Oral History Memoir
Interview Conducted by Mary Maud Hiestand and Rebecca Watts August 27, 2005
Peachtree City Library
201 Willowbend Road
Peachtree City, GA 30269
Phone: 770-631-2520
library@peachtree-city.org ptclibrary.org
Collection Peachtree City: Plans, Politics, and People, “New Town” Beginnings and How the “New Town” Grew
Project Peachtree City Oral History
Peachtree City Library
Copyright 2024
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Interview History
The recordings and transcripts of the interview were processed at Peachtree City Library, Peachtree City, Georgia.
Interviewer: Rebecca Watts and Mary Maud Hiestand
Transcriber: ??
Editor: Molly Stinson
Final Editor: Jill Prouty
Collection/Project Detail
The Peachtree City Oral History Project at Peachtree City Library includes interviews with city founders and their families, elected officials, and other community leaders.
Transcription Style
The Joel Cowan History Room at Peachtree City Library follows the transcription style guide developed by Baylor University Institute for Oral History as well as The Chicago Manual of Style
Joel Cowan History Room at Peachtree City Library
Interview Abstract
Interviewee: W. Floy Farr
Interviewers: Mary Maud Hiestand and Rebecca Watts
Collection:
Peachtree City: Plans, Politics, and People, “New Town” Beginnings and How the “New Town” Grew Project: Peachtree City Oral History
Interview date: August 27, 2005
Interview location: Peachtree City, Georgia
Recording medium; duration: Cassette tapes, digitized; 0:57:43 hr.
Abstract
W. Floy Farr was a native of Fayette County, Georgia. Raised in Tyrone, he worked at Redwine Brothers, Bankers, and in other businesses owned by the Redwine family including a cotton gin and seed manufacturing plant. He attended Draughon’s Business School in Atlanta. He is credited with bringing telephone service and rural electrification to western Fayette County Farr was instrumental in the development of Peachtree City, Georgia, handling the escrow of the initial land purchase, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Fayette County Development Corporation. Later Farr, along with Peachtree City founder Joel Cowan, negotiated the purchase of Redwine Brothers Bank by Bessemer Corp., moving it to Peachtree City in 1965 as Fayette State Bank with Farr as president.
Cassette 1A (p. 1):
Birth in Fayette County (Stop), education, employment at Tyrone bank |00:04:57|; attends Draughon’s Business College in Atlanta, continues working at bank, cotton gin, cotton warehouse, and fertilizer plant |00:07:04|; learns to class and sell cotton, arranges first telephone service for Tyrone |00:09:54|; rural electrification, helps organize Coweta-Fayette EMC |00:11:25| Tyrone Rock Quarry Company |00:14:21|; agreement to cross McEachern land |00:16:27|; Earl Denny and Golden Pickett visit bank ca. 1957 |00:18:39|; agents discuss search for 15,000 acres in which to build a city, Farr points them to Huddleston land down 54 highway |00:21:22|; Denny and Pickett find initial investor, Peter Knox |00:24:25|; Knox puts up initial funds, Joel Cowan manages land, Fayette County Development Corp. formed, Cowan brings in Bessemer Trust/Phipps Land Co. to pay off Knox and farmers |00:27:08|; reorganizes Redwine Brothers Bank as Fayette State Bank (FSB) with Cowan as partner, moves bank to Peachtree City |00:28:29|.
Cassette 1B (p. 15):
FSB finances construction loans and mortgages |00:02:04|; bank grows over twenty year period, sells to C&S National Bank |00:03:45|; opposition from farmers, politicians, neighboring towns and counties |00:05:11|; first churches in Peachtree City |00:07:04|; rural electrification, Georgia Power |00:09:09|; growth of Coweta-Fayette EMC, changes in political affiliation in Fayette County |00:10:54|; proud of Peachtree City, growth of industry, credits volunteers |00:12:44|; credits Atlanta Airport and Fayette County school system |00:14:55|; location of Aberdeen, beginning of fire department |00:17:49| background of wife’s family, location of Shakerag, Gurd Tinsley |00:20:05| visits Tinsley to acquire land for Peachtree City |00:22:36| trades property with Tinsley, location of Tinsley’s Mill |00:24:23|; receives subpoena and forgets court date, threatened by Tinsley, handles Tinsley’s finances |00:27:02|; Homer and Lucy Parrott home swap, describes first bank in Tyrone, early family names in western Fayette County |00:29:14|
W. Floy Farr
Oral History Memoir Interview
Conducted by Mary Maud Hiestand and Rebecca Watts August 27, 2005
W. Floy Farr’s residence at 103 Pinecrest Drive Peachtree City, Georgia
Project Peachtree City: Plans, Politics, and People, “New Town” Beginnings and How the “New Town” Grew
HIESTAND: ―talk, that's fine, or if you would like for us to
FARR: Well, I've kind of looked over this outline here that you gave me, and a good portion of that I can discuss almost item by item.
