Kirby's Augusta - Augusta's Birthday in 1935

I didn't know whether you knew it, but June 14th is Augusta's birthday.
Yes, a letter written on that date in 1736 by Georgia founder James Oglethorpe ordered authorities to lay out a town up here on the biggest, flattest, driest patch of land along the Savannah River between the rapids and the ocean.

Over the years a variety of historic associations tried to get our town into the habit of celebrating each June 14, tying it in with Flag Day and the birthday of the U.S. Army, but it never seemed to catch on.
Maybe it just wasn’t all that dramatic.
We know that in 1739, Gen. Oglethorpe, himself, dropped to see what the town he'd created looked like.

He rode in via the old Creek Indian trail - what we now call Wrightsboro Road. His party was greeted with a musket salute, and he was generally pleased.

One of Oglethorpe's party described Augusta as a town "inhabited chiefly by Indian storekeepers and traders ... well situated in a pleasant, healthy part of the country."
Oglethorpe probably could have left more of an impact on his new metropolis, but he stayed only 10 days before hurrying home when he heard Britain was at war with Spain.

He left the town with a growth plan, but Augusta civic leaders being ... well, Augusta civic leaders, didn't follow it.
For one thing, he wanted the city to grow by adding squares, like Savannah.
Augustans appear to have thought such open parks a waste of prime real estate and filled them in with buildings. Also, instead of growing to the south toward what was then a swamp, Augusta construction went west down Broad Street for a financial reason - the merchants kept "leapfrogging" each other toward the Creek and Cherokee Indian trails west of town, wanting to be the first store that traders came upon when they arrived from the west with fresh furs.
Though we didn't follow Oglethorpe's vision, we certainly tried to make it up to him. In May 1935, Augusta held an elaborate, weeklong bicentennial.
It was by all accounts an elaborate affair, with pageants, parades, dances and contests. There was even an official poem.
Central to the event was a recreation of Oglethorpe's arrival two centuries before.
In this dramatic version, he was greeted by Indians as his boat came up the Savannah River. He then haggled with them over possession of the land before claiming this spot.
Think of it as Columbia Discovers America meets the Purchase of Manhattan Island.
Everyone who remembers the event, enjoyed it, but as Augusta's celebrated historian, the late Ed Cashin, liked to point out, we celebrated the 200th anniversary the wrong year. The correct bicentennial should have waited until 1936.

BUT I THINK THERE IS A REASON.
If you check out major league baseball this season, you’ll find the Atlanta Braves are celebrating their 50th year in Atlanta. They arrived here Georgia in 1966, so most would think they’d wait until next year … but marketing people are always looking for an angle.
That’s what I think Augusta did in 1935 … they celebrated the city’s 200th year. By technically going a year early, it allowed them to also combine the event with the 150th birthday of The Augusta Chronicle as well as the 100th birthday of the Georgia Railroad bank, a major advertiser in the newspaper’s special bicentennial edition.
That’s why Dr. Cashin could resolve the dates. Historians are bad at marketing.
And vice versa.

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