Chattahoochee, Georgia
Train Wreck
November 3, 1911
TRAIN HITS BROKEN RAIL; THREE DEAD
Fast Mail on Southern Railway Wrecked While Running at High Rate of Speed.
ATLANTA, Ga., Nov. 3.-Three persons were killed and four injured when fast mail train No. 15, on the Southern railway, running from Cincinnati to Jacksonville, Fla., was wrecked at Chattahoochie [sic], near here, about midnight. The train was going at a high rate of speed when it struck a broken rail in a deep cut. The dead:
E. O. PYRON, baggageman, Atlanta.
BEN RIGGS, negro fireman, of Cleveland, Tenn.
UNKNOWN NEGRO.
The injured:
KELLIE WOODSON, Indianapolis.
MRS. MOLLY DYER, of Johnson City, Tenn.
JOHN HOUGHLAND, of New Albany, Ind.
ELLA WILLIAMS, colored, of Chattanooga, Tenn.
Lincoln Evening News, Lincoln, NE 3 Nov 1911
Chattahoochee was a village and a train stop that was located between Riverside and Whittier Mill, where the Southern Railroad crosses the Chattahoochee River. It had a money order PO, express and telegraph service, and although but a small place, is was the principal trading point for this part of the county.
Do you know anything about Chattahoochee?
Please help to keep the history of
from being forgotten.
Map 1899
Chattahoochee Elementary School Fire
A roaring fire virtually destroyed the school, located at 2715 Peyton Road NW in Riverside, on Sept. 9, 1961. The initial alarm was sounded at 9:46 pm and required three alarms to extinguish.
21:46 Engines 28,22,23. Ladders 23,17. Acting 2nd Battalion Chief J.T. Anderson and 1st Assistant Chief C.T. Ragsdale.
21:57 Second Alarm: Engines 16, 17 Ladder 16
22:15 Third Alarm: Engines 15, 27 Ladder 7 Light Unit 1
The fire was caused by a ceramic kiln being left on in the science room of a one story wood frame with brick veneer and wooden roof deck building. Constructed in a “U” shape, the science room was the first to the east of the main entrance or right at the bottom of the “U” shape. Fire rapidly spread in both directions, both into the attic and into the basement.
Six 2-1/2 inch and two 1-1/2 inch hand lines were placed in operations assisted by cellar pipes and a ladder pipe. Sixty one firefighters worked at this alarm. Firefighter Ed Norris of Company 23 received a cut to the arm as the only injury noted.
The loss was listed as $53,000 and the school was rebuilt with the same construction and shape interestingly, by the 1980’s, population shift had caused the Atlanta Board of Education to close the Chattahoochee Elementary School. Although they retained ownership, this building was vacant until Feb. 28, 1987. On that date, the Margaret Fain Elementary School in Adamsville was leveled by fire. The Fain building was also a frame, brick veneer building constructed about the same time as the Chattahoochee facility. Classes from Margaret Fain were moved into the Chattahoochee school until the Fain facility could be reconstructed.
Whittier Mill ad from 1913
about 1907 - Carmichael girl out in front of the Carmichael farm along Dixie Highway
(Route 3) between Smyrna and Chattahoochee.
Families traveling from the north to Atlanta
could stop overnight at the farm for provisions.
Buildings from left to right - cotton gin, well house, blacksmith shop, barn, Carmichael’s Crossing streetcar stop, behind the stop was the Carmichael store, and wagon yard.