HIESTAND: Oh, okay. That would be great. Are there other things you would like to add?
FARR: Yes, I will. (crosstalk) Let me ask you something else here before we start. One of the questions right off is, “Describe the area of Fayette County in the early fifties.” I think, for the history of Peachtree City, it should go back a little bit farther than that. Fact of business, from 1930 on up to 1950 there was I think it would be important to know what happened here and what was happening to lead up to where we could put this 15,000 acres of land together, because if area wasn’t if things didn't happen during that period of time, I think it would have been almost impossible to put this amount of land together. And I think that's part of Peachtree City.
WATTS: Definitely need that.
HIESTAND: That definitely is.
FARR: As far as I know that's never been recorded.
WATTS: Sounds good.
HIESTAND: That's what we really need. Now, were you born in Fayette County?
WATTS: Before we go further, let's say who we are and where we are. We are sitting at Mr. Farr's home, and present is Mr. Floy Farr and Mary Maud Hiestand, and I am Rebecca Watts trying to get some good information for our history project and Mary Maud take it away.
HIESTAND: Were you born in Fayette County?
FARR: Yes, I was. I was born on a small farm just north of Tyrone in Fayette County, May 20, 1912. (Hiestand laughs) I have always lived in Fayette County. Do you want me to continue?
HIESTAND: You just go right ahead.
FARR: And the area of Fayette County in the 1930's was Fayette County was a small, rural, agriculture county; and the Great Depression was still in these years and I don't know exactly how you want me to do this.
WATTS: How about
FARR: Can you cut it off for a second?
WATTS: Sure.
FARR: Let’s discuss I don’t pause in recording
FARR: In 1930, I graduated from Fayette County High School, and that was right through the Great Depression that we had, and jobs were scarce. And the population of Fayette County at that time was probably somewhere over 8,000. And I went to work for a small bank in Tyrone after I finished high school. What I had intended to do was to go to University of Georgia and be an agriculture agent. At that time agriculture agents were drawing a better salary than most anybody I knew. But unfortunately, my father and my mother had gone through this great depression and they wasn't able to send me to [The University of] Georgia. And what I did at that time, just as I stated a while ago, I had there was a job opening in this little bank at Tyrone, and I accepted that. I had no idea how much money I'd make. And after about thirty days, the
manager the little bank was operated there, but we also had a cotton gin and fertilizer plant, a seed processing plant, and an area where they manufactured fertilizer and where they sold cotton.
So after thirty days after I worked thirty days in the bank the manager of this operation was in charge of the bank. And one day he says, "Well, we haven't discussed your salary." I says, "No, we haven't." He says, "Well, we can pay you $15.00 a month." And I started working for $15.00 a month. Course that was hard times back then.
1A |00:04:57|
WATTS: Were you pleased to get that, or did that feel like peanuts?
FARR: So I did start to work. And I worked in the bank until about four o'clock in the afternoon, and I'd go down and work at one of the other plants, because everything was connected together. So after about six months, there was a gentleman in Tyrone that worked at the Terminal Station in Atlanta, and the Terminal Station in Atlanta is where the Federal Building is today. So I would ride up with him [on the train] free of charge. I'd walk from there through Five Points over to Peachtree Street to where Baker crossed, and the Draughon’s Business College was there over the Baptist bookstore. And I'd go to school there till about eleven o'clock. Then I'd walk back to the Union Station, which was near where the Terminal Station was, and I'd ride the train back to Tyrone. I'd get back home about twelve thirty. And I did that off and on for about two or three years. And I took a business course about two years after I started to work for this gentleman. Unfortunately, he had cancer and died. And I was only nineteen years old, and I had no idea that I'd be able to continue and do that business. But I worked hard. So that the people who owned
the business came over in about a month after that and asked me if I'd like to continue to do this. And I told them, "Yes." So I started. I also was in charge of the bank small bank, of course and I was in charge of the cotton gin, the cotton warehouse, and in charge of the fertilizer plant and bought and sold cotton at nineteen years old. And that's the way I started.
1A |00:07:02|
WATTS: Wow.
