Travels in the South

Welcome back friends to another edition of Travels in the South.  We have been talking about our visit with our great friends Bill and Jean from Canadian Cats.  If you have missed the previous editions, please check them out here:  Red Lobster; Fogo de Chao; Stately Oaks; Spa Day. World of Coca-Cola Part I, World of Coca-Cola Part II. World of Coca-Cola Part III, The Varsity, CNN Center.

 Today we are going to start sharing another tour that we went on that was called Gone With the Wind Tour.  The funny thing is that this tour has been in downtown historical Jonesboro for as long as I can remember and mom/dad have never went on it.  Now, they have been to some of the places that the tour visits but never the ‘official’ tour that shares all kinds of information.  And well Jean is such a fan of Gone With the Wind that everyone *had* to take this tour.  This posting will definitely have to be in several postings to share all of the highlights that we saw and the pictures we took.  So are you ready?  Here we go.

The tour picks up at the Road to Tara Museum which is a 1867 Train Depot.  Back in the day at the peak of railroad travel, both passengers and freight passed through downtown Jonesboro day and night.

It was once made of wood and stood near the Confederate Cemetery (which we will get to soon).  But that building burned down in 1864 during the Civil War’s Battle of Jonesboro.  After the building burned down, they built this building of granite and placed it more in the center of the town.  You bought the tickets for the tour in this museum and also could shop for all kinds of gifts and trinkets.

In fact inside of the museum, they had all kinds of items for Gone with the Wind including this picture, paintings, books, pens, bells – you name it and they had it.  I can assure you that mom and Jean walked out with more than the hub units wanted – snorts with piggy laughter.

Mom said she could have spent hours inside of the store just looking at everything – it was like walking on a movie set.

This beautiful house is called The Warren House and it was built in 1860 by Guy Warren.  Guy Warren was an agent for the Macon & Western Railroad and one of Jonesboro’s first town commissioners.  On the tour, you go by the house but currently it has new owners so you can’t go in to explore.  It was on and around this house where the majority of the Battle of Jonesboro took place.  The house at that time was used as a field hospital and was headquarters to the Confederate Troops until the Union Army took possession of the house for the same use.  The tour guide told us that in some of the walls in the downstairs parlor, you can still see signatures of the soldiers that were recuperating at the house during the war.  They left messages and signed the wall for all to see in the years to come.  Cool huh?

The next stop on our tour was the Patrick Cleburne Memorial Cemetery.  Now there are some graves that are marked with the names.  But this cemetery also holds the remains of over 1,000 soldiers that died during the Battle of Jonesboro who were buried in unmarked graves.  The unmarked headstones are laid out in the shape of a Confederate battle flag that can be seen from the air when you are overlooking the cemetery.

AND, in all the years mom has grown up in the area she has heard plenty of stories about this cemetery.  Mom knew of a friend that grew up in a house across the street.  One night her parents had gone out and she stayed home alone.  It was dark and rainy with a heavy fog in the area.  She looked out her front door and saw the image of a Confederate soldier walking down the street.  Just the thought of that makes my hair stand up on end – shivers.

Well friends, I hope you enjoyed the first installment of the tour of Gone With the Wind.  Come back next week for more in the Travels of the South with my mom/dad and Bill and Jean from Canada 🙂 ❤

 

Houdini is Behind the Wheel – OH NO!

So Houdini gets to drive the new Jeep and I can’t?  How wrong is that picture might I ask?  Look mom, his paws don’t touch the gas pedals either.  I want my turn!  See, I found these pictures.  Nope, I wasn’t snooping on mom’s iPhone either.  See mom forgot about this called the Cloud.  It holds everything – snorts with piggy laughter.  Her pictures get saved to the Cloud therefore I don’t *need* her iPhone anymore – ha!  Just don’t tell her okay my friends.

So I see this picture of the little guy driving the Jeep.  I’m like so that’s what he gets to do when he goes out with mom.  Boogers – I want to drive too!  Then I’m like why are they stopped?  And is Houdini’s paw on the horn – why?  Then I saw the next picture and went that’s why!  There was a geese crossing in downtown Jonesboro.  I guess that would stop traffic… as if a dog driving wouldn’t stop it before that – snorts with piggy laughter!

And I wonder where these geese were going?  To get to the other side of the railroad tracks?

 

 

A Little About My Town

Perhaps you’ve heard of this area called historical Jonesboro, Georgia.  Do you know the story of Gone with the Wind that was written by Margaret Mitchell?   Parts of this novel and movie were actually set in Clayton County in historical downtown Jonesboro.  

In fact, the plantation in the book/movie, “Tara”, is an important part in Clayton County.  One of our main north/south roads is named after Tara and is called Tara Boulevard.  They actually even made two sequels to Gone with the Wind – did you know this?  They were called Rhett Butler’s People and Scarlett.  Both take place briefly in Clayton County.

AND, I bet you didn’t know this fact.  Parts of the film Smokey and the Bandit were actually shot in and around Clayton County, specifically downtown Jonesboro.

This is a picture taken off of thebanditrunphotos.com  It actually shows Burt Reynolds in his famous car in front of what is actually the historical downtown Jonesboro depot. Although there is a sign up on the building that states “Texarkana”, if you look in the lower left hand corner you will actually see a sign that states Jonesboro Days. 🙂 A little oversight by the movie company.

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Another known fact about our little town – the Jonesboro Confederate Cemetery also known as the Patrick Cleburne Confederate Cemetery.  This cemetery is opened daily between dawn and dusk.  Mommy highly recommends the visit.  This cemetery is north of Jonesboro where the heaviest fighting took place during the second day of the Battle of Jonesboro. This battle took place August 31 – September 1, 1864.

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This cemetery is home to between 600-1,000 men who died during this battle.  If you look closely at this picture, on top of the monument that states Confederate Dead, you will see on the arch 12 cannonballs.  Once you enter this walk way, it takes you inside of the cemetery. It really does take your breath away when you think about all of the blood shed in such a short time.

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As you walk through the cemetery, you notice something just a little different about the layout.  The headstones are patterned in the shape of a confederate flag.  The walkways are shaped like a X and the graves fill in the triangles of the X.

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You can spend hours in this cemetery just looking at the different headstones reading the names.  Names of people that you actually don’t know in person but can feel and reconstruct in your mind the battles they must have went through during the time.  It is an emotional feeling to say the least.

There are also many homes in historical downtown Jonesboro  that were used in the civil war as Confederate field hospitals.  You can learn more about the homes and businesses located in the area  at http://jonesboroga.com/site/VisitingJonesboro/OnlineHistoricalTour/tabid/91/Default.aspx 

It’s a great read into this area.  I hope you enjoyed my little taste of some of the famous things about my home town.  I would love to hear about your home town 🙂  XOXO – Bacon