The story of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta-Scottish Rite begins in 1915. According to Franklin Garrett’s “Atlanta and Environs,” the Scottish Rite Masons were the founders of Scottish Rite Hospital in 1915. The initial name was Scottish Rite Convalescent Home for Crippled Children. They started the hospital to serve the needs of families who could not pay. Two cottages on East Lake Drive were the first home of the hospital.

Ethel Gertrude Warren Spruill used to tell the story of giving directions to the home she shared with husband Stephen Spruill on what is now Ashford Dunwoody Road. She told visitors to travel north on Peachtree Road past Oglethorpe University and then turn left. Their house was the was the first one drivers would see.

The first hospital in Atlanta was St. Joseph’s, but the story of Emory St. Joseph’s Hospital begins in Dublin, Ireland. In 1831, Catherine McAuley began the Sisters of Mercy order, with the goal of helping the poor and the sick. She started twelve Mercy foundations in Ireland and two in England.

Lenox Square shopping center opened on August 3, 1959 with a ceremony at 9:45 a.m. The Atlanta Constitution covered the grand opening that day. Vice president of Lenox Square Inc. Chess Lagomarsino called the newly constructed shopping center “the biggest in the south.”

The Tilly School once sat about where the Crossroads Church of Dunwoody is located, at the intersection of Peeler Road and Tilly Mill Road. Prior to Crossroads, this was the location of North Peachtree Baptist Church.

The Tilly School, Tilly Mill, and Tilly Mill Road were named for the pioneer Tilly family that owned the land and had a home, farm and mill in the stretch between Peeler Road and North Peachtree Road. The family operated a cotton gin, sawmill and gristmill on their Dunwoody land.

World War I training camp Camp Gordon was established in 1917 in Chamblee, Georgia. Boykin recruited women volunteers to welcome soldiers to the YMCA Hostess House and make them feel at home. She also organized entertainment activities each week for the soldiers, sometimes up to 25 activities in a week. Her volunteers were part of the Woman’s Division of the Young Man’s Christian Association and the Overseas Canteen Service.

The Navy chose the Chamblee site for a Naval Aviation Reserve Base and issued contracts for three million dollars in construction. Fifty permanent buildings, two hangars and three runways were planned. The base was commissioned by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox on March 22, 1941. The large buildings were designed by Robert & Co. and constructed by Mion Construction Co. over three and a half years.

R. L. Mathis started the dairy back in 1917. According to his obituary in the April 13, 1992 Atlanta Constitution, he started with five cows and a horse and buggy. In a March 13,1980 Atlanta Constitution article, “Country Fresh-Raw Milk and Rosebud,” Mathis told of visiting his uncles’ dairy when he was about 13 or 14 and not loving the work. However, when his father died a few years later Mathis went into the dairy business out of necessity.

The oldest home in Dunwoody is in Sellars Farms Subdivision. Originally it would have been on what is now Roberts Drive, but today the address is 5660 Glenrich Drive in Dunwoody. There is a historical marker which identifies the house as the Larkin-Martin home, circa 1840.