PHOTOS FROM THE PAST

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Next in the series of hometowns of overseas Byters and regular contributors, Tim B, who hails from Fayetteville, Georgia USA

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About Fayettevile:

From Wikipedia:

Fayetteville is a city in and the county seat of Fayette County, Georgia, United States.

(Tim, you will need to advise the relationship between Fayettville in Georgia and in North Carolina.)

As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 18,957.

Fayetteville is located 22 miles (35 km) south of downtown Atlanta.

Fayetteville was founded in 1822 as the seat of the newly formed Fayette County, organized by European Americans from territory ceded by force the Creek people under a treaty with the United States during the early period of Indian removal from the Southeast. Both city and county were named in honor of the Revolutionary War hero the French Marquis de Lafayette.

Fayetteville was incorporated as a town in 1823 and as a city in 1902.

The area was developed for cotton plantations, with labor provided by enslaved African Americans, who for more than a century comprised the majority of the county's population. Fayetteville became the trading town for the agricultural area.

In the first half of the 20th century, as agriculture became more mechanized, many African-American workers left the area in the Great Migration to northern and midwestern industrial cities, which had more jobs and offered less oppressive social conditions.

A reverse migration has brought new residents to the South, and the city of Fayetteville has grown markedly since 1980, as has the county.

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Gallery:

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Picture of the proposed Liberty Point statue. On March 24, 1903, an auxiliary to the Liberty Point monument was formed to help raise funds for the erection of a statue on the corner of Person and Bow streets at Liberty Point. Beneath this proposed statue of a lady would be the words "Liberty." Although several money-raising schemes were used, including the sale of this hand-colored postcard, with the statue drawn in, enough funds for the monument could not be raised. The old Opera House, also known as The New Market, is seen on the extreme left.

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The Toonerville Trolley that was one of the three trolley cars in Fayetteville from 1906 through 1916. Residents could ride this street car from the top of Haymont Hill down Hay Street and out Gillespie Street to the Massey Hill area for only five cents.

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Young ladies ride in a parade that ended in front of Highsmith Hospital on Green Street in Fayetteville in 1911.

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The Lyric Theatre was located across from S.H. Kress & Co. on Hay Street in the early 1920s. It was owned by a man who offered free tickets to children who collected tin cans to clean up the city of Fayetteville.

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Postcard of the fourth Cumberland County courthouse on the north west corner of Gillespie and Russell Streets in the early 1900s. When the courthouse was built, a part of Russell Street was called Mumford Street.

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In March 1914 Fayetteville residents crowded into the old Cape Fear Association grandstand on Gillespie Street where they saw eighteen-year-old George Herman Ruth, who was the youngest player on the Baltimore Orioles team, hit his first home run in professional baseball. It was in this park that he was referred to as "Babe in the Woods” and later “Babe Ruth."

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The third Cumberland County courthouse. The first Cumberland County courthouse was a log building constructed at Choeffington near Linden, North Carolina. The second courthouse was built at Campbellton. A later courthouse was erected on James Square [later called Saint James Square] at the intersection of Green, Rowan, Ramsey, and Grove streets. This brick building, which faced south looking down Green Street toward the Market [State] House, was constructed circa 1790 and was demolished in the 1890s. The Confederate Monument was later erected on its site.

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Eleanor Roosevelt who, with her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt, visited Fayetteville and Fort Bragg in the late 1930s. The picture was made at the A.C.L. Railroad Depot on Hay Street.

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The first street-car in Fayettevile, 1906

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The "Florida" yacht at Breece's Landing on the Cape Fear River. The "Florida" was owned by the late Oscar P. Breece, and it ran on the river from the 1940s through the 1960s. A World War II Submarine Chaser was used as a foating dock for the ship. The remains of the Submarine Chaser can still be seen near the old Breece's Landing. The "Florida" is on the right of this photograph near the Submarine Chaser

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1920s view of the third LaFayette Hotel that had an impressive tower on the fourth floor. Note the street car lines on unpaved Hay Street in front of the hotel. This is the hotel Babe Ruth stayed in when he hit his first home run in professional baseball in the old ball park on Gillespie Street in March 1914. Apparently Babe loved to ride the hand-operated elevator in that hotel.

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Hopefully this means something for Tim . . .

