Carroll-Haralson County GaArchives News.....Tallapoosa invites thousands to celebrate 125th birthday August 10 1985
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Rodric M. Phillips rodsr@oklahoma.net January 16, 2004, 7:57 pm

The Atlanta Journal WEEKEND The Atlanta Constitution
By Bob Darrell
Staff Writer
The Atlanta Journal WEEKEND The Atlanta Constitution, page 6-B
August 10, 1985

	TALLAPOOSA. Ga. — The population of this west Georgia town is expected 
to double over the weekend when the community celebrates its 125th birthday 
with "The Great Gathering."

	Volunteers have researched names and mailed invitations to Tallapoosa 
High School graduates scattered around the nation, and more than 2,000 
visitors are expected to come to town to join the celebration, which continues 
through Sunday, according to Mayor Jim Walker.  

	Leading all graduates in seniority will be 95-year-old native Bert 
Greene of the class of 1906, who remembers seeing the spring for which 
Atlanta's Spring Street is named, while he was a student at Georgia Tech.

	Some think Tallapoosa, located in Haralson County six miles north of 
Interstate 20 and four miles due east of the Alabama line, also should 
celebrate its present name, according to resident Frances Greene, journalist 
and chronicler of past and present events. 

	"In 1735, this site was called Talapouchee by the Creek Indians," Mrs. 
Greene said. "Later it was called Possum Snout. I think we should celebrate 
because the name was changed when the town was chartered in 1860."

	Near the turn of the century, Tallapoosa became widely known. History 
records Atlantan, J.K. Orr visiting Chicago and being asked by a local 
businessman where he lived. Upon hearing Atlanta, the Chicagoan asked, "That's 
near Tallapoosa, isn't it?"

	In addition to its beginning as a gold-mining site and later as an 
industrial town with as many as 20 plants by the 1890s, Tallapoosa was best-
known as a recreational resort. Its Freestone Springs poured forth what was 
thought to be medicinal waters containing a surplus of iron. Tallapoosans 
called it Lithia water.  
	
	In 1892, the Lithia Hotel was built here and was described as the 
largest hotel east of the Mississippi River. Accommodations included 175 rooms 
on four floors.  

	Excursion trains brought guests from Chicago, New York, Boston, Little 
Rock, Ark., Philadelphia. Washington, Atlanta, St. Louis and Sioux City, Iowa, 
to enjoy the water and wines of Tallapoosa.

	With a fine hotel, medicinal waters and weather fit for national 
promotion, the Tallapoosa area was nationally promoted as the ideal place for 
growing grapes. 

	The grape-growing idea was especially attractive to Pennsylvania coal 
miners, who had recently arrived from Europe and whose heritage  included 
grape cultivation. 

	In a  matter of years, the Tallapoosa area had set aside 10,000 acres 
for vineyards. 

	On Saturday morning, The Great Gathering” will occur at Tallapoosa 
Elementary School. A 20-float afternoon parade will feature movie actor Jason 
Lively and his family from the production "European Vacation," television 
actor Lou Walker of  "Chiefs," Danny Nelson who had a role in "Murder in 
Coweta County," and several politicians and congressmen.

	At noon Sunday, there will be a dinner-on-the-ground.




Additional Comments:
I found this article in my mother's photo album.  Mother was Myrtle Pauline 
Carroll Phillips, and she grew up in Tallapoosa and married my dad, Raymond 
Lewis Phillips in 1925. In the early 1900's, Roderick Wallace Carroll, 
mother's dad, owned a farm that bordered on the Lithia Springs Hotel property, 
so I grew up with stories of the old "wooden" hotel.  

Rodric M. Phillips

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