Connecting downtown dots of amazing origin

Stretched across a square mile of downtown Macon is a genesis of American history.

A seven-block grid — from Cherry Street over to Walnut down to Seventh and back up to Third — was once an incubator for ground-breaking music, air travel, famous flowers and one of the most iconic brands on the planet.

If we connect all the dots, our community could make the case to call it the Delta/Camellia/Cola/Kazoo Corridor. And maybe throw in some Tutti Frutti.

It’s our birthright.

One hundred years ago this week, on Feb. 18, 1925, the first aerial crop-dusting company in the country was founded in Macon.

That’s the date Huff Daland Dusters moved into the Bibb Building at 401 Cherry Street and established its headquarters for a  crop dusting operation for Georgia’s cotton fields and peach and pecan orchards. 

Huff Daland’s planes featured a symbol of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, war and agriculture. It was a battle cry against the evil boll weevil, the insect that was destroying the South’s agricultural economy and threatening its way of life.

When the company began recruiting pilots, among those under consideration was a barnstormer named Charles Lindbergh. Two years earlier, Lindbergh had purchased a surplus World War I biplane from John Wyche, of Macon, assembled it in a week and made his first solo flight at Souther Field in Americus. Of course, the rest is aviation history. He went on to become the most famous pilot in the world.

After only six months in Macon, Huff Daland moved its operation to Monroe, Louisiana, where it eventually added passenger and mail service and took the name of its new home in the Mississippi Delta Region.

It is now the largest passenger airline in the world and is headquartered in Atlanta. It has long been a point of pride that Macon, despite the company’s short stay here, was the cradle for Delta Air Lines. 

A block up Cherry Street, at the corner of Third, the first public camellia show in the United States was held at the Burden Smith & Co. department store on Feb. 5, 1932. Thirteen years after that, in a meeting across the street at the Dempsey Hotel, the American Camellia Society was founded.

A large mural proclaiming “Welcome to Macon: Where the South Rocks” adorns the back of the old seven-story Bibb Building — now the 401 Lofts at Cherry — next to the Douglass Theatre, another historic music venue. 

Who could have known a legendary Macon maternity ward would later be just a jaywalk across Broadway from the former Huff Daland office?

It is where Little Richard Penniman, the self-professed architect of rock n’ roll, cut his teeth and honed his style at Ann’s Tic Toc Room, along the sidewalks between Cherry and Poplar. Ann Howard, the club’s owner, gave Little Richard his first break in the music business, so you can make the argument that this patch of real estate was the birthplace of rock.

You will hit another musical high note on our tour when you cross the railroad tracks toward Carolyn Crayton Park (formerly Central City Park). This is where the kazoo was introduced at the Georgia State Fair in 1852 by Alabama Vest, an African-American inventor, and Thaddeus Von Clegg, a German-American clockmaker. 

Yes, Macon is the birthplace of the kazoo, often referred to as the world’s “most democratic instrument” because it doesn’t require any special musical talent (all you have to do is hum).

The city will get a chance to toot its horns when an ambitious attempt is made at setting the record for the world’s largest kazoo band on Friday, March 28 at the Atrium Health Amphitheater as part of the Cherry Blossom Festival. 

The current Guinness World Record holder for the largest kazoo ensemble is 5,190 participants at the Royal Albert Hall in London in March 2011. Since Macon’s amphitheater seats 10,000 — and there is already a significant level of interest in the event — we have a shot at being the title holder.

A hop, skip and a jump back to the foot of Mulberry Street will bring us to the site of what was once the Reform Medical College of Georgia.  It was formerly known as the Southern Botanico Medical College when it moved to Macon from Forsyth in 1846. (There’s nothing there now, but it was located on the same stretch of block where the federal courthouse and Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority are now and the site of the old Cassidy’s Garage.)

Among the medical college’s graduates was Cassandra Pickett Durham, the state’s first female physician. But its most famous student was John Stith Pemberton, a native of nearby Crawford County.

After being licensed as a pharmacist at the age of 19, Pemberton went to war with the 12th Cavalry Regiment of the Confederacy and was wounded in Wilson’s Raid in Columbus, the final battle east of the Mississippi.

His gift to the world was the invention of Coca-Cola, one of the most valuable and recognized brands in the world.

 Although Pemberton historically is more closely associated with Columbus and Atlanta, you can make the case that those first chemistry lessons he learned right there on Mulberry Street provided the impetus to create the most famous soft drink in the universe.

Macon might not have been the origin of Coke’s birth, but at the very least it was a midwife.

I’ve long been intrigued with Delta’s local connection, especially since the airline has been a legacy in my family for almost 75 years.

My mother was a Delta stewardess in the early 1950s. My oldest sister was a Delta flight attendant for seven years in the 1980s. My younger brother spent 10 years in the Air Force before he got his dream job at Delta, where he has been a pilot since February 1997.

One of my cousins, who is now deceased, retired after more than 40 years as a Delta mechanic. And his wife served as secretary for longtime Delta President C.E. Woolman, who started with Huff Daland.

Circling back to come in for a landing, I would like to thank local attorney Christopher Smith for helping me with all the pieces to this quintet of epic local history.   

Two weeks ago, Chris hosted the Sixth Annual Global Trade and Investment Symposium at Wesleyan College. More than 100 people from across the state, many of them from Atlanta, were in attendance and a number of foreign companies were represented. 

Among the guest speakers was Virginie Durr, of Delta Air Lines, who has led Delta’s initiative to fly military veterans back to her native Normandy, including last June for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

To celebrate the Delta anniversary, a 100th birthday cake was made for the occasion.

In our collaboration to fact-check and verify where the Huff Daland offices were located 100 years ago, Chris researched and found a map and a photograph of the seven-story Bibb Building posted on the Vintage Macon Facebook page.

When he sent it to me, I knew it looked familiar, and I immediately recognized it as the former Southern United Building.

I had a flashback to 1981 when I walked into an office on the third floor of that building and met a young lady who was a caseworker for Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

That’s the girl I’m going to marry, I told myself. And I did.