1923 aerial photograph of downtown Fayetteville, no First Citizen Bank building on the corner of Hay and Green Streets; The Bevill's stable occupied the site of the old stone Cumberland County courthouse; the Lafayette Hotel on Hay Street had a tower above the third floor; the old Opera House was still standing on Person Street; Highsmith Hospital (later to become the Millbrook Hotel) can be seen on Green Street; the McNeill Milling Company (the site of Newberry's mill) is still visible on the corner of Old and Green Streets; Central School was on Burgess Street behind the Hay Street Methodist Church; Rogers and Breece Funeral Home was still in the old Martin House Hotel building on Bow street; the City Hall (now known as Fascinate U Children's museum) had not been constructed; the Catholic church was on Bow Street where the Central Fire Department was later constructed; Champion Automotive Equipment Company (owned and operated by Weeks Parker, Sr.) was on the corner of Bow street and Cool Spring Lane near Liberty Point; and the old Eagle Hotel; the Fayetteville Observer and the Public Works office and switch house were across from the Highsmith Hospital on Green Street.

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Another view of the third LaFayette Hotel on Hay Street, where Babe Ruth stayed when he hit his first home run in professional baseball.

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Hay Street as it looked in the 1960s.

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Market Square with The Market House.

From the mid 1800s and until the early 1900s, farmers throughout Cumberland and surrounding counties brought their wagons loaded with cotton and fire wood to the Market House where they were weighed on public scales and then sold to the public.

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Hay Street, 1960s

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The Fayetteville Stagecoach that carried passengers and mail from Wilmington and Raleigh during the mid to late 1800s. The first "stage house" where the offices of the stagecoach company were kept, was in the Fayetteville Hotel which was built about 1849 on Green Street in the vicinity of St. John's Episcopal Church rectory.

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A view of Hay Street as it was in the 1960s. On the left is a huge pencil in front of the OSI Office Supply Company.On the right is the S. H. Kress 5 & 10 cent store where popcorn and candy were sold for 5 cents a bag.

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Early 1900s view of a Decoration Day [now called Memorial Day] celebration on Person Street. The New Market and Opera House can be seen on the right in this picture.

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In August, 1955 WFLB TV, channel 18, became Fayetteville's first television station. This ultra-high frequency station was one of the first of its kind in North Carolina. The studios and transmitter were located at the present site of radio station WAZZ at 1332 Bragg Boulevard. This pioneering UHF station carriedÊ three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Because of competition from the VHF stations, WFLB TV went off the air in 1959.

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Fayetteville High School Majorettes as they appeared in 1952

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Fayetteville High School Band members get ready to perform on the football field behind Fayetteville High School on Robeson Street. 1950s

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In 1900, Major Benjamin R. Huske founded Huske Hardware House at 405 Hay Street. For more than seventy years, Huske Hardware House did a thriving business serving the people of Fayetteville with the very finest in general hardware supplies. When Benjamin R. Huske was a boy, he joined the Fayetteville Independent Light Infantry and later became commander of that company. Major Huske and his F.I.L.I. company were made a part of the Second North Carolina Regiment during the Spanish American war.

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Fayetteville residents stand in front of the old Eagle Hotel (Overbaugh House) as they eagerly await a Fourth of July celebration on Green Street near the Market House. Note the Roman numerals and the Market House clock faces on the wheels of the automobiles.

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The Carpentry Force pose for the photographer at the Cape Fear and Yadkin Railway yard in 1889.

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Fayetteville policemen and Fort Bragg military, early 1920s. Note the horseshoe over the entrance to the police and fire department headquarters.

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In the 1920s the Courthouse Filling Station and Tire Company on the corner of Gillespie and Russell streets was one of the most popular service stations in Fayetteville. As soon as a customer pulled his car into this Esso station, he received immediate service from three attendants who quickly pumped the gas, filled the radiator, checked the oil, the battery and the tires and then cleaned the windshield. The price of gas was as low as 14 cents a gallon.

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The Market House as seen from a rescue boat on Person Street during the 1945 flood in Fayetteville, North Carolina

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In April 1983, a statue of Marquis de Lafayette was dedicated by citizens of Fayetteville, in impressive ceremonies in Cross Creek Park. The stature is a work of Ference Varga of France who is shown in his studio as he works on another of his many statures. The Lafayette statue is seen on the left. This statue was presented to the city of Fayetteville by the Lafayette Society, which raised all of the funds required to pay for the statue

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World-famous aviator, Amelia Earhart [wearing flight coveralls] during her aerial visit to Fayetteville in 1935 at the airport located on the Raleigh Road near the present site of the Veteran's Hospital. The plane she piloted was called an Autogire which was the forerunner of the Helicopter which was invented a year later in 1936. On an attempted flight around the world, the noted flyer and her navigator were lost somewhere near Howland Island in the Pacific in July 1937.

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1928 photo of the first Coca Cola bottling plant, located at 225 Mumford Street [now Russell Street] in Fayetteville. Their phone number was 89. The wagon in this picture had a 21 case capacity.