THE ET CETERA CHRONICLES - VOL. 74
STAY OFF THE GRASS - Dublin prided itself on the magnificent grounds of the courthouse. During the height of the Great Depression, upkeep of the grounds was virtually ignored. Congressman W.W. Larsen, Sr., provided Federal funding to spruce up the area which could be seen not only by the public, but thousands of travelers passing through town on the way to or from Savannah. One day, County Warden J.W. Ard and Deputy Superior Court Clerk Jessie Baldwin got into a discussion about lazy citizens destroying the new grass. Ard told Miss Baldwin that he knew how to eliminate the problem. Ard, through free labor from his prison crew, erected a barbed wire fence around the perimeter of the courthouse, which made the area look more like a prison instead of a stately courthouse. Dublin Courier Herald, January 25, 1932.
MAGAZINE MAN - John W. Yopp, Sr., a native of Laurens County, founded and established several of the most popular trade magazines in the South in the first quarter of the 20th Century. Under the banner of the Southern Periodical Publishing Company, Yopp published the Southern Coal Journal, the Southern Funeral Director Magazine, (established in 1919 and is still in publication today as the ldest family owned operated funeral trade publication. ) and other trade journals as the Southern Refrigeration Journal and the Southern Dairy Products Journal. Yopp died in 1927. Orlando Sentinel, January 11, 1927.
FIRST HISTORIAN - Mrs. Clyde Black Chivers was the first historian to be proclaimed the first official Laurens County Historian. Dublin Courier Herald, July 19, 1931.
THE LAST SUNDAY PAPER - The Dublin Courier Herald began publishing a daily newspaper back in November, 1913. Over the next 17-plus years, the publishers took a break on Saturdays, normally a day of tending to personal business, and published a regular Sunday morning edition. That all ended on July 26, 1931. Dublin Courier Herald, July 26, 1931.
THE WAR OF THE SERPENTS - Dublin’s boxing promoter, E.S. Stinson pulled out all of the stops to get fans to come to his boxing matches at his newly opened gymnasium on East Jackson. It wasn’t easy to keep the crowd coming back regularly when so many of the fighters were local men, who had fought each other, over and over again. So, Stinson hired W.W. Webb to go out and acquire a rattlesnake and a kingsnake for a death match. Dublin Courier Herald, August 25, 1931.
GET ON THE BUS, GUS! - Dublin’s first bus line was established by I.W. Montford in the late 1920s. Montford sold the business to Hood Motor Lines of Atlanta in 1931. Dublin banker and businessman, George T. Morris, opened another local line here in the 1940s. Dublin Courier Herald, October 1, 1931.
INDOOR BASKETBALL - Before 1932, most high school basketball games were played outdoors or in very dark, dusty, old cotton warehouses. On January , that all changed. What started out as a senior project of the Dublin High School class of 1931 caught fire and through the support of the entire community, Dublin’s citizens erected the county’s first true indoor basketball court. Originally known as “The Shell,” the building was named the “Hargrove Gymnasium” in order of Dublin City School Superintendent A.J. Hargrove. On January 22, 1932, the first game in the new gym was between the Dublin Bluebirds, a team made composed of former Dublin High athletes, and a team from the Lovett Athletic Club. The gala opening wasn’t so gala as the Bluebirds lost to Lovett, 26-11 and Dublin’ s high school boys lost to the country boys from Adrian, 26-16. Dublin Courier Herald, January 22-23, 1932.
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