FARR: Back when I graduated from Fayette County High School in 1930, the roads were so bad between Tyrone and Fayetteville [during] the months of December, January and February, I had to board out there. The road was too bad to even travel in T-Model and A-Model Ford. So that's the kind of condition our roads was in during that period of time. I worked on for the bank and cotton gin and the fertilizer plant and seed processing plant for a number of years. During this period of time, I took a cotton classing course in Atlanta on the south near West End―in that area somewhere where there was a big cotton warehouse, and they gave cotton classing. And I learned to class cotton. So over a period of thirty years, I bought and sold cotton. I bought it from the farmers, of course, and sold it to the different cotton mills around over the country. But during this period of time, we didn't have electricity, and we didn't have water. And so we didn't have telephone service. So what I decided to do in the early―about the middle of 1935 I got the farmers that lived around in my area in Tyrone to cut pine poles and bring them over to the depot. And we skinned the bark off of them, carried them up to East Point and had them creosoted. I bought the wires and insulators, and we built a telephone line from Tyrone to
Fayetteville and ran it into the exchange. And we Southern Bell Telephone people wouldn't come down and put the telephone line in at that time, but they sent a man down to show us how to do it. And we dug the holes for the poles by hand all the way from Tyrone to Fayetteville. And then, I had a telephone in my home and one in the bank, and I let two of my friends each have a telephone so I wouldn't have the only telephone out there, for everybody was going to use it. That was on the same party line. The bank had a ring. It was one, and my home was two, and the other two people was three and four.
WATTS: My goodness.
1A |00:09:54|
FARR: And when we picked the phone up, of course, we could hear one another talk. We didn't have a lot of trouble with that. But what we used that phone line for about ten or twelve years, and it was in operation during World War II. And people from the western part of Fayette County, that was the only connection they had with the outside world. And it worked fine. And also, we didn't have electricity. So rural electrification was organized by mister President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Warm Springs in 1935. So there was I found out that co-ops had been organized. And I got three other people in Fayette County, and I worked with them. And then Coweta County had four people working at the same time. And we organized Coweta-Fayette Electric Membership Cooperation. And we had our first yearly convention in 1946. And I was on the board at that time and I'm still on the board, and I've been serving with them ever since. So
it's been a long but I've also been involved in rural electrification on a statewide and a national basis.
1A |00:11:25|
The first real manufacturing that came to Fayette County was Tyrone Rock Quarry Company. They had been a few small industries in Fayetteville. But in 1945 and 1946, the railroad wanted to and they did get some help from somebody in Florida that was in a rock business. And they [located] just south of Tyrone where they are located today. There was about a mile from the main railroad track on the west side of the railroad they had found a big area that had rock and they wanted to put a rock quarry in there. And it just so happened that the land was owned at that time by a family by the name of Mr. Landrum. And adjoining his farm was a family by the name of McEachern they called them McEachern at that time. And his name was Mr. Johnny McEachern. [McEachern is a Scottish name that people pronounce as “Ma-kee-ran."] Mr. McEachern and Mr. Landrum had sometime during the years had some trouble about a land line and wouldn't speak to one another. And to be able to get this rock quarry in, the line from the main track over to the rock quarry had to cross about an acre of Mr. McEachern's land. And, of course, they couldn't condemn it. And Mr. McEachern had decided that he wouldn't let them cross it. So they worked on it real hard for probably six or eight months. So one day the president of the railroad and Mr. Palmer, who was in charge of the rock quarry business in Florida, came to my bank and told me that they had worked with Mr. McEachern, and they didn't seem to be able to do anything with him and asked me if I would try to help them to get the quarry over there. Well, I was very anxious to be able to help them because I felt like that a lot of people
around Tyrone would like to work there. So agriculture was kind of bad at that time. And they left the deed to cross that acre of land with me. And I kind of hated to go down and talk to Mr. McEachern because he was―at that time, he's got some age on him but he had been a friend and a customer of mine for many years, and I agreed to do so.
