The Air-Line Belle was a commuter train that ran from Atlanta to Toccoa from 1879 until 1931. It began because the people of Norcross wanted a commuter train between their town and Atlanta. The engine was named for Belle Foreacre, wife of G. J. Foreacre, head of Piedmont Airline Railroad. Piedmont Airline Railroad was the predecessor of Southern Railway. (Atlanta and Environs II, Franklin Garrett)

In 1933, the building committee of the Dunwoody Methodist Church was authorized to begin plans for a new chapel. The decision was made to build the chapel on one acre at the site of the old parsonage, across Mount Vernon Road from the original 1903 chapel. $450 was collected from members to begin construction.

The community came together to help accomplish their goal of a new Methodist chapel. In 1935, Euil Spruill donated the use of his two mules to excavate the land.

Fred and brother Fletcher Donaldson drove to Stone Mountain to pick up granite for the basement, walkway and steps of the church. Their father Will did the stonework around the new building. The old four-square wooden building that sat across the street still held Sunday School and preaching during the construction.

The first Dunwoody School sat along Chamblee Dunwoody Road where the Dunwoody Library and Spruill Center for the Arts are located today. The land for the first school in Dunwoody was donated by Zachariah Eidson. The earliest school dates to the 1890s and was a plain wood building. The next school, built in the 1920s was a painted white building with a front porch and a small bell tower. Then, in the 1930s a brick building was constructed.

Narvie Jordan Harris supervised all Black schools in DeKalb County beginning in 1944 as Jeanes Supervisor for the county. She continued in this role until desegregation in 1968. The Jeanes Supervisor program was initially funded by a one-million-dollar donation of Philadelphia Quaker Anna Jeanes in 1907. Jeanes Supervisors were Black educators hired to oversee Black schools across the United States.

In 1989, as Brookhaven Pharmacy on Peachtree Road was closing, Vivian Price wrote an article for the DeKalb New Era titled, “Cherry Cokes and Chicken Pox-Closing of Brookhaven Pharmacy Marks End of Era.” She begins with, “It was a sad day recently when employees and customers gathered to bid fond farewell to a north DeKalb institution-the Brookhaven Pharmacy.”

Theodore Roosevelt’s mother was Martha (Mittie) Bulloch of Roswell, and his father was Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. of New York. They married at Roswell Presbyterian Church in 1853. The President heard his mother tell stories of the place she grew up and in 1901 began thinking of a visit. Bulloch Hall still stands today, owned by the City of Roswell and supported by Friends of Bulloch, Inc.

In 1940, Oscar Lockhart was operating a pharmacy in Chamblee. He and wife Nelle, brother Thomas, daughter Ruth Lockhart Bean, son-in-law Albert Bean and one lodger all lived in the home on Chamblee Dunwoody Road. Lockhart’s Pharmacy was an independant pharmacy.

When I first wrote about the small old home at Murphey Candler Park in 2011, I knew the home as the Sea Scout Hut. Later, I learned it was used as a caretaker’s cottage for the park prior to the Sea Scouts. I went to Murphey Candler Park recently to see if the home still standing and it was. I have heard the city of Brookhaven plans to demolish the old home and it looks quite neglected at this point.

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.

The sandy spring for which the city of Sandy Springs is named is located on land between the office building on Bluestone Drive, the Entertainment Lawn, and the Williams Payne House on Sandy Springs Circle. The property is also bordered by Sandy Springs Place and Hilderbrand Drive. A natural spring comes up through sand, protected by a cover and an overhead shelter. Carol Thompson told me five springs converge at this spot.

If you lived in Dunwoody in 1970, you might have noticed a two story home which stood at the corner of Mount Vernon Road and Chamblee Dunwoody Road, about where Panera Bread is today. The home was built in 1886 by Joberry Cheek. He cut the pine trees, sawed them at his own sawmill and built the home. The ceilings were twelve feet high and 7/8 inches thick.

The home stood out in the 1960s and 1970s because it had fallen into disrepair. Some people thought noone lived there, but Lizzie Cheek Newhard did. Joberry Cheek was her father.