The city of Brookhaven added to their greenspace and park property in January of 2024 when they purchased 3086, 3068 and 3064 Osborne Road. When I first wrote about 3086 Osborne Road in Brookhaven over a year ago, the former home of the Morrison Farms nursery, the properties were under contract with a different buyer. When that contract fell through, the city made the decision to buy the acreage, bringing total greenspace up to 106.83 acres.

At one point, there were one hundred fifty dairies in DeKalb County.  The 1939 map (which I have shared in previous blog posts) in the book A Century in North DeKalb:  The Story of the First Baptist Church of Chamblee 1875-1975 shows thirty-three dairies in the North DeKalb area including the Wright Dairy.

If you have seen the 1959 film Pillow Talk, you will remember how Jan, played by Doris Day, kept trying to use the phone only to find that Brad, played by Rock Hudson, was constantly on their party line.  A party line consists of multiple telephone subscribers connected to the same land line. 

In 1945, Fischer sold the house and gardens to John W. and Frania Lee. John Lee died in 1951, but Frania continued to live there until 1959. Mrs. Lee then sold close to 50 acres to the Atlanta Diocese of the Catholic Church for $10. The home became D’Youville Academy, a convent and school for girls.  The name D’Youville came from the founder of the Sisters of Charity or Gray Nuns of Montreal, Marie Marguerite d’Youville.

The Brookhaven Little League played their games at Murphey Candler Park and started out with four major teams and six minor teams.  The President of the League in 1959 was Wilbur Sanders.  For $.15 in 1961, you could get a hot dog at the park.  The park started out with one field, but had three by 1969.   Nearby Keswick park was used on occasion for a game as the number of children grew. 

When Marissa Howard, Programs and Membership Coordinator at DeKalb History Center, sent this photograph to me, I thought perhaps it was a group of school safety patrol students. The group of students in the front have a sign that reads Morgan Falls, a former school in Sandy Springs I have written about before. The photograph is part of the Guy Hayes Collection in the DeKalb History Center archives.

I wondered if the groups of children may have been preparing to leave on the annual safety patrol trip by train to Washington, D. C. and in some years New York City also. I participated in the safety patrol at DeKalb County’s Pleasantdale Elementary School back in 1969 and 1970 but didn’t know the origins of the program or when it started. I also did not recall that it was associated with AAA, the American Automobile Association.

If you look closely, you will also see the name of two other Fulton County Schools at that time-Center Hill and Lakewood Heights Schools of Atlanta.  Several of the students are wearing badges and a few have on their safety patrol sash with the badge attached. There are quite a few suitcases.

Between 1924 and 1963, the city of Brookhaven was a municipality known as North Atlanta. An 1872 Act for Judicial Incorporation, passed by the Georgia General Assembly, paved the way for Brookhaven to become the village of North Atlanta.   The act outlined the manner in which towns and villages in Georgia could incorporate. The act was repealed in 1939. 

North Atlanta was bordered by the city of Atlanta to the south and the city of Chamblee to the north, with a total area of seven square miles.  In 1924, the total population for the area was less than one hundred people, but by 1964 increased to over 13,350. 

Advertisements for land in the Atlanta Constitution both in 1920 and 1946 list land on Balloon Road and Dunwoody Road, both described as being off Peachtree Dunwoody Road. In 1920, all local roads were dirt. Roads began to be paved in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration.

A piece of the Balloon Road remains today. It is called Old Balloon Road, located to the east of the complex that includes Emory St. Joseph’s Hospital and the surrounding office buildings. It is no longer directly connected with Peachtree Dunwoody Road but does lead to Johnson Ferry Road.

The Ashford in Ashford Dunwoody came from the W. T. Ashford family, who owned the home and land that is now part of Peachtree Golf Club as well as land extending across Peachtree Road.  The Ashfords operated a nursery business on this land.  The Ashford home was inherited by Mary Ashford who married Cobb Caldwell and led to another street name, Caldwell Road. The first owner of the home was Samuel House and Windsor Parkway was once known as House Road.  

Yolande Gwin was a popular reporter and columnist for the Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Journal newspapers. She often wrote for the society pages, but also covered other stories and wrote advice columns. She started out writing for the Atlanta Georgian newspaper in 1927, then for the Atlanta Constitution from 1934 until 1961. It was interesting to me to discover that she lived in Brookhaven for many years.

Cherokee Theatre first opened in 1963 at 3861 Peachtree Road, just one year after the Brookhaven Theater down the street on Peachtree Road had closed. The first film shown at Cherokee Theater was the three hour film “55 Days at Peking.” The film starred Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner.

John Hardigree, born in 1844, came to Dunwoody from Coweta County, Georgia in the late 1800’s. He began working as a carpenter. There he met Catherine Elizabeth Dalrymple and they were soon married. For a while, they lived in her parents’ home on what is still known as Dalrymple Road in Sandy Springs. Then they moved to a home of their own on what is now Lake Hearn Drive, in the district of DeKalb County known as Cross Keys.

Mims recalls, “Brookhaven Supply at intersection of North Druid Hills and Peachtree Road, Buice Sinclair was next, Bagley Electric, laundry, Brookhaven Pharmacy, gasoline station with fire station behind it, and the A&P just to start. The Brookhaven Picture Show was across from the Drug store and was run by Mr and Mrs Tittle.” He remembers there were many more stores along Peachtree Road.

Narvie Jordan Harris supervised all Black schools in DeKalb County beginning in 1944 as Jeanes Supervisor for the county. She continued in this role until desegregation in 1968. The Jeanes Supervisor program was initially funded by a one-million-dollar donation of Philadelphia Quaker Anna Jeanes in 1907. Jeanes Supervisors were Black educators hired to oversee Black schools across the United States.

In 1989, as Brookhaven Pharmacy on Peachtree Road was closing, Vivian Price wrote an article for the DeKalb New Era titled, “Cherry Cokes and Chicken Pox-Closing of Brookhaven Pharmacy Marks End of Era.” She begins with, “It was a sad day recently when employees and customers gathered to bid fond farewell to a north DeKalb institution-the Brookhaven Pharmacy.”

When I first wrote about the small old home at Murphey Candler Park in 2011, I knew the home as the Sea Scout Hut. Later, I learned it was used as a caretaker’s cottage for the park prior to the Sea Scouts. I went to Murphey Candler Park recently to see if the home still standing and it was. I have heard the city of Brookhaven plans to demolish the old home and it looks quite neglected at this point.