1A |00:14:21|
So I went down one day to talk to him about it. I was very shy about it. He was down behind his barn plowing with an old mule. I went down to where he was working, and he and I sat down under an old apple tree there and I kept talking to him and talking to him. And after a while, Mr. McEachern said, "Floy,” he says, “What did you come down here for?" I said, "Mr. McEachern," I said, "I'm representing those people who are trying to get this rock quarry over here." He says, "What do you think about it?" And I said, "Well, I think it would be good for the community, and I think a lot of people need the―job, if they can get a job." I said, "They say they are going to work over hundred people here, if they get it." And we talked on about what would be good and bad for a while. Eventually, he said, "Well, if you think it's good, I'll sign it." (laughs) By that time, I had the paper out of my pocket, and I was also a notary public―and he signed it. And it wasn’t we didn't discuss the money part of it at all before we got it signed. So after he got it signed, and I witnessed it, I said, "Now, Mr. McEachern, how much do you want to charge them?" He said, "Well, if you think it's good, I'm not going to charge them anything." And I said, "No, we're not going to do that." I said, "We're going to pay you something for it." And I said, "What do you want?" He studied for a few minutes, and he said, "About the only thing I think I need " Said, "This old mule is getting kind of old, and I'd like to have a new gentle mule." I
said, "That's exactly what you're going to have." (All laugh) So the next day, there was a farmer near Tyrone that I knew could and had a truck. And I went to him that afternoon and asked him to go to Atlanta to the stock yard at that time they had a stock yard and buy Mr. McEachern a mule a gentle mule. And he did. And he and I carried that mule down there and gave it to him and that got that quarry started and it’s still operating today. 1A |00:16:27|
WATTS: Was this I want to ask is this documented in legal papers this was a mule was payment?
FARR: Do What?
WATTS: Was the mule payment and documented in papers that this was ?
FARR: I don't know that it was. (Watts laughs)
HIESTAND: But that's the way it was.
WATTS: But that's off the record. pause in recording
FARR: One day in nineteen I guess it was probably about 1957, I was in the small bank in Tyrone. And I had two or three people two or three ladies working for me in the office. And there was two gentlemen drove up in front of the bank and came in. And at that time, Charlotte Griggs was my secretary. She was later on the Tax Collector of Fayette County for a number of years. But at that time, she worked for me. And Charlotte was a good had a great personality and liked to talk. These guys walked her teller window, and she had a conversation with them. And she talked to them a little while. She brought them back to my office, and they sat down and started talking to me. One of these gentlemen was named Earl Denny, and another one was named Golden Pickett. And so, they talked on for a while, and Mr. Earl Denny did most of the talking for them. Mr. Golden Pickett was kind of a dignified guy and sat back and listened. So Mr. Denny was telling a lot of things that he did during his lifetime, but at that time I had a question: I asked them what they was doing. Then they identified themselves as real estate agents. And so Mr. Denny kept talking about things that he did and almost sounded unreasonable. Eventually I said to him that I was very busy and had to get back to my work. I had already spent a good bit of time with them, and I just said to them, I said, "What you guys doing and what do you want?"
1A |00:18:39|
Mr. Denny started Mr. Denny spoke up again, and he said, "Well, we're hunting some land to list." And I asked him, I said, "Well, how much land?" I figured forty, fifty, a hundred acres. He stuttered for a few minutes, and he said, "Fifteen thousand acres." He had never thought about that before. I kind of laughed at him. I said, "That's a lot of land. What you going to do with it?"
He stuttered for a few minutes, and he says, "Build a city." From that conversation we have Peachtree City. And of course, that was just he had never thought about that before just out of a blue sky said that.
HIESTAND: And what year was that?
FARR: That was 1957, or ’58, or something. I'm not sure you’ll have to ask Joel [Cowan], but about that period of time. But there was you could write a book on what happened after that. Well, they kept a talking to me a few minutes, and I knew he was talking about something he hadn't planned. And I said, "I tell you where you can find all the land in the world you want." I says, "Go down the highway till you get down to 54 highway." And I says, "There is all kind of land.” This was all farming area. Wasn't anything down here but just farming area. So they left, went on down the road, and at that time 54 highway crossed the railroad bridge and went south. And it wasn't paved a dirt road. So he they did that. They crossed the railroad and went south about where the sewer plant is now. They stopped and got out of the car and was looking around. And just so happened, Mr. Bob Huddleston came along. And he owned all this property. He owned Mr. Bob owned about between four and five thousand acres of land here. And, but Mr. Bob had loaned a lot of money to the farmers here and had took first mortgage on the property for the amount of money he had loaned them during the depression years. These farmers couldn't repay him, and he had about four or five thousand acres of loans through that he had loaned these farmers. So, but anyway, Mr. Bob saw these guys out there. He stopped and asked what they was doing, and they told him they was looking for some land to build a city.
