Between 1924 and 1963, the city of Brookhaven was a municipality known as North Atlanta. An 1872 Act for Judicial Incorporation, passed by the Georgia General Assembly, paved the way for Brookhaven to become the village of North Atlanta.   The act outlined the manner in which towns and villages in Georgia could incorporate. The act was repealed in 1939. 

North Atlanta was bordered by the city of Atlanta to the south and the city of Chamblee to the north, with a total area of seven square miles.  In 1924, the total population for the area was less than one hundred people, but by 1964 increased to over 13,350. 

Walking around the park, our tour guide pointed out stone features that were originally built as part of the Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895. The Exposition lasted 100 days, included 6,000 exhibits and hosted 800,000 visitors.

Woodie Malone was Mayor of Chamblee for thirty-two years, from 1948 until the year he died- 1980. He was born in Union, Louisiana in 1916. Malone was working as a barber and living at the Alamo Hotel in Pampa, Texas, according to the 1940 census records.

Advertisements for land in the Atlanta Constitution both in 1920 and 1946 list land on Balloon Road and Dunwoody Road, both described as being off Peachtree Dunwoody Road. In 1920, all local roads were dirt. Roads began to be paved in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration.

A piece of the Balloon Road remains today. It is called Old Balloon Road, located to the east of the complex that includes Emory St. Joseph’s Hospital and the surrounding office buildings. It is no longer directly connected with Peachtree Dunwoody Road but does lead to Johnson Ferry Road.

Advertisements for land in the Atlanta Constitution both in 1920 and 1946 list land on Balloon Road and Dunwoody Road, both described as being off Peachtree Dunwoody Road. In 1920, all local roads were dirt. Roads began to be paved in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration.

A piece of the Balloon Road remains today. It is called Old Balloon Road, located to the east of the complex that includes Emory St. Joseph’s Hospital and the surrounding office buildings. It is no longer directly connected with Peachtree Dunwoody Road but does lead to Johnson Ferry Road.

Thanks to a reader of pasttensega.com, I can now share the journey of Abraham (Abe) Koppel during World War II. Koppel wrote down a narrative of his experiences when his granddaughter was working on a school project. The family also shared a photograph of Koppel and the X-ray section he trained with at Lawson General Hospital, along with an image of the back of the photograph with messages from several men.

In 1944, the land that is now DeKalb Peachtree Airport in Chamblee was home to Naval Air Station Atlanta. Men came from all over the U. S. to train at Naval Air Station Atlanta beginning in 1941 and women began to arrive in 1942 to work as link instrument trainers.

Lawson General Hospital sat adjacent to Naval Air Station Atlanta, where the IRS and CDC Chamblee offices are located today. The hospital opened in April of 1941.

I first researched Glenridge Hall when I wrote about a 2011 Dunwoody Nature Center “Monarchs and Margueritas” fundraiser event. The article was for the Dunwoody Crier newspaper.

The historic home was designed by Samuel Inman Cooper for Thomas K. Glenn. He began his career as a clerk in Atlanta in 1887, later becoming executive secretary to Joel Hurt during the development of the Atlanta Electric Streetcar Company.  That company eventually evolved into Georgia Power. 

Cephas Sentell Spruill was born in 1909 in Dunwoody to James Cephas Spruill and Alice Abernathy Spruill. He married Emma Moore of Henry County, Georgia. After World War II broke out, Spruill served as a Marine from 1944 until the end of the war. In 1949, he became postmaster of Dunwoody and remained in that job until 1968.