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    Athens
    Athens
    Athens
    Ebook175 pages45 minutes

    Athens

    By Patrick Garbin

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    About this ebook

    From the early 1960s to the present, perhaps no college town in America has changed as much as Athens, Georgia. Over the course of 50 years, the city experienced desegregation at all levels of education, encountered all types of activism and demonstrations, and established an unparalleled music scene that still flourishes. Beginning in the 1980s, University of Georgia athletic teams began winning national championships and continue to do so, the 1996 Olympics came to Athens, and the downtown district is no longer a retail center but a 24-hour central city with more restaurants, bars, and eclectic shops than one can count. Athens is no longer the sleepy, small college town it once was, but truly the Classic City in every sense of the name.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 8, 2014
    ISBN9781439647073
    Athens
    Author

    Patrick Garbin

    Patrick Garbin is a freelance journalist who has authored ten books, eight of which relate to University of Georgia football. He is the UGA football beat reporter for DAWGTIME magazine and DawgTime.com and the research writer for UGASports.com of the Rivals network. He lives just outside of Athens, Georgia, in Bishop with his two children, Trip and Rebecca.

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      Athens - Patrick Garbin

      together.

      INTRODUCTION

      The nickname of Athens, Georgia—the Classic City—can be traced back to the 1870s, when Athens was considered classic simply for its name and neoclassical architecture, while the city only contained around 5,000 residents at the time. The University of Georgia (UGA) was primarily responsible for the town’s initial growth spurt, and by 1960 the population of Athens was six times that of a century before. Still, as late as 1957, although Athens was trying so very hard to become a real city according to an article from that year, it had the attitudes and policies of a small country town. And without that sacrifice [of such attitudes and policies] it will always be nothing more than that.

      This book is intended to be a pictorial modern history of Athens. It begins just past the time when life anatomy classes were literally not taught at UGA because the Athens townspeople would frown upon them as ‘choking and vulgar displays’ and follows the area’s evolution into a thriving, diverse, unique city in which the original attitudes and policies were sacrificed over the course of the next 50-plus years.

      A number of different subjects can be identified with Athens from the 1960s to the present, but only so many can be depicted on the following pages. After much consideration, plus asking the opinion of several other native Athenians, I have chosen overarching themes, each of which serves as a chapter in the book: student and campus life (predominantly at UGA), the businesses and attractions of the city’s historic downtown district, the Georgia Bulldogs (UGA’s athletic teams), and the unparalleled music scene and unique culture of Athens. Most prominently, and thus addressed in the first chapter in the book, is how much and how quickly Athens has changed during the last half-century—perhaps more so than any other college town in the country.

      The extensive development of Athens began with the integration of area schools, first at UGA in 1961 and in the Clarke County public school system soon thereafter. In the early 1960s, Beechwood Shopping Center opened, the town’s first shopping center. This is significant because after Beechwood’s opening, many shopping centers followed over the next two decades—including the Georgia Square Mall, the county’s first and only shopping mall—and forced many downtown retail stores to relocate into shopping centers or close their doors altogether. Instead of serving a common retail center, the downtown area of Athens was on the verge of becoming something much more extraordinary.

      Like many college towns of the time, Athens had its fair share of demonstrators during the late 1960s and early 1970s: Vietnam War protests were followed by those supporting the women’s liberation movement and those advocating for gay rights. In 1974, UGA students joined the unusual nationwide phenomenon of streaking (running in the nude). On March 7, 1974, more than 1,500 simultaneous streakers on the university campus set the world record for largest group streak—a record that still stands more than 40 years later. By the mid-1970s, the population of Athens had increased approximately 50 percent since 1960; in 1976, the growth was supported by the introduction of citywide public bus transportation: the Athens Transit System.

      In a history about a town known for its party-like atmosphere, it would be remiss to not mention what has been called the wildest night in the history of Athens: the post-game celebration that followed the UGA football team’s 21-0 upset victory over Alabama in 1976. Countless partiers invaded Milledge Avenue, causing the police to completely close the road from Broad Street to Five Points—a distance of more than a mile. Speaking of being festive, by the end of the 1970s, a foundation had been laid for the city’s soon-to-be-celebrated music and art scene as bands like The B-52’s, R.E.M., Widespread Panic, and other recognizable acts began to perform at places like the Georgia Theatre, 40 Watt Club, and Uptown Lounge.

      For the 1980 season, the Bulldogs were the top team in all of college football after UGA won its first national title in any sport (the football team claims a consensus national championship for its 1942 season, but it was not recognized as such until the 1990s). After nearly a century of athletic competition but no national titles, the Bulldogs captured a combined 39 team national championships in nine different sports from 1980 through the 2013–2014 academic year, including 10 in women’s gymnastics. The 1980s also saw the arrival of more music venues, bars, restaurants, artistic outlets, and coffee shops in

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