(laughs) Mr. Bob said, "Who sent you down here?" He says, "Floy Farr sent me down here." (all laugh)
1A |00:21:22|
And, of course, Mr. Bob was he didn't realize that there might not be anything to it. And, of course, Mr. Bob was a good friend of mine and a good customer did all his business with me. And so he thought it was honest so he made an appointment to come back to my office the next day, which he did. And Mr. Bob was kind of looking for something to try and get some of his money back because he knew these farmers couldn't pay him, and he didn't want to foreclose on their farm. Mr. Bob was a very conservative man, and (chuckles) so But anyway, they kept coming back and talking with Mr. Bob and eventually I told Mr. Bob, I said, “Mr. Bob, I don't have any money. These guys don't have any money.” And I says, "I don't know what they can do.” And “Listen,” I told him. I says, "Well, if you all will find somebody who has the money, then we'll see what we can do about this thing." So these two―two real estate agents and let me tell you a little bit about those two real agents at this point. Sure enough, they was two real estate agents. Their office was in a tent on a vacant lot in College Park. (Watts and Hiestand laugh) That's where they was operating from. Nobody else but just them two. But anyway, they kept coming back. And they contacted and got Mr. Pete Knox from Thomson, Georgia, interested in it. Mr. Pete Knox had a young man working for him. His name was it skipped my mind right now (unintelligible) I'll remember in a minute. But anyway, I kept and also, he had a fellow in Augusta, Georgia. His name was Julian Robinson that was connected with him. Tom Cousins was a young man in Atlanta at that time and was working for him, and Tom was
selling houses. Mr. Knox was building prefab houses and had a pretty large operation. And Mr. Cousins, Tom Cousins, was selling houses for him in Riverdale. And today Mr. Cousins' is the biggest operation business almost in Atlanta, or one of the largest in Atlanta. He's done very well. So, but anyway, they kept coming back and talking to him, and eventually they decided I decided with Mr. Knox if he felt like we needed to do something with this land. We had no idea that we would build a city at that time. We didn’t, but Mr. Earl Denny and these two real estate agents were telling all over the country we was going to build a city. (all laugh)
1A |00:24:25|
WATTS: Where did these guys come from? (laughing)
FARR: But anyway, Mr. Knox put up some a little money in the bank, and we got an attorney, and we started to take an option on the land. And we put together an option on the land about eight or nine or ten thousand acres with the cooperation of Mr. Bob Huddleston. And from that, then Mr. Pete Knox Joel Cowan had just graduated from Georgia Tech and Joel was acquainted with the son of Mr. Knox who was there [at Georgia Tech] at the same time. And through that connection, he was employed by Pete Knox and sent down here to kind of look over help look after the land that we had taken first option on. And he [Knox] built a house out on 54 highway, out here for Joel and Geri and they moved in. And from that point we nothing had happened here, nothing. Not this lake or anything else had been built. So they Joel Mr. Knox asked Joel to start looking for somebody that might have finances to do something with the land. Joel found the Bessimer Trust out of New York. And then Joel and Bessimer Trust
organized Phipps Land Company. And Phipps Land Company came in. And, now wait a minute, by that time Mr. Knox had put up most of the money. We, his directors we had a group of directors had kind of helped him put the land together. I was involved with that. I was also involved with dealing with the developers and the landowners because they was all my customers. And I actually was wearing two hats. But once Joel came in and he found Bessimer Trust with the money and they agreed, it was my understanding I'm not sure exactly how much but they agreed to put up a certain amount of money here to finish paying off the land, so but they also, we agreed, Mr. Knox kind of wanted to get out of it at that time. He had put most of the money in it up to that time, so they agreed to pay us all the money we had put into it. And they did.
1A |00:27:08|
And then we had I was still operating the bank in Tyrone as a private bank and had operated it for a number of years as a private bank. I was really the bank was growing, and it was growing on my influence instead of the owners, and I was a little bit concerned about that. So I went to Atlanta, and I met with Willie Restin of the C&S Bank. And we―he agreed to help get the bank organized as a state bank, so we organized the Redwine Brothers Bank into the Fayette State Bank at that time. And Joel was partner he was a stockholder along with us. And so, to get the bank organized in Tyrone at that time―Tyrone wasn't large enough to support a bank, and the State Banking Superintendent would not let us organize a bank unless we agreed to move the bank to Peachtree City―and that's why the bank came down here after a year of operation.
WATTS: I think
1A |00:28:29|
pause in recording as cassette tape 1, side 1 ends; side 2 begins
WATTS: Now we’re set. Thank you.
FARR: Ready?
WATTS: Yes, sir.
