Museum & Genealogical Research Library, est. 1974
Sara Hightower, the helpful and smiling “little lady,” pioneered library science in Floyd and Polk counties. She is acknowledged to have ushered in a new era when she devised the concept of the bookmobile in the late 1940s. From that effort, which saw trucks carting books to gas stations, rural stores, and farmers’ homes, grew […]
After the Georgia land lottery of 1832 large numbers of white settlers had begun to move in and take over the lands of the Cherokee Indians. Some of the richest farm land – Paulding County’s Cedar Valley – was drawing the adventurous and ambitious to the area. By the time that the U.S. Army had […]
Very little attention is given it seems to James Knox Polk, 11th President of the United States, and the man for whom Polk County, Georgia is named. Maybe it was because of the manner in which he graciously performed his duties. One historian said of him: “He was the least conspicuous man who had ever […]
Ida Cox, nee Prather, was a Cedartown-raised vaudeville performer who, along with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, founded the female blues genre. Born in 1888, Ida left home at an early age to pursue her singing career. “Wild women Don’t Have the Blues” is her most popular and covered tune, yet in the 1920’s […]
Joseph A. Blanche, Lawyer, Cedartown. Son of Joseph G. and Mary Williams Blanche. He was born at Savannah, Georgia June 30, 1838. Attended school Emory at Oxford until 1857, then studied law and was a partner of Col. James D. Waddell in law at Cedartown. Silas I Cox, Farmer. Son of Zachariah and Grizzy Cox. […]
This is a document dated 1937 and was donated to the Historical Society by Georgia Wyatt in July of 1991. Much of the history of Cedartown might be traced through the names of its various streets. The facts stated below are based on information, by no means complete, and possibly erroneous, and suggestions, corrections or […]
“Brigadier General Kendall “Wooch” Jordan Fielder (August 1, 1893 – April 13, 1981) was an influential World War II veteran, who settled in Hawaii, and testified before Congress in favor of statehood. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, then Lieutenant Colonel Fielder was the U.S. Army G-2 Chief of Intelligence and Security, […]
Mrs. C. H. Wray and Children of Cedartown, GA What was probably the first Caesarean operation, bringing twins into the world, in the history of surgery, was performed in Atlanta on January 6, 1909, by Dr. W. B. Lingo, at the Hospital Medical college. This fact was brought out yesterday as the result of a […]
Rome-News Tribune, 1983 “Like many other good men, Henry Witcher first got his motivation from a woman and a rolling pin. Just not in the customary manner so often associated with women and rolling pins. Only the product of that motivation–a woodcraft that perhaps could be described as “whittling and piddling”–could be any less customary…unless […]
Dr. Whitely was born in Rome, GA, in 1880, the son of Charles Hiram Whitely and Mary Joseph Downer Whitely. When he was six years old, he and his family moved to Cedartown. He received a masters degree in pharmacy in 1904. Two years later, he graduated from Tulane University Medical School. In 1912, he […]
© Polk County Historical Society 2021. Powered by WordPress