Local nomenclature: What’s in a name, how it came to be

Mergers. Misspellings. Twisted nomenclatures.

They often become permanent markers on the landscape of language, written on sign posts, posted on marquees and chiseled on headstones.

Locally, here is how some came to be:

Nu-Way ‘Weiners’

George and Harry Andros wanted more than just a marquee for their Cotton Avenue hot dog restaurant in 1937, so they came up with a conversation piece folks would be talking about nearly a century later.

They put up a neon sign — one of the first in Macon — with a typographical error high above the sidewalk for all the world to see: “BEST WEINER IN TOWN … NU WAY WEINER STAND.”

Much to the chagrin of English professors and grammarians, their spelling of “wiener” ignored the rule of “I” before “E” except after “C.”

And those misplaced vowels in “WEINER” have been intentionally misspelled ever since at Nu-Way, the second-oldest hot dog restaurant in the country.

Lizella

When construction of the Macon-Birmingham Railroad pushed through West Bibb County in 1891, the community of Warrior changed its name to Lizella.

James A. Eubanks was the town’s first postmaster and was assigned the task of renaming it. He took the names of his daughters, Lizzie and Ella, and combined them.

A date with Del

Dolores Ward graduated from Miller High School and returned to Macon after college. She wanted to be a teacher but took a part-time job as a receptionist at the WNEX radio station.

Her charm and personality eventually led to her own show. Al Lowe, the station manager, thought Dolores was too long a name for radio.

He suggested “Pat,” but her response was lukewarm. So he came up with “Del.” He thought she spelled her name “Deloris,” and she didn’t have the heart to correct him. 

The rest is history. Ward, who died in 2021, was a broadcasting legend whose career spanned 50 years.

She was the first woman disc jockey at WHOT (now WNDU) in South Bend, Indiana, and the first all-night female DJ at the legendary WGN in Chicago. (They adored her accent, and she was known as “Del from Dixie.”) She also worked at stations in New York and St. Louis.

She returned to Macon in 1957 to work at WMAZ, just four years after the station went on the air in September 1953.

She became one of WMAZ’s most popular personalities and her show, “Date With Del,” was a mainstay on both television and radio. She did more than 10,000 broadcasts in the program’s 40-year history. She ended each show with her trademark closing, “Trody Trow,” and never revealed the meaning of it.

Fort “Fox” Valley

Don’t bother including “fort” on your scavenger hunt in Fort Valley. You will be searching all day.

According to local lore, the town’s original name, Fox Valley, was a victim of either poor eyesight or sloppy handwriting.

When the post office was established 200 years ago in 1825, the paperwork was sent to Washington. A slanted and illegible “x” was mistaken for an “r” and a “t.’’ While you might spot a red or gray fox in rural areas of Peach County, alas, there is no fortress.

The sign that cares

Rev. Bob Moon was director of the Macon Rescue Mission in the 1960s when its address was 500 Broadway, at the foot of Poplar Street.

Moon contacted Raymond Rosson, who owned a local sign company, and asked him to construct a “JESUS SAVES” sign at the top of the four-story building.

Rosson had an editorial suggestion. Since the purpose of the Rescue Mission was to help people who were down on their luck, the sign should read “JESUS CARES.”

There were an equal number of letters, and only a couple of consonants and vowels would have to be switched.

Rosson salvaged steel from an old sign at the Swift Ice Cream plant a few blocks away. He shaped a white background with 6-foot black letters and red neon.

“JESUS CARES” became a downtown landmark for more than 40 years. It was captured by national TV cameras and viewed by several U.S. presidents on visits to the city.

Photos of the sign appeared in The New York Times and Esquire magazine. The facade of the building was on display in the movie “Wise Blood,’’ based on the book by Flannery O’Connor.

“JESUS CARES” followed the Rescue Mission when it relocated to its new facility at the corner of Telfair and Hazel streets in 2002 and later to 6601 Zebulon Road in the former Hepzibah Children’s Home.

Tattnall vs. Tatnall

Josiah Tattnall was one of Georgia’s most distinguished early citizens. He fought in the Revolutionary War, was a U.S. senator and became the first native Georgian to serve as governor.

Tattnall County in southeast Georgia is named in his honor as well as Tattnall Street, a prominent road in his hometown of Savannah.

He has been remembered in Macon in a number of ways, although it took more than a century to spell his name correctly at some venues. 

Tattnall spelled his name with three t’s, but Tatnall Square Park and Tatnall Square Baptist Church (now Newton Sanctuary at Mercer) originally spelled it with two. 

Tattnall Square Academy has featured the correct spelling since it opened in 1970. But Tatnall Street and Tatnall Place – both near Tattnall Square Park – have stubbornly maintained the old version.

And the street signs reflect it. (Maybe it’s time to upgrade.) 

In the 1980s, a number of businesses went by Tatnall. There was a Tatnall Square Cleaners, Tatnall Square Bookstore and Tatnall Launderette on Montpelier Avenue in what is now Mercer Village.

The SoChi Story

Terrell Sandefur, one of the pioneers of the Macon Film Festival, used to tell the story of when he and his wife, Kim, moved to his hometown of Macon.

A real estate agent took them to houses on the market in several north Macon neighborhoods. They looked at big homes with plenty of elbow room, located near prestigious schools and country clubs.  

But Sandefur wasn’t interested and asked to see some houses in downtown and midtown. The realtor advised them to “stay north of Chi-Chesters,’’ referring to the former landmark pharmacy across from Jim Shaw’s Seafood restaurant on Vineville Avenue.

They ended up buying a home in Stanislaus, about a mile south of ChiChester’s, and Sandefur came up with a clever name for the area he was told to avoid.

SoChi (pronounced Soh-shee) was short for “South of ChiChester’s,” which included all of downtown.

SoChi became the name of his marketing and public relations company, located in the old Yellow Cab building on Second Street. He later opened the SoChi Gallery, a multipurpose event and exhibition space.

It caught on to the point where some folks began calling themselves  “SoChilites.” Sandefur had a monthly radio program called “SoChilizing.”

The Sandefurs have since moved to Palm Springs, California, so his businesses are gone. And ChiChesters is no longer in business on Vineville. SoChi isn’t a buzzword like it used to be.