Convict leasing and chain gangs are part of the history of the Southeast, Georgia, and also Sandy Springs. Until 1933, there was a convict labor camp and rock quarry at the intersection of Roswell Road and Hammond Drive where Whole Foods is today. The camp and quarry extended across the area between Hammond Drive and Cliftwood Road on the west side of Roswell Road. The rock quarry included the land behind SunTrust Bank, where there is a sharp drop off going down towards Sandy Springs Circle.
A few years after the end of the Civil War the practice of leasing convicts began, where convicts were leased to private individuals or businesses. In May of 1868, provisional governor Thomas Ruger awarded the first convict lease to William A. Fort of the Georgia and Alabama Railroad. Convicts were often arrested unjustly and treated inhumanely. A change in 1881 led to only one person being authorized to administer punishment to the convicts. This backfired and led to “whipping bosses,” known for their particularly cruel treatment of the convicts.
In 1908, convict leasing was outlawed in Georgia, but replaced with the chain gang. Chain gangs were used for road work and other government projects.
The history documented in Sandy Springs is in the early twentieth century, during the era of chain gangs. In particular, these chain gangs worked in the rock quarries and helped build roads.
According to the recollections of Hugh Sentell, the convict camp in Sandy Springs had whitewashed buildings and the trees were whitewashed half way up their trunks. This was to give an appearance of neatness. The convicts wore white uniforms or the striped uniforms that we associate with prisoners, and they wore leg irons and chains. The wagons that carried them to different jobs could often be seen around Sandy Springs.
The rock from the quarry was used for roads, most of which were gravel at the time. Granite was used for curbs for roads and in various parts of Chastain Park. Chain gangs could be seen cleaning cemeteries, cleaning roads, working in the quarry or installing curbs.
Another convict camp was located near Chastain Park, where West Wieuca Road and Roswell Road meet. Howard Marion Hardeman remembered that there were two convict camps, one for blacks and one for whites. Hardeman’s family farmed a field adjacent to the convict camp. He sometimes visited the camp with his father. Hardeman played with the bloodhound dogs that were kept at the camp, but he also recalled times when the bloodhounds were used to help track down an escaped prisoner.
Douglas Blackmon, author of “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II,” describes how the convict labor camps and chain gangs worked. People were arrested and imprisoned arbitrarily and usually without just cause. The primary group being arrested was black men. Much of his book focuses on Alabama convict camps, but he also touches on Atlanta’s camps and how some of our oldest neighborhoods, buildings and businesses have ties to these camps and benefited from convict labor.
According to a 1933 article in the Atlanta Constitution, the Sandy Springs camp was closed that year. The prisoners were moved to another Fulton County camp, a move which would reportedly save Sandy Springs thousands of dollars. There were still 987 prisoners in Fulton County camps at that time. It wasn’t until the 1940’s that Governor Ellis ordered an investigation into chain gangs, which resulted in a prison reform act. The era of chain gangs was over at last.
Other sources cited: New Georgia Encyclopedia “Convict Lease System,” Sandy Springs Gazette Vol. 1 2017 “Cotton & Convicts” and “Prison Camps,”oral histories of Martie Burdett, Irene Burdette Maddox, Wade Nance, Harold Bales, Howard Marion Hardeman, Hugh Sentell, and Aubrey Morris courtesy of Heritage Sandy Springs.