FARR: As I just said, we moved the bank to Peachtree City. Now, where the bank really helped the development We moved the bank to Peachtree City in 1965, and from that time on for a number of years probably almost twenty years we was the only bank in Peachtree City. There was only two banks in the county. One of them was in Fayetteville the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Fayetteville―but I was also on that board. And during this period of time, the bank helped develop this city to the point where the as the people came down and bought a lot, the bank would make construction loans and also make do permanent loans. At that time, it was very hard for people to get loans because there just wasn't that many―there was a lot of real estate agents here selling lots, and they did a real good job of it, but you had to have the finances to finance the lot and then also do a construction loan and do the mortgage loans. But we was very competitive with anything in the state. We would make these loans and close them in the
bank and I would sell these loans to different investors throughout the state, and we was able to do that as a small bank. Course, when we moved the bank from Tyrone to Peachtree City, the employment of the bank was very small. It was myself and three ladies. And the deposit of the bank was the assets of the bank, rather was about a million or a little less.
1B |00:02:05|
And from that point on, the bank started to grow, and we grew into a pretty large bank. And during this period of time, we did a lot of the practically all the financing of the lots and homes in Peachtree City for the next fifteen or twenty years. Not only Peachtree City, but Fayette County, part of Coweta County, and part of South Fulton County. So we developed a large business in just helping people to have a home. This helped for the state. Helped Peachtree City a great deal because it was easy to be able to come to the bank and get it done and it was very competitive. So that's really a big factor in developing Peachtree City―the bank had a great deal to do with it. We sold Joel and I sold the bank to C&S National Bank in 1985. And then I worked on for C&S for about a year. Then I was also on the C&S board South Metro Board for C&S for about two years. And I retired from banking with them and also developed a mortgage company, and then I was in a mortgage company here in Peachtree City for the next six years. Then I sold my mortgage company to Peachtree National Bank. And so, since that time I've been doing yard work. (Farr and Hiestand laugh)
1B |00:03:45|
pause in recording
FARR: I guess this ought to have been recorded earlier, but you just asked me that, and I'll be glad to answer you. When we started developing Peachtree City, there was quite we had a lot of opposition. The large farmers in the county was kind of against us because they thought we’d hurt farm labor. And the politicians in the county was pretty well against us because they think we’d change politics. We had a lot of jealousy from different parts of the county and different areas, not only Fayette County, but some of the surrounding counties. I know even Coweta County there was some jealousy from Coweta County because they saw that what was going to happen as the city grew we’d probably would be competition to them―and it has been competition. So, but unfortunate, that I guess that even some of the churches were kind of jealous of us and not all of them, but some of them. And we started the developer started giving some land to start a church.
1B |00:05:11|
The First Presbyterian Church here in Peachtree City was actually the first church. That grew out of the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville lived here, and he would come by the bank office up there on Sunday morning [to hold services]. And we started off as a nondenominational group, and that's how the Presbyterian Church got started. Then the First Baptist Church here some land was donated to them by the developers, and the Baptist Church in Fayetteville sponsored the First Baptist Church here, and there was a second Baptist of course, the little Line Creek Church across the railroad was already in operation here at that time, and
but that's how the first two churches got started here. And then I had lived in Tyrone for a number of years and been very active in the little Methodist Church at Tyrone. And fact of business, I was I had served as the Chairman of the Board for twenty-six consecutive years. I tried to quit two or three times, and they wouldn't let me. Because (laughs) every time we would have quarterly meetings, we would lack two or three hundred dollars having enough to pay our fees. I was the only one that had a little paying job, and I'd just pay it (chuckles) and we worked out that thing pretty good. Then they wanted me to organize a Methodist Church here, and so I had already got started with the Presbyterian Church, and I didn't do a lot about it. But a Methodist Church was organized here. It was the third―next church―and that's how the churches got started.
1B |00:07:04| pause in recording
FARR: We was talking about rural electrification, and when rural electrification was organized. And as I’ve said before I think I stated this in my conversation with you before It was Franklin D. Roosevelt was coming to Warm Springs, and the reason he got the idea of this he lived in New York and his light bill at Warm Springs was about twice as high as it was in New York, and he got concerned about the rural people in the country. So he and his administration organized rural electrification. And there was, at that time, there was only 18 percent of America electrified and that was the big cities. Today we there is nowhere in the United States that wants electricity that can't get electricity on the basis of rural electrification. Now, I have
nothing against the utilities private utilities like Georgia Power and others because they are operated by stockholders, and they can't go out in rural areas and just build a line and don't at least pay the stockholders something on their money. And that same thing happened with the telephone company way back when we first started telephone _____(??) here, and there has been a place for all of us. And today there's more in the state of Georgia, 70 percent of the land area is covered by rural electrification in Georgia. Of course, Georgia Power is operated in big cities and Peachtree City is when we first started, Georgia Power owned part of it operated part of it and rural electrification operated part of it. So today we rural electrification can serve anybody. We do serve anybody.
