Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

Wylie H. Chamblee

While looking through newspaper articles about Camp Gordon, Michael Hitt read a 1917 Atlanta Constitution article which included the history of the name Chamblee. The article is confirmation that the town was named for Wylie H. Chamblee, a Black man who was one of the petitioners for the post office.

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Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

Brookhaven business history found through vintage yearbooks

By 1963, Frito-Lay joins as an advertiser. The plant was located where Lowe’s home improvement store is today at 4950 Peachtree Boulevard, Chamblee. Another pharmacy in addition to Brookhaven Pharmacy is Oglethorpe Pharmacy on Johnson Ferry Road.

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Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

“Scream in the Dark” and other vintage Halloween events

In 1973, the abandoned Veterans Hospital #48 in Brookhaven was the setting for a haunted house. The Peachtree and Osborne Road location became home to a veterans hospital in 1919, and before that it was Cheston King Sanitarium.


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Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

Horses and Mules arrive at World War I Camp Gordon

By September of 1917, plans were announced for a Remount Station, near Johnson Ferry Road and north of Peachtree Road on one hundred and fifty acres.  Today this is the location of a Lowe’s home improvement store. Prior to Lowe’s, the property was the location of a Frito-Lay plant.

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Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

Starbucks chimney was part of tenant house

When the Starbucks was set to be built on the site in 2013, the fate of the old chimney was in question. Local citizens and preservationists, including Dunwoody Preservation Trust, asked that the chimney be saved. Starbucks agreed to incorporate it into their new store.

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Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

Lincoln Stone, sculptor

He created six giant paintings of exotic birds for Disney World and has created exhibits and murals for the Dallas Children’s Museum, the Smithsonian, Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta, and the Fulton County Schools Teaching Museum, to name a few.

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Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

Construction map of WWII Lawson General Hospital

In preparation of the U.S. possibly entering World War II, military hospitals were quickly constructed across the country. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Tom Keating located this 1941 layout map or plot plate of World War II Lawson General Hospital in the State of North Carolina Archives.

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Valerie Biggerstaff Valerie Biggerstaff

Five members of a Dunwoody family serve during WWII

The Head family once lived on both sides of Chamblee Dunwoody Road, just north of where it intersects with Vermack Road. Their homes were where Boxwood Place, Shadow Bend, Shadow Court and Pine Acres Court are located. All five children of Roy and Pamela Head served during World War II.

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