Sunday, March 6, 2011
As part of our ongoing series about the history of baseball in Norcross, we share the story of baseball legends from our backyard.
Not one but two sets of brothers hailing from Norcross have been drafted to the Major Leagues: Roy and Cleo Carlyle and Ivey and Absalom "Red" Wingo. Ivey Wingo squatted behind the plate for the champion Cincinnati Reds team of 1919. That World Series went down in history, with sports writers coining the phrase "Black Sox Scandal." The Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the series to assure payments of bets, with eight members getting kicked out of the league. Ivey Wingo’s tie with the scandal and with the famous "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, who was then playing outfield, proved unpleasant for him. He carried the controversy home with him to Norcross and ultimately to his grave. Old timers still remember Ivey Wingo telling tales from…
33.9417
-84.2118
Lillian Webb Park
Jones St & College St, Norcross, GA
/articles/baseballs-wingo-brothers-tear-down-the-field-but-they-wont-leave
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/locations/3581767
Saturday, February 19, 2011
With the Atlanta Braves training in Florida, Patch is inspired to share our town's rich baseball history. Too much to fit in one week, so ya'll to stand by for more in the coming month.
Gone… the sand lot. Gone… the players. Gone… the cheering crowds. Decades before baseball players demanded multi-million dollar salaries, before boys and girls of all backgrounds played in organized Little Leagues, the game of baseball was in its infancy. And Norcross was right in the middle of baseball's early days, with its grassroots team at what is now Lillian Webb Park. During the 1920s more players per capita drafted to the major league from Norcross than from any other small town in America. Town teams became increasingly popular around the country after the Civil War had ended. Soldiers, standing for both the north and the south, learned the game from officers who had taken to it while attending West Point. ‘Rounders' sprung out …
Saturday, February 5, 2011
A couple who grew up in Norcross traveled to 28 countries and lived in 51 homes before coming home to grow old, arm in arm.
Colonel John and Martha Miller Adams were born a stone’s throw away from each other in Norcross. As children, each walked the dirt roads to attend the city’s school which sat at the top of Jones Street. As teens, they passed time cheering town teams playing baseball games on the school’s athletic field. And as young adults they both attended college. John also played semi-pro baseball, pitching a perfect game, and bringing home cakes for pay in lieu of cash. Martha, a beautiful spitfire, was in the first group of women who matriculated into Georgia Tech. Just three days after they were married, in 1945, John graduated from Cadet School in the Army Air Corps, a branch of the service which was later renamed the United States Air Force. The …
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The diary of a local farmer, leading up to New Year's Day in 1900 in Norcross.
Marion Wesley Ray was born just outside Norcross proper on September 25, 1871, a month short of the one-year anniversary of the little railroad town’s establishment in October of 1870. Although he was well-educated, the young man’s vocation--a choice driven by the needs of his family--was farming. His schooling enabled him to detail deep thoughts on life, current events around the world and serious religious study in personal journals. To the delight of inquisitive Norcross history buffs, Ray’s notations, preserved by his family in the grammar of the day, give an unmatchable glimpse of life as it was in Norcross more than 100 years ago. Ray’s ponderings make for a fascinating mirror of the past: Sept. 25, 1899: My birthday I am 28 years…
33.943341
-84.209939
Norcross Welcome Center
189 Lawrenceville St, Norcross, GA
/articles/anticipation-of-the-new-year-over-100-years-ago
1167647
/locations/2989440
Friday, December 24, 2010
In 1915, a distraught man wandered into town, looking for a fight. He ended up joining the people he mourned most in the grave.
That frigid Christmas Day in 1915 found most townsfolk focused on picking up a fresh hen for a holiday meal, chopping wood to stoke the home fires or filling their little ones’ stockings with apples and nuts. Not so for Henry "Doc" Lively. His mind was tortured by the unforgiving reality that much of his family lie buried in the cold ground of the city cemetery. For Doc, Christmas morning did not bring joy; He was haunted by memories of his first wife, Marie, and their little baby, Maud Kime. Mother and daughter had died four days apart in the summer of 1906. A few years later, in 1913, Henry and his second wife, Luella, buried a son on the day after he was born. Lively’s dolor became unbearable in the spring of 1915, when a third …
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sally Toole, author, historian and co-owner of Norcross Ghost Tour, will bring you spooky stories about our town. Hopefully she'll teach you a little history along the way, too.
When Noah Washington's father would head to Chamblee to work as a blacksmith, his older brothers would brew moonshine in his smither's shed outside of 62 College Street, now the Bleu House Market, a recently opened produce and specialty shop that Patch wrote about yesterday. The boys knew the thick black smoke bellowing from the chimney would not draw too much attention since that was a common sight in the early 1900s in Norcross. John Adams, owner of the new Bleu House Market, was interested in the house at 62 College Street because it was once the home of a number of Adams, including his grandfather, Noah Washington. For the modern-day Adams, remodeling the home meant ripping out the interior walls and an old fireplace chimney, …
33.941276
-84.212286
62 College St, Norcross, GA
/articles/spirits-still-linger-at-the-bleu-house
/locations/2738190
Aaron Rolka
8:54 pm on Sunday, March 6, 2011
Very cool article. Interesting to see a Norcross native playing in the same outfield as Ty Cobb. more ›