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Fact of business, Coweta-Fayette serves the hospital in Fayette County and a lot of the plants down here. And we not only Coweta-Fayette has a security company now that serves about over ten thousand customers. Also has a gas company. It serves probably fifteen or twenty thousand people right now and along with electricity―and we've just outgrown our plant in Newnan. Just built a new plant off of Newnan about twelve miles(??)―about six miles across from Tyrone. So that’s―rural electrification got started from making loans from the federal government, but they always paid the money back and paid interest on the money. It's not a giveaway thing. Now we also was talking about the politics. I tell you a little about the politics in Fayette County. As I said before, I remember when there was only three registered Republicans in the county. One of them was the postmaster at Fayetteville, Mr. Stanley Morgan, the other was Roy Harrell who was a I don't know exactly what Roy did for a living, but he was a scout for
the St. Louis Cardinals. And he got some young men who played baseball around in this area started in baseball. And there was one other gentleman in the county. I don't recall his name right now, but today it's changed completely, and all the things that the people was kind of jealous of in the beginning is kind of straightened itself out―and it's wonderful. Thank you very much. (Watts and Hiestand laugh)
1B |00:10:54| pause in recording
WATTS: Ask your question.
HIESTAND: Are you well satisfied with the way Peachtree City has been developed and how we are right now?
FARR: Oh, yes, I am. I―you know, the master plan of Peachtree City was worked out in the beginning, and the city has, down through the years, has pretty well followed that master plan―and they still do it today. Course there’s been changes in it and they have to be changes in it because as people comes in and it gets larger Course the industry in Peachtree City has been real good for the city itself because it takes care of part of the taxation, not only Peachtree City, but Fayette County. There's one time, a few years ago, that the industry in Peachtree City was paying a good portion not fifty percent of the taxes of the county, but a good portion of it probably 25 to 30 percent of the taxation of Fayette County. And they certainly have been an
asset to the recreation and other things in Peachtree City down through the years. The people, and also the people and let me tell you this too: I give the people that's moved to Peachtree City over the years a lot of credit for the development of Peachtree City. If they had a lot of people hadn’t been volunteers to do different things, the fire department, the police department, and other things here in Peachtree City. It's done so well. I'm very proud of Peachtree City. 1B |00:12:44|
HIESTAND: And you were going to add about some assets to Peachtree City?
FARR: One or two great assets to Peachtree City down through the years has been the Atlanta Airport. We've had a lot of success from people that worked at the airport: airline pilots, FAA pilots, FAA employees, and in our school system. We Fayette County has down South I served on the Board of Education at one time for about ten or eleven years, and the time I served it was during the integration of the schools. And it was a pretty hard time to serve because the South was changing, and everybody was changing everywhere. But Fayette County did a good job on that. And we started building our schools and even today any industry that comes to Fayette County or Peachtree City, one of their first questions is they ask is about our school system. I served on the Industrial Authority [as] chairman for eight years. First chairman for eight years. During this eight years we had a lot of our industries to come to Peachtree City some of the large industries to come. And I met with these people. I went to California, Ohio, and other places as chairman of the Industrial Authority here trying to encourage these people to come here and bring their plants here. And it's been a real asset to keep the taxation
down to what we have in Peachtree City. Peachtree City's almost built out now, and to be able to maintain these things I think they are going to have towards other sources. But things have been alright here. We've had some politics in the county, and the city as well, and you're going to have that anywhere. So maybe that's good or bad, I don't know. (Watts laughs)
1B |00:14:55|
HIESTAND: The school system, though, has the reputation of being the best in the state.
FARR: Best in the state, yes sir!
HIESTAND: Isn't that wonderful?
FARR: My two sons was educated right here in Fayette County schools, and they did well. Went on to be professional people. pause in recording
FARR: Aberdeen was up here on in Peachtree City, up where you know, where that filling station and that bank right up there on I think it's Fairburn Banking Company now. I think they changed the name of it. It's right up there where you turn to go down through there to where that nursing home is up there, going down through there you remember that road that comes down by that nursing home?
HIESTAND: By Southland Nursing H ?
