The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by the McGregor Co. of Athens, Ga. They have printed their logo on the divided back of the card. It is a circle containing a large 'M' bisected vertically by a thistle and the words 'The Sign of Quality 1888'.
in the space for the stamp it states:
'Place the Stamp Here.
One Cent for United
States and Island
Possessions, Cuba,
Canada and Mexico.
Two Cents for Foreign'.
The back of the card also bears a red elliptical hand-stamp which states:
'Postcards & Postmarks
Library. Skegness, Lincs.
26th. March 1976.
Always Purchasing Before
1930.
Send Samples and S.A.E.
for Cash Offer.'
Athens, Georgia
Athens, officially Athens - Clarke County, is a county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital.
The University of Georgia, the state's flagship public university and an R1 research institution, is in Athens and contributed to its initial growth. The first buildings on the University of Georgia campus were made from logs.
The city is dominated by a pervasive college town culture and music scene centered in downtown Athens, next to the University of Georgia's North Campus. Major music acts associated with Athens include numerous alternative rock bands such as R.E.M., the B-52's, Widespread Panic, Drive-By Truckers, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Harvey Milk.
The city is also known as a recording site for such groups as the Atlanta-based Indigo Girls. The 2020 book 'Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture' describes Athens as the model of the indie culture of the 1980's.
History of Athens, Georgia
In the late 18th. century, a trading settlement on the banks of the Oconee River called Cedar Shoals stood where Athens is today. On the 27th. January 1785, the Georgia General Assembly granted a charter by Abraham Baldwin for the University of Georgia as the first state-supported university.
Georgia's control of the area was established following the Oconee War. In 1801, a committee from the university's board of trustees selected a site for the university on a hill above Cedar Shoals, in what was then Jackson County.
On the 25th. July 1801, John Milledge, one of the trustees and later governor of Georgia, bought 633 acres (256 hectares) from Daniel Easley and donated it to the university. Milledge named the surrounding area Athens after the city that was home to the Platonic Academy of Plato and Aristotle in Greece.
The town grew as lots adjacent to the college were sold to raise money for the additional construction of the school. By the time the first class graduated from the university in 1804, Athens consisted of three homes, three stores, and a few other buildings facing Front Street, now known as Broad Street.
Completed in 1806 and named in honor of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin College was the first permanent structure of the University of Georgia and of the city of Athens. This brick building is now known as Old College.
Athens officially became a town in December 1806 with a government made up of a three-member commission. The university and town continued to grow with cotton mills fueling both industrial and commercial development. Athens became known as the "Manchester of the South" after the city in England known for its mills.
In 1833 a group of Athens businessmen led by James Camak, tired of their wagons getting stuck in the mud, built one of Georgia's first railroads connecting Athens to Augusta by 1841.
In the 1830's and 1840's, transportation developments and the growing influence of the University of Georgia made Athens one of the state's most important cities as the Antebellum Period neared the height of its development. The university essentially created a chain reaction of growth in the community which developed on its doorstep.
During the American Civil War, Athens became a significant supply center when the New Orleans armory was relocated to what is now called the Chicopee building. Fortifications can still be found along parts of the North Oconee River between College Avenue and Oconee Street.
In addition, Athens played a small part in the ill-fated Stoneman's Raid when a skirmish was fought on a site overlooking the Middle Oconee River near what is now the old Macon Highway.
A Confederate memorial that used to stand on Broad Street near the University of Georgia Arch was removed during the week of the 10th. August 2020.
During Reconstruction, Athens continued to grow, and Henry Beusse was elected as the first mayor of Athens. Beusse was instrumental in the city's rapid growth after the Civil War. After serving as mayor, he worked in the railroad industry and helped bring railroads to the region, creating growth in many of the surrounding communities.
Freed slaves moved to the city, where many were attracted by the new centers for education such as the Freedmen's Bureau. This new population was served by three black newspapers: the Athens Blade, the Athens Clipper, and the Progressive Era.
In the 1880's, as Athens became more densely populated, city services and improvements were undertaken. The Athens Police Department was founded in 1881, and public schools opened in fall of 1886. A telephone service was introduced in 1882 by the Bell Telephone Company. Transportation improvements were also introduced with a street paving program beginning in 1885 and streetcars, pulled by mules, in 1888.
By the centennial in 1901, Athens had experienced a century of development and growth. A new city hall (shown in the photograph) was completed in 1904.
An African-American middle class and professional class grew around the corner of Washington and Hull Streets, known as the "Hot Corner", where the Morton Building was constructed in 1910. The theater at the Morton Building hosted movies and performances by black musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington.
In 1907 aviation pioneer Ben T. Epps became Georgia's first pilot on a hill outside the town that would become the Athens-Ben Epps Airport.
The Lynching of John Lee Eberhart
The last and only lynching in Athens occurred on the 16th. February 1921, when a mob of 3,000 people attacked the Athens courthouse and carried off John Lee Eberhart. Eberhart had been arrested for the murder of his employer, Ida D. Lee, with a shotgun in Oconee County.
That night he was driven back to the Lee farm where a mock trial was held. Though he refused to confess, he was tied to a stake and burned to death. The lynching received widespread attention.
The Navy Supply Corps School
During World War II, the U.S. Navy built new buildings and paved runways to serve as a training facility for naval pilots. In 1954, the U.S. Navy chose Athens as the site for the Navy Supply Corps School. The school was in Normaltown in the buildings of the old Normal School. It closed in 2011.
The 56-acre (23-hectare) site is now home to the University of Georgia Medical College and other health-related programs.
Desegregation
In 1961, Athens witnessed part of the civil rights movement when Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes became the first two black students to enter the University of Georgia.
The Death of Wedding Guests in Pune
So what else happened on the day that the card was hand-stamped?
Well, on Friday the 26th. March 1976, at least 45 guests at a wedding in India were killed at Pune in the Maharashtra state when a tractor-drawn wagon ran off the road and plunged into a deep canal.
The First Royal Email
Also on that day, Queen Elizabeth II became the first world leader to send an email from a head of state. She was invited to click upon the command to transmit a message while she and Prince Philip were dedicating the new Royal Signals and Radar Establishment at Malvern in Worcestershire.
The email, sent via ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the predecessor to the Internet, was composed by RSRE director Peter T. Kirstein for the occasion. It read:
"This message to all ARPANET users announces
the availability on ARPANET of the Coral 66
compiler provided by the GEC 4080 computer at
the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, Malvern,
England.
Coral 66 is the standard real-time high level language
adopted by the Ministry of Defence."
The Body Shop
Also on the 26th. March 1976, the first store of The Body Shop opened in Brighton. The Body Shop is a chain of British stores selling cosmetics, skin care and perfume for women. The company went on to open 3,000 stores worldwide in 65 nations.
A Cable Car Disaster in Vail, Colorado
Also on that day, nineteen days after 43 skiers were killed in the fall of an aerial cable car in Italy, three people were killed and nine injured at a U.S. ski resort in Vail, Colorado when two gondola cars came off of the overhead cable and fell 100 feet to the ground.
