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. 

Roswell Road was once a forty-foot-wide concrete road known as Roosevelt Boulevard between 1925 and 1927. The road was named for President Theodore Roosevelt, whose mother’s childhood home was Bulloch Hall in Roswell. Roosevelt returned home by way of the Roswell Railroad in 1905. You can read more about Roosevelt’s visit here.

John Ripley Forbes set up nature and science centers in over 30 states and 200 communities across the United States. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Chattahoochee Nature Center in Roswell and Dunwoody Nature Center. He is responsible for the John Ripley Forbes Big Trees Forest Preserve on Roswell Road next door to North Fulton Service Center in Sandy Springs.

I’ve had this subject on my mind for a while because I went to Camp Chattahoochee, only one time and in the 1960s. The location of Camp Chattahoochee is now the Chattahoochee Nature Center on Willeo Road in Roswell.

A search of Atlanta newspapers doesn’t reveal much about the camp, but an ad appears in the 1965 Atlanta Constitution. Camp Chattahoochee is described as a camp for boys and Camp Greenbriar for girls both in Roswell Georgia. The have both day and boarding camp and the director is Horace Holden. I don’t recall the name Camp Greenbriar from my experience.

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.  

Theodore Roosevelt’s mother was Martha (Mittie) Bulloch of Roswell, and his father was Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. of New York. They married at Roswell Presbyterian Church in 1853. The President heard his mother tell stories of the place she grew up and in 1901 began thinking of a visit. Bulloch Hall still stands today, owned by the City of Roswell and supported by Friends of Bulloch, Inc.

Prior to the Civil War, the owners of the Roswell Manufacturing Company determined that a railroad to carry goods produced in their mills to Atlanta would be great for business. Grading work began to prepare for tracks, but that work was halted with the onset of the war.

Michael Hitt pointed out that the history of indigenous people goes much further back, before the Creek and Cherokee were in this area. A Georgia Department of Natural Resources chart shows the Archaic period as 8000 BC to 1000 BC. During this time, people would have used natural shelters, such as the the rock overhangs along the paths of the Island Ford Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Sandy Springs.

Roberts Drive in Dunwoody and Sandy Springs is named for the engineer of the Roswell Railroad Isaac (Ike) Roberts. He was the engineer for the entire time the railroad operated-1881 until 1921. People that worked with him and those that lived along the railroad called him Cap’n Ike. The railroad ran between Chamblee and Roswell, with stops at Wilson’s Mill, Dunwoody, and Powers Station.

The story of how Dunwoody got its name has been passed down from early families and it goes like this: Major Charles Archibald Alexander Dunwody applied for a post office for the area and an extra “o” was added to the name.

The Brookhaven Theatre at 4012 Peachtree Road opened in May 1938. The first film to be shown was Heidi, starring Shirley Temple. In the early years, tickets were twenty-five cents until 6:00 p.m.

Christmas in Connecticut starring Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan was playing at the Brookhaven Theatre in February of 1946. The original release was August of 1945.

Around 1924, when the Roswell Railroad was no longer operational, the Dunwoody Depot was rolled up Chamblee-Dunwoody Road on logs to a new location. The Depot was originally located between where CVS and Chevron are today on Chamblee Dunwoody Road. The new location was the southwest corner of the intersection of Chamblee Dunwoody Road and Mount Vernon Road, where BP is today.

Dunwoody, Chamblee, Doraville, Sandy Springs, Roswell, and Brookhaven.  These neighboring communities north of Atlanta each have a unique story (or stories) for how their names came about.