Mims recalls, “Brookhaven Supply at intersection of North Druid Hills and Peachtree Road, Buice Sinclair was next, Bagley Electric, laundry, Brookhaven Pharmacy, gasoline station with fire station behind it, and the A&P just to start. The Brookhaven Picture Show was across from the Drug store and was run by Mr and Mrs Tittle.” He remembers there were many more stores along Peachtree Road.

In the early part of the twentieth century, there was a school at the intersection of Jett Ferry Road and Spalding Drive. It sat up on a hill and was known as Chestnut Ridge School. This Chestnut school is spelled with a “t”, unlike Chesnut Elementary on North Peachtree Road.

When I first wrote about the Doraville Triangle Refinery fire that began on April 6, 1972 for the Dunwoody Crier newspaper, I received an email from Todd Drummond of Dunwoody. He shared the story of living on Doral Circle, the street adjacent to the refinery, when the tragic fire took place. The family home was closest house to the fire, but miraculously did not burn. He was five years old at the time.

Since I grew up in Georgia, finding and enjoying Georgia peaches is a tradition in my family which I am happy to continue. When I was young, one of my aunts lived off Highway 155 in Stockbridge, Georgia and had a peach orchard behind their house. My mom, grandmother, aunts, cousins and I would make a day of going to their farm to pick peaches. Following this outing, Mom and my grandmother would freeze peaches so we could continue to enjoy them well after summer.

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.