, and outreach activities in an engaging and pleasant manner. |
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MUSEUM AND GIFT SHOP
770.387.2774
4 East Church Street
Cartersville, GA 30120
BartowHistoryMuseum.org
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm
Sunday Closed
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OFFICES & ARCHIVES
770.382.3818
13 North Wall Street
Cartersville, GA 30120
BartowHistoryMuseum.org
Call to schedule an appointment or to discuss a research question.
Mon-Fri 10am-5pm
Weekends By Appointment
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