Elmore County Training School opened in Wetumpka, Alabama, on September 20, 1926. The first principal was A. R. Mosely. It was the county’s first high school for Black students and the largest Rosenwald built in th county. The school closed in 1963.
After the school closed, the city built a park around the school for the Black citizens of Wetumpka. The school served as a community center and eventually became the Elmore County Black History Museum
The Second Empire House is on Broad Avenue, on the edge of downtown Albany. Built in 1889, it was built for Samuel Farkas, a Hungarian immigrant who came to the United States to work for his uncle, who was setting up dry goods stores in Albany. He became a successful businessman, and his wealth was estimated to be over $350,000 (almost $11 million today) when he died in 1915.
The Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre, located in the heart of Marietta, Georgia, is an Art Deco gem that opened in 1935. Originally built as a movie palace by the Manning-Winks Theatre Company, the Strand is used for movies and the performing arts today. Manning-Winks was a theatre company that owned movie houses throughout north Georgia and eastern Tennessee.
The theater has a long history in the community. The first Strand was opened in 1914 on Atlanta Street, but like so many early buildings, it was lost to fire in 1929. The current location came to fruition after another fire damaged the buildings at this corner of Marietta Square.
The theater was used continuously until the early 2000s. It then fell into disrepair. Under the leadership of Earl and Rachel Smith, the theater was restored and reopened in 2009.
The Jones Mercantile Company was founded by Robert Tyre Jones (golfer Bobby Jones’s grandfather). The store opened in 1879 and was expanded in 1914 and 1921. The store was so successful that more mercantiles were opened in north Georgia.
The DeSoto Theatre, which opened on August 5, 1929, was the first Southern theater built for “talkies.” Designed by O.C. Lam and modeled after the Roxy Theatre in New York, it featured modern amenities at a cost of over $100,000. After closing as a cinema in 1982, Rome Little Theatre transformed the space into a performance venue by adding a stage, orchestra pit, and new seating. In 2008, the Historic DeSoto Theatre Foundation was established, and the theater was deeded to the Foundation to preserve and maintain the historic building.
The GEM Theatre, established in downtown Calhoun in 1927, expanded to its current size in 1939. It was the town’s only venue for movies and performing arts for many years until it closed in the late 1970s.
After standing vacant for nearly 20 years, the GEM building was purchased in 2001 by the King family. The family hoped to restore it. While the main theater space had primarily remained intact, water damage had destroyed the stage and most of the interior. After ten years of fundraising and restoration, the theater reopened in 2011. For its restoration, it received the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Rehabilitation Award.
It is now an active theater with concerts and free movie showings.
