Comments on: A Couple Dirty, Little Decatur Secrets

By: Chris Billingsley

Chris Billingsley — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:28:48 +0000

The article also describes how the courthouse cannon was taken to Atlanta and fired at the newly elected mayor’s general store (Talk about explosive Southern politics!). I assume that the cannon was eventually returned and is today located on the south courthouse lawn.
The western wall was never built and the 1860 DeKalb courthouse and much of old Atlanta is long gone but the Decatur cannon remains. I believe the monument under the cannon states that it was used to drive Native Americans out of the county during the Indian Wars of the 1830s. As a young boy growing up in Decatur in the 1950s, I always thought the WWI German naval cannon on the north lawn was more interesting than the tiny cannon on the south lawn but this small cannon played a major role in our early history.

By: "Naaman" Gibbets

"Naaman" Gibbets — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:48:34 +0000

“Train in Vain”

By: TeeRuss

TeeRuss — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:09:46 +0000

My understanding on the decision of where to place “Terminus” was that it was a topographic one. The tracks in question were to go from Milledgeville to Chattanooga, and the surveyors determined that Decatur was a good spot to run the track, since it sat upon the north-south ridge that we know as Clairmont (which was an old indian trail), at the intersection of the continental divide ridge that we know as Dekalb Ave.

What is now Atlanta was also an option, due to a similar north-south ridgeline or low grade corridor, also intersecting at Dekalb Ave.

It makes perfect sense to me that they would have preferred Decatur over Terminus at that time, since there was a town in place.

But who knows. Probably just a small story blown up into legend.

By: An Eric

An Eric — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:58:02 +0000

Nice find. Love the western wall idea. Definitely we should revisit revisit that. Maybe swing it around to the Northwest as well?