Butts-Jasper-Newton County GaArchives News.....Elizabeth C. Nolan - Injunction Proceedings Filed March 1909
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Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 July 17, 2011, 8:11 pm

Butts County Progress March 1909
Elizabeth C. Nolan – Injunction Proceedings Filed

Against Central Georgia Power company

Case May be Settled Out of Court.  Will be Heard in Macon Before Judge Felton.

A suit attacking the Central Georgia Power Company on both constitutional and 
private grounds has just been filed in the superior court here, and the date 
has been set for the hearing by Judge Felton.  The suit, if won, and if a 
permanent injunction is granted, may have the effect to stop all work upon the 
big dam that is being built across the river at Lloyd’s shoals and would 
entail the loss of at least a million dollars.

The suit against the Central Georgia Power Company is brought by Elizabeth C. 
Nolan, et. al. The first paragraph sets forth that she is the owner of 142 
acres of land that are located just north of the dam.  The land in question 
lies in Newton, Butts and Jasper counties and part of it lies between the 
Yellow, the Alcovy and Ocmulgee rivers.

Some time ago officers of the Central Georgia Power company served papers upon 
Elizabeth Nolan which set forth that the property in question had been 
condemned under powers granted to the company by the superior court of Bibb 
county.  The petition points out that the company tried to purchase the land 
but  satisfactory price had ever been offered in return for the tract.  The 
next thing to happen was the presentation of the notice showing that the 
company had condemned the property because it wished to make use of the land.

A direct answer is made by the Nolands to this procedure, and the authority of 
the company to act in such a way is disputed.  Through their attorneys, 
Messrs. Dorsey, Brewster & Howell of Atlanta, the petitioners set forth that 
the Central Georgia Power Company has no authority to condemn the land under 
the power of eminent domain, and the superior court has no right to grant a 
charter to a private corporation that will allow the corporation the right to 
exercise the right of eminent domain.

The location of the Nolan property is just north of the place where the new 
big dam is beginning to stop the rush of waters of the Ocmulgee river.  Within 
a year’s time the large expanse of territory north of the dam will be 
converted into a wide sheet of water.  The Nolans say their property will be 
covered with this water and for this reason they have appealed to the superior 
court with a request for temporary injunction.

Judge Felton read over the petition Saturday afternoon  and after making a 
careful study of the same he set the third Monday in April as a date for a 
hearing.  

The petitioners ask the court to enjoin the Central Georgia Power Company from 
proceeding with the work on the dam until this hearing can be held, but Judge 
Felton declined to grant this point.  He had that portion of the prayer 
stricken from the  proposed order and then affixed his name to the paper.

If the work upon the dam were to be stopped short at present as the Nolans 
asked to be one considerable expense would be occasioned and the work would 
necessarily be delayed.  Over 350 persons are working at the dam and a night 
shift is always on duty.  Another large gang is at work clearing away the 
rubbish and underbrush in the large stretch of bottom land above the dam.  In 
this sink the basin will be found after the dam has been completed.

The attorneys for the Central Georgia Power Company may take up with the 
Nolans the causes for a complaint and it is possible that an adjustment can be 
reached before the date set for the trial.  Nothing is said in the petition as 
to the value of the land in question but it does say that the parties in the 
case had been unable to agree upon terms.  It was then that the land was 
ordered condemned by the company.

Butts County Progress
Week of March 26, 1909


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