Oakhurst Celebrates 100 Years
Decatur Metro | October 11, 2010Jack Krost sends along this announcement…
It’s time to celebrate in Decatur’s Oakhurst neighborhood. The neighborhood is 100 years old. Oakhurst was founded as its own town back in 1910, at a time when it was a small streetcar suburb of Atlanta. It was later annexed by the city of Decatur.
To mark the occasion, a host of free activities are being planned for Saturday, October 30, around Harmony Park at Oakview Road and East Lake Drive, south of College Avenue.
A variety of bands will perform in Harmony Park from 2 to 6 in the afternoon. There will be beer and food concessions. Since the festivities take place a day before Halloween, there also will be a pumpkin decorating contest and a pumpkin pie eating contest. For kids, there will be face painting, an inflatable “moon walk” and other activities. A costume contest will take place when the music wraps up. There will be prizes for the pumpkin events, for the best costume, for winners an Oakhurst trivia contest and for the oldest and youngest Oakhurst residents. Special 100th anniversary T-shirts will be available.
There also will be hayrides around Oakhurst throughout the afternoon. And if you’d like to know more about Oakhurst’s history, you can go on a free historical tour aboard a trolley. The trolley tours are at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., starting from in front of One Step at a Time at 650 East Lake Drive in Oakhurst village. Seeing the sights aboard a trolley is fitting, because the trolley line that ran from Atlanta to Decatur and then Oakhurst played an important role in our neighborhood’s development.
If for some reason you can’t make one of the historical tours, you can always check out “Mysteries of Oakhurst” from the DeKalb library system. The DVD was made from a previous tour a few years back, and features some interesting historical pictures as well as the tour. It’s listed under the call letters: DVD 975.8225 Mys.
The 100th anniversary activities are sponsored by the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association and community volunteers. And you can help make all this happen by joining us. There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer both leading up to the festivities and on the day of the event. To volunteer, contact: [email protected].
I am pretty sure the original Town of Oakhurst included Melrose, Drexel and Lansdowne, north of the railroad. Does anyone still consider that area (were I live) part of Oakhurst?
Never heard that. I would have thought that would have come out during the 2003-2004 reconfiguration discussions. It would have been a good rationale for the zoning to Oakhurst which otherwise seemed to artificially divide a fairly cohesive northwest side of Decatur that was going to Westchester and swimming at Venetian Pools.
The original Oakhurst did not include anything north of the tracks. It was basically a small circle centered on what is now Harmony Park.
Hmmm. I’ve always heard that the “center” of the original Oakhurst (designated by its city hall) was somewhere around the current East Lake Marta station (where East Lake used to have an at-grade crossing with the tracks and its original course is still visible in the small spur that passes Condor Auto and t-bones into College).
The current Oakhurst Village, at least as I’ve heard it, was originally thought of as a commercial amenity to the neighboring East Lake community and didn’t come to be thought of as the Oakhurst center until Decatur’s southwest quarter came to be generally referred to under that name.
Where’s Jack Krost when we need him? Jack!
OK, I’ve also heard that the original center was around the current East Lake MARTA station, but that when the town was incorporated, after a John Ridley sold his land to a bunch of people, many of them were on Meade Road, close to the current Harmony Park. And yes, at one point, the village was considered part of East Lake. Just check out the old Sinclair station at the corner of Fayetteville Road. The original sign, still there, has a prominent “EL,” although that may refer to East Lake Drive. Come on the tour! Share what you know.
When I grew up there in the 50’s and early 60’s what is now called Oakhurst Village was just called East Lake. For years I worked at the Gulf station which is the empty lot next to Harmony Park. If you look close you will still find one of the lifts in the ground. What I called Oakhurst at that time was down East lake at the baptist church and along College where the Marta station is. There was a pharmacy and I believe a five and dime store. These look just like the building that Wahoo is in now.
My understanding is the same as Scott’s and I have even seen documents indicating the inclusion in Oakhurst of that area north of the RR–it was years ago, though, and I can’t remember if it was a map or a subdivision description, or what. Something I dug up in the library one time.
Does anybody know what was displaced by the BellSouth complex that stretches from East Lake to College, wrapping behind Condor and the little Wahoo Grill strip (and that one house)? I’m curious whether there were more commercial buildings on College between the station and Cambridge or if it was all residential.
Ask someone at Oakhurst Baptist if they can help with that question – I understand the church owned most of that property at one time and sold it to BellSouth.
Based on the killer photos JBC just posted, it looks like that parcel was a former estate of some kind. Maybe the big house on what was once a larger farm. I see what look like some circular driveways you’d likely see around a mansion, plus a bunch of little outbuildings.
I must be really getting old because all I see on those maps are crazy pyschedelic (sp?) black swirly thingies
I stand correcting myself – the Lenox Place subdivision was a part of Oakhurst when it was laid out in 1914.
I found this map a while back. It helps see how things used to be around the far southwest side of Decatur. It is an Atlanta Aerial map from 1949 but it captures part of southwest Decatur. Choose map 116 first to get your bearings and then you can pick map 115 to see a little more of the area you are wondering about.
http://www.library.gsu.edu/maps/aerialatlas1949/html/map.htm
I put the original state law that defined Oakhurst online. The language is extremely convoluted but it did include a bit north of the tracks up to Ponce:
http://atlhistory.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=26&func=view&id=461&catid=4
There’s also quite a story about the first mayor of the town
The City of Oakhurst originally went north of the tracks, so streets like Drexel and Melrose were definitely considered Oakhurst. You can tell by the architecture of the homes there that they are very similar to that of the Oakhurst homes off of College and were all built around the same time period. In fact, from what I’ve read, one of Oakhurst City Hall’s that burned to the ground was originally located around the area where Thankful Baptist Church is now located on College (between Feld and Cambridge). And the spot that is now Bellsouth was an estate that had lots and lots of cattle located on it. If you talk to some of the older residents on Cambridge, they will tell you about all the cows that were located right next to their back yards up until the family sold out to Bellsouth a few short decades ago.
Hi Julie,
Do you know if that was the Mynatt estate? It’s mentioned in the Oakhurst incorporation law — that would explain a few things. Thanks