The Elegant Augusta Real Estate Blog

Lydias Assistant January 30th, 2008

• Country Music Hall of Famer Brenda Lee attended North Augusta Elementary School.

• Martintown Road follows the path of an Indian trail leading from Fort Moore to the Saluda Ridge. Traders took this route on their way to the Cherokee Nation.

• Jim Nabors, famous for his vocal recordings and roles on the Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, once lived in North Augusta. He was a member of the Grace United Methodist Church choir, and his aunt owned an establishment on Georgia Avenue called the White Midget Restaurant.

• North Augusta once boasted a stop on the longest urban trolley in the world. It started in Augusta, crossed the 13th Street Bridge into North Augusta, and continued on to Aiken. The fare from North Augusta to Augusta was 5 cents, but it took a quarter to ride from North Augusta to Aiken. The trolley made it’s last stop on July 8th, 1929. The motorman took a job as the North Augusta Police Chief, retiring in the early 1950’s.

• The man at the top of the Confederate Monument on Broad Street in Augusta is Barry Benson, who was captured as a POW, escaped Federal custody, returned home, and never surrendered his rifle at war’s end. He spent his life after the war as an accountant and is buried in Sunset Hills Cemetery.

• The land on which North Augusta now sits once belonged to the Chikasaw tribe. The Indians received 21,774 acres as part of a land grant in 1723.

• Ty Cobb stayed in North Augusta during spring practice in the 1920’s. He boarded at Rosemary Hall at the center of Carolina and Georgia Avenues; and Pine Heights, on Georgia Avenue.

• Former North Augustan Lt. Colonel Jimmy Dyess was the only American to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Medal of Honor. He lived on West Avenue from 1909 to 1926.

• Charlie Britt, who appeared on local TV for many years as a news anchorman, had some other careers. He played NFL Football for the Los Angeles Rams, the Minnesota Vikings, and the San Francisco 49ers; and was also on the Ozzie and Harriet TV show.

• Frank Wills, the guard who discovered the Watergate break-in that ruined the career of a US President, lived in North Augusta.

• Charlie Waters graduated from North Augusta High School and went on to earn 5 Super Bowl rings playing in the NFL.

• H.G. Rosier was a local resident who enjoyed stock car racing. He raced a car several times at Darlington and even competed in the Daytona 500.

• John D. Rockefeller and Harvey Firestone spent much of their time vacationing in North Augusta at the Hampton Terrace Hotel. On the weekends they would travel by buggy to the Beech Island Agricultural Club for barbeque lunches. The Club still meets today.

• Marshal Watson was the first policeman in North Augusta, hired at the 2nd City Council meeting ever held in 1906. The City provided him a badge- Watson had to provide his own uniform, a gun, and a horse. At the 3rd Council meeting that same year, he was fired for being drunk on duty. At the 5th meeting he was rehired, on the provision that if any city resident observed him drinking alcohol he would be fired again.

Source: Selected items taken from a list of trivia questions distributed at ‘Centennial Trivia Night’, held 1/18/2006 at the North Augusta Community Center.

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