It was once an annual rite of summer. In the hottest weeks of the year, hundreds of regional National Guardsmen left their homes, jobs, and families and took a train to the coast. They were there to train - to play army if you will.
The 89th installment of local historian Scott Thompson's collection of interesting stories from our past.
He was known as “ The Mayor of Peachtree Street.” For the better part of five decades, Ernest Rogers was a popular radio voice and humorous columnist in the capital city of Georgia. Rogers overcame infantile paralysis and adolescent insecurities to become one of Georgia’s most outstanding media personalities.
When Ed Hodges jumped into the cold waters of the English Channel, Lt. Kelso Horne was diving out of the dark, pre-dawn sky over St. Mere, Eglise in Normandy. Sgt. Bobbie Brown was preparing his platoon of the 1st Infantry Division to debark their landing craft on Omaha Beach while W.E. Carter, John Bogle, and their fellow engineers were making last-minute checks on their equipment.
Many of the conflicts along the lower Oconee River centered around Carr's Bluff on the eastern banks of the Oconee River in north-central Laurens County. Carr's Bluff is relatively small in comparison with higher bluffs upriver. Its importance was derived from its location.
Sometimes those who are killed in war are not listed on monuments because no one remembers them living here in Laurens County.
