Learn More – Fabulous Fox Theater Opens James C. Bryant, “Yaarab Temple and the Fox Theatre: The Survival of a Dream,” Atlanta History 39 (summer 1995): 5-22. Ben M. Hall, The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace (New York: Da Capo Press, 1988). John Clark McCall, Atlanta Fox […]

He was the highest-ranking Native American to fight for the Confederacy, but years before the Civil War, Stand Watie was nearly assassinated by fellow Cherokees for what they saw as betrayal. Watie was born near New Echota, in Georgia, in 1806. That’s the same place where he and three other Cherokees signed the Treaty of […]

He was one of those classic character actors from the golden age of Hollywood but you probably didn’t know his name. Actor Charles Coburn was born in Macon in 1877 and grew up in Savannah. At age 19, after working in local theater, he headed off to Broadway. When his first wife died in 1937, […]

As was said of the great architect Christopher Wren, if you wish to know his legacy, look around you. George Heery was born in Athens in 1927. After a stint in the Pacific theater in the Navy during World War II, he earned an architectural degree at Georgia Tech. George and his father founded the […]

Alfred Colquitt had an imposing resume: Ivy League graduate, Mexican War veteran, Confederate general, congressman, governor and senator. Born in Walton County in 1824, Colquitt graduated from Princeton, then practiced law in Monroe until he fought in the Mexican War, rising to the rank of major. He was elected to the U.S. Congress during the […]

He was a Revolutionary leader involved in the most famous duel in Georgia history. Lachlan McIntosh was born in Scotland in 1727 and came to Georgia with a group of Highland Scots to defend the colony’s southern border. He grew up in the Scots settlement of Darien and became a prosperous rice planter. During the […]

He was the large half of the duo that was widely considered the greatest comedy team in film history, always complaining, “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” Norvell Hardy was born in Harlem, Georgia, in 1892, and grew up in Madison, Covington, Athens, and Milledgeville. He was working at a theater when […]

It took the Supreme Court to seat Julian Bond in the Georgia Legislature. Born in Nashville in 1940, graduated from a Quaker school in Pennsylvania, he came to Atlanta to attend Morehouse College. Bond led several nonviolent protests that helped integrate Atlanta lunch counters, theaters, and parks. In 1960, he was one of the founders […]

Her fame rested on one indelible performance: a slave who lacked the midwifery skills to help Melanie Hamilton. Thelma McQueen was born in Florida in 1911. She moved to Augusta after her father abandoned the family. She studied acting, dance, and music in New York. Her nickname derived from a performance in the Butterfly Ballet […]

It’s one of Georgia’s great architectural treasures, and it opened on Christmas day in 1929. The Fabulous Fox Theatre on the corner of Peachtree and Ponce de Leon was originally built as the meeting hall for the Shriners, which explains its Moorish design. The initial cost was $2.2 million but it took the money of […]