THE END OF THE HAPPY DAYS
During the last three years of the 2nd decade of the 20th Century, Dublin and Laurens County rose to never before seen economic heights only to plummet into the abyss of death, despair and debt.
Dublin and Laurens County furnished nearly 1100 men to the armed forces in World War I. Dubliners and Laurens Countians raised tremendous sums of money through bond sales.
Corporal Walter Warren (LEFT) of Dexter was the first American aviator to be wounded in France in early December 1917. Many of Laurens' citizens, including its most prominent physicians, served in the military.
Early Miller was the first to be drafted. Among the first Negroes in Georgia to be drafted in the Army were a contingent of Laurens County men. Even Dublin's mayor, Peter S. Twitty, enlisted in the U.S. Army. Both Twitty and his successor, Izzie Bashinski, donated their salaries to the Red Cross and the Y.M.C.A..
Cecil Preston Perry became the first Laurens Countian to die in action in the summer of 1918. James Mason was the first Dubliner to die in action. He died in France on July 29, 1918.
James L. Weddington, Jr., of the 6th Marine Corps Regiment, was awarded the French Croix de Guerre on July 10, 1918 for his heroism in carrying many wounded men off the battle field to field hospitals for several hours, risking his own safety in the process. Lt. Col. Pat Stevens was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre for extraordinary heroism in action south of Spitaal Bosschen, Belgium, on October 31, 1918. Lt. Ossie F. Keen was awarded the Silver Star. Sgt. Bill Brown of Dexter was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and was one of only 34 Americans to be awarded the French Cross with a Star for his heroism on October 14, 1918 at the battle of Cote de Chattelon.
Thousands more of Laurens County's finest young men went "over there" for Uncle Sam. Coley B. White survived the sinking of HMS Otranto. Four hundred thirty one other American and British soldiers and sailors did not.
Oscar K. Jolley survived a stint as a prisoner in a German P.O.W. camp. Fortunately, the war was relatively short and only fifty Laurens County men lost their lives. During the centennial celebration of World War II, Laurens County citizens of both races raised funds and awareness to all of known missing names of the county’s African American casualties of the war. The movement was cited nationally as “the right thing to do.”
A nationwide influenza epidemic killed many of the county's older citizens during the months before and after the end of World War I. The county board of health closed schools and banned public meetings for several weeks. The epidemic finally waned in the spring of 1919.
After the war, the Dublin Guards, a state militia unit, reorganized as Co. A. of the 1st Battalion of the Georgia National Guard. The unit, which was the first National Guard unit in the Southeast, has evolved to a support company and is still active today. The company's first captain, Lewis C. Pop (LEFT) e of Dublin, served as Adjutant General of the Georgia National Guard in the 1920's.
In the euphoria following the end of the war, enough residents of Academy Avenue convinced the city council to rename the avenue in honor of Woodrow Wilson. A few weeks later, more prominent and powerful residents persuaded the council to reverse their hasty decision.
The months after the war were nearly as devastating as those following the Civil War. Dublin and Laurens County depended on the cotton crop. The county was too dependent on cotton. When the boll weevil destroyed the cotton crops of 1918 and 1919, the economy of the entire county collapsed. Business leaders attempted to diversify with other farm products, but with no capital available to invest in other ventures, the county’s economy collapsed. Nearly half of the local banks, which just a few years earlier led the state in the numbr of big city banks, failed in the five years which followed.
One highlight of the period was the first professional baseball game ever played in Dublin. The New York Yankees defeated the Boston Braves in a closely fought game at the 12th District Fairgrounds on Telfair Street in 1918. Playing for the Yankees was Frank "Home Run" Baker, a Hall of Famer, who was the leading power hitter in the dead ball era.
A lasting legacy from the war era was the location of U.S. Highway 80. The "coast to coast" highway in its pre-interstate days brought many passersby, from Henry Ford to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Elvis Presley.
In 1919, Rev. W.N. Ainsworth, (LEFT) who served First Methodist Church in 1901 and 1902, was elected Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1919. Bishop Ainsworth presided over Methodist Churches from Texas to Virginia and those in China, Japan and Cuba. The Dublin "Green Hurricane" dominated their region in their first four years of football and set a state record when they defeated Swainsboro High 86-0 in 1919.
During the early years of World War I, the City of Dublin became the first city in Georgia and one of the first in the nation to display a lighted municipal Christmas tree. Piccola Prescott became the county’s first woman postal carrier in 1918. The number of telephones in the county increased from 350 in 1910 to 1200 in 1920.
The economic boom which had carried Dublin and Laurens to the zenith of major Georgia cities was over, at least for a while. The period’s lasting legacies are still here, a century later.
Soon the Twenties would meow.
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