If you have already taken our Getting Started with Genealogy class and want to expand your research skills OR if you need a brush up on the best practices in genealogical research, this class is for you! In this hybrid session at the Athens-Clarke County Library Multipurpose Room C or on ZOOM, attendees will learn the best practices of genealogical research methods. Make sure you have the correct Great Uncle, John Smith; learn to avoid the inevitable genealogy rabbit holes, and make sure you have the best sources to support your claims. Take a deep dive into genealogy research methods, specifically Genealogical Proof Standards. Learn how to form a research question, discover sources, evaluate those sources, create citations, and record what you found. All attendees will receive a handout before the live session as well as access to slides. We hope to see you there!
Just Do Something: A genealogy research shared interest group
Saturday, April 13, 2024, 10:00am-12:00pm
Heritage Room Conference Room
Registration not required
Looking for the elusive record you have not been able to locate? Need to add people to your online tree? Just do something with the Clarke-Oconee Genealogical Society and the Athens-Clarke County Library Heritage Room. Set aside dedicated time this month to dig deeper into your genealogy or history research. The goal is to “Just Do Something” every 2nd Saturday of the month--Make the commitment with us!
Join us in-person in Multipurpose Room A or online via ZOOM for our monthly, fourth Tuesday, Genealogy research class. Each month we feature a different genealogical resource for those interested in family history research. April 2024 we are delving into city directories. City Directories are much more than the precursor to phone books! We will review how to access these resources, what kind of information they provide, and how this can help your own family research journey. Each class attendee will walk away with a handout filled with resources and have the opportunity to ask questions.
Heritage Room Special Events
From family letters buried in the attic to computer hard drives from 2002 storing digital photographs, everything deteriorates over time. Preservation is the set of strategies used to slow that deterioration down and ensure future generations have access to the things we use today. We at the Athens-Clarke County Library Heritage Room believe that these paper, digital, film, and other mementos should last a lifetime and beyond. The physical and digital materials used today, as well as those used in the past, contain important information about an individual, the community, as well as our cultural identities and experiences as humans. The preservation of these materials contribute to our understanding of history and its participants just as collections in libraries, museums, and archives do. The personal materials hiding in attics, basements, closets, or on the forgotten Dell Inspiron 2200 laptop from 2006 all hold value historically. So, the Heritage Room has developed a series of programs around Preservation Week 2024: Preserving Identitiesto help the Athens-Clarke County Community preserve their valuable and vibrant collections. By attending one of the programs listed below participants will be entered into a drawing to win a professional Photo Preservation Kit. Learn more at www.athenslibrary.org/preservation
Preservation Week Events
Heritage Room Open House
Saturday, April 27, 2024, 2:00pm-4:00pm
Multipurpose Room A, Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter St, Athens, Georgia
Creating a Personal Digital Archive
Tuesday, April 30, 2024, 5:30pm-7:00pm
Hybrid, ACC Library, Multipurpose Room A or Online via ZOOM
Athens Restaurants of Yore: Charlie Williams’ Pinecrest Lodge
To calculate which restaurant in Athens has served the most meals to the most diners, we would likely have to engage in a research project worthy of 10 University of Georgia doctorates. Any rough guess would include long-running franchise locations like Red Lobster or the McDonald’s on Prince Avenue. The recently-closed Mayflower, in business for seven decades, would make the list, as would a few other long-standing favorites like the Taco Stand, Strickland’s, Wilson’s, Add Drug’s lunch counter, Tony’s, and Poss’ Barbeque.
Standing tall among those local legends would be Charlie Williams’ Pinecrest Lodge, not only a restaurant but also an event venue and historical site. Located off Whitehall Road, the Lodge occupied a large plot of land with a lake, multiple buildings, and other features, such as a water wheel that came from the old Puryear textile mill, creating a relaxing rural setting. It was in business from 1929 to 2004, a time span that saw the restaurant’s clientele increasingly appreciate it as a welcoming refuge from the growing city that surrounded it.
Only in the last three decades of that span did Charlie Williams’ operate as a restaurant regularly open to the general public. It was originally a dining and party venue available by reservation, mostly rented by University-related organizations. In either phase of its history, it was loved for the food it served, including barbecue, fried fish, hush puppies, and other Southeastern staples.
Recently, Historic Athens added what remains of the Pinecrest Lodge to itsPlaces in Peril list. Since 2019, this list has enabled that organization, and local citizens interested in historic preservation, to focus their attention on structures that face demolition, fatal decay, or significant redevelopment. Though another restaurant, Rass ‘n’ Ruby’s, took the Lodge’s place on its historic property for a few years, by the end of the 2000s the buildings were unoccupied and beginning their decline, with the exception of one building adjacent to the water wheel, until recently rented out as a private residence.
As with most of our articles at the Heritage Room’s Athens: In Time blog, we begin the research process with old newspapers; given the Pinecrest Lodge’s University connections, the student newspaper the Red and Black most of all. The most frequent mentions of the restaurant that we find in the digitized Red and Black came in the paper’s society pages. Columns like “Social Briefs,” “Campus Capers,” and “Social Spin” from the 1940s through the mid-1960s let fellow students know about the parties taking place every weekend. Charlie Williams’ is mentioned regularly, with parties booked many Friday and Saturday nights. One example comes fromDecember 5th, 1941, two days before the Pearl Harbor attack: a notice about a fraternity barbecue party taking place that day. Another example, a notice about a sorority hayride on January 10th, 1947, lists attendees (“actives and pledges”) and their dates. On the same page of the paper’s March 7th, 1952, edition, both a fraternity “shrimp supper and dance” and the Economics Society’s social are announced, apparently taking place at the Lodge on the same night. Which would you rather attend? The Lodge also became well-known in both phases of its history for welcoming the University football team, both before and after the “big game.”
No surprise, the restaurant also consistently advertised in the student newspaper. Below are examples of the ads run by the Lodge plus one run by Alpha Chi Omega for a “dance and crowning of Mr. Apollo."
The parties held at the Lodge often featured live music. Indeed, the Lodge joined the fraternities themselves, located on Milledge Avenue, in being a crucial part of Athens' music history. Before the 1970s--especially due to the strictures of racial segregation--the opportunities to see live music in formal settings in a small city like Athens were limited. The Last Resort opened in the later half of the 1960s and some restaurants featured music performances to entice customers. But in the 1950s and early '60s, if you wanted to hear the rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll sounds that were dramatically changing American society, you had to go to private functions, fraternity parties most of all.