For a species born without wings, we sure have spent a great deal of time trying to learn to fly. The desire to fly is probably as much a part of being human as is the fear of falling. Go figure that one out. This week we examine an event that took place in Atlanta […]
Author Archives: Lance Russell
Lance Russell is an Atlanta-based filmmaker and media communicator who, for over three decades, has been entrusted by clients to tell their stories. A seasoned producer with an innate ability to cut to the heart of the matter, Lance’s instincts are tailor-made for today’s “media bite” culture. Brief, poignant and always entertaining, Lance’s current passion is bringing Atlanta’s colorful and inspiring past to life with his “rest of the story” style video series, Stories of Atlanta. “History’s best communicators,” says Lance, “have always been storytellers. It’s in our DNA. ‘Once upon a time’ is how we got to where we are now.”
Posted inStories of Atlanta
From Prussia to Peachtree
When the Civil War ended in 1865, life, as you can imagine, did not just magically return to normal. There was no “normal.” Chaos was the order of the day and the State of Georgia had been particularly hard hit. Its politics was scattered, the economy was in shambles and in June of 1865 the […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
We all knew it wasn’t right
In his epic work “The Souls of Black Folk,” WEB DuBois seems to describe the City of Atlanta in terms that separate Atlanta from what is generally considered to be a traditional Southern city. “South of North, yet north of South lies the city of a hundred hills…” he writes. The image of Atlanta as […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
The lumberman who saved a few trees for Atlanta
The name Martin Amorous is not one that most Atlantans associate with the development of the City of Atlanta but that doesn’t diminish his contribution to the well-being of our city, not in the least. Martin Amorous was born in Savannah, in 1858. His father , Mathias Amorous, was a proud Spaniard from Barcelona who […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
A busy store on a busy corner
Any city that attains any sort of momentum attracts interesting visitors…some famous, some not so much. And every visitor to Atlanta comes with a story and this week we were going to tell just such a visitor story…a pretty good one too. But that was all before we discovered Miss Fluffy Raffles. Fluffy is not […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
His request has been honored
Even Atlanta, with it comparatively young history, is not without its colorful characters. And one of Atlanta’s more interesting individuals was Jasper Newton Smith. Smith was an Atlanta businessman during the city’s reconstruction days. He owned a business at what is today the intersection of Peachtree and 14th Streets. Jasper Smith, or Jack as he […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
The house on Marietta Street
Most people, when giving a tour of the City of Atlanta to friends or family, usually find themselves starting more than one sentence with the phrase, “On this spot…” It’s pretty much a necessity in Atlanta to point out what was in a location because, as almost everyone knows, Atlanta has never been particularly sentimental […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
We didn’t give up with a fight
Of all of the legendary names who were instrumental in building Atlanta into one of the nation’s premiere metropolitan regions, the name Carl G. Fisher is not one of them…but perhaps it should be. One could make the case that without the motivation supplied by Mr. Fisher, Atlanta would not be the city that it […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Understanding the name
It will come as no surprise to anyone that Peachtree Street was not always the bastion of business that it is today. At the turn of the 20th century, Peachtree Street was a tree-lined avenue with magnificent mansions on either side. It was a neighborhood…a neighborhood filled with well-to-do residents…but a neighborhood none the less. […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
For sale, the State of Georgia
There are many facets that make up a successful community, city or state, but without question, one of the most important elements, if not the most important element, is people. It’s hard to have a thriving community if nobody’s home. Which was exactly the case for the State of Georgia at the turn of the […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
She was fast and reliable
They say it’s the journey, not the destination. And for some in the 1950s and 60s whose destination was Atlanta, the journey was more than mere conveyance, it was, in fact, Southern Tradition. For many, the trip is a lingering memory from childhood. For others, it was just how we lived back in the day, […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
For the want of a floodlight
There are few better examples of the value of long-term planning than Atlanta’s airport. Atlanta did not blindly stumble into its status as an aviation powerhouse; it got there purposefully, thanks to the forward thinking of several Atlanta citizens. And it began with airmail. A byproduct of World War 1 was the significant advancements made […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Keeping an eye on Atlantans
For time after the Civil War, Atlantans found themselves living under military occupation. In fact, the government built barracks close to downtown which housed Federal troops for that specific purpose. You probably know the name, but if you don’t, you can find out in this week’s Stories of Atlanta.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
It was a big deal for the entire town
There is something undeniably compelling about the shared experience. It’s a human thing. We all have it, that need to be with others. A neuroscientist could probably offer a pretty strong biological reason for what the sociologists call collective behavior. You and I, we don’t usually feel the need to get that deep into the […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
For a while, it was king of the hill
There was a time when movie-goers had a number of choices in downtown Atlanta. From the Loew’s Grand and the Paramount to the 81 and the Roxy, the options on Peachtree Street were plentiful. In the early 20th century, Atlanta boasted the largest movie theater in the Southeast and it’s still in operation today. Only, […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
What’s your favorite color?
They say the human eye can distinguish upwards of 7-million different colors. With so many options, it makes one wonder just how picky must Steve Jobs have been that he had to design his own shade of white because he couldn’t find one he felt worked for his computers. But the truth is, color, in […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
A wartime skill finds new life
One of the challenges of our 21st century lifestyle is trying to process the unprecedented amount of information available at any given moment. We are subjected to so much input on so many different topics that it is hard for us to imagine how people got along before the invention of instantaneous communications. It helps, […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
In hindsight, it seems obvious
Part of the fun in looking back through time is examining the origins of the things that today we take for granted. Even though it is obvious that there clearly had to be a first for just about everything, that doesn’t make it any less interesting to find out just exactly how a particular “first” […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Not everyone shared his enthusiasm
James Litchfield Beavers is not a name that most Atlantans today are familiar with but, back in his day, James Beavers was “The Man”… literally. For 26 years, James Beavers was a member of Atlanta’s police force and from 1911 to 1915 he was Atlanta’s “Top Cop,” the Chief of Police. In his almost three […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Attracting the wrong kind of attention
In September of 1895 at Atlanta’s Cotton States and International Exposition, Charles Jenkins demonstrated to the world what he called a Phantoscope, an early version of a movie projector. From that moment on, the world would never be the same. The invention of the movie projector led to the emergence of filmmaking as an art […]