FARR: Southland
HIESTAND: That's Wisdom Road.
FARR: Wisdom Road. Where Wisdom Road goes into 74 highway. That's were Aberdeen was. Now, it was a small place. Just on the west side of the railroad there was a train station, and when the railroad was built in 1907 and 1908, and the railroad had named these places, and Aberdeen was one of them. They named Tyrone, Aberdeen, Senoia, and other places. But anyway, the depot was on the West side of the railroad up there. On this side of the railroad, there was two country stores wooden stores, small stores and then these stores was right beside one another on this side of the railroad next to road. It wasn't a highway at that time. Then on to the right, above that, is where the Leaches lived. And then, you know Brother Leach [Myron Leach was known as Brother Leach] helped started the fire department.
HIESTAND: That’s right.
FARR: And Louise Leach [Sister Leach] was his sister who lived with him. And she has never married. And everybody knew Louise because Louise, once they got a telephone, if they had a fire in town they’d call Louise, and Louise would call the volunteers and get Brother out and get [him] going, and that's how the fire department got started. And then just north of that, was a
school building. It was a two-story school building, wooden building. And the school was downstairs, and the Masonic Lodge was upstairs they had a Masonic Lodge. Then just above that, that's where there was a house. There, where that veterinarian place is there today, and there was a house there, and that's where my wife's parents lived. And that's where she was born, right where that veterinarian place is there.
HIESTAND: Yes.
1B |00:17:49|
Then after a while she was small when they moved out on Robinson Road to a big farm out there where her grandfather owned that big farm out off Robinson Road. They moved out there and built a house. And they lived there until while she was in school and her sisters and brothers she had a sister that taught school, and she had two brothers. One of them was a minister, and the other one worked in Atlanta with the people that was in charge of the Greyhound bus station. And they all went to Fayette County High School. Right after she about the time she was in high school they moved to Tyrone, and that's where I met her. Course we was in school together, but I didn't know her when we was in school together. She was about five or six years younger than I was, (laughs) and I didn't know her in school, though. I knew her family and knew all about them, but that's where she and I got acquainted and got married. She was teaching school in Senoia when we married.
HIESTAND: What about Shakerag? Have you got a theory of how Shakerag got its name?
FARR: Let me tell you about Shakerag. Shakerag was a little country courthouse sitting over here on 54 highway, right where Robinson Road comes into 54 [highway]. Now, it was a little it was all wooded area in there, and you know where C. J. Mowell's funeral home is back from there back to 54 highway is where that little courthouse sat and that was Shakerag. And the judge was a good friend of mine. His name was Mr.―oh, let me see Gurd Tinsley was his name. And he ran the mill up there on Flat Creek Mill, where the mill is now I mean, where the golf course is now. And he was he had fifty acres of land up there. So when we was trying to buy land for Peachtree City, I went up there to talk to him one day, and he
1B |00:20:05|
It was in the wintertime, things was bad and a little road came to 74 highway down to it, and then there was a road from 54 Banks Road went down to it. It was kind of a point down there on a pond where he made ground meal out of corn. And he did that. And Mr. Gurd was a justice of the peace, and once a month he'd have court over there on cases. He wasn't an educated man, but he was a good friend of Mr. Culpepper who was one of the main attorneys in Fayetteville kept him informed on the law. And these cases he'd try were I don't think he could try a case over $500 or something. But he’d have court over there. But anyway, that’s what I was going to tell you about going to see him. It was cold, bad, rainy one day, and I went down there to see him about buying the land. He had turned Joel [Cowan] down, and some of the other people a time or two. They couldn't trade with him. And I got down there, he wasn't in the mill. He had a little house sitting up on the bank out there from the mill a high bank. It was a small place kind of
dilapidated place. You went up to it by a path. You went in the back of the building, which was ground level around the back of it. So he had a wooden fireplace in there―he had a fireplace in there―and he was sitting in front of that fireplace in a rocking chair with a quilt around him. He had a cold or was sick or something. And I went in there and was talking to him. And I his wife was in part of the house. It was a small place, but she was in there. And while I was sitting there talking to him, I heard a terrible noise behind me. And I looked around, and there was a big hog coming in the house. (Watts laughs) And the hog came on around, (laughs) and his wife brought in a bucket of we called it slop I don't know what y’all ever called it. What it is was the waste from the kitchen they fed that hog, and she fed that hog in that fireplace right in front of me (Watts and Hiestand laugh)
Watts: Oh, lord! (all laugh)
1B |00:22:36|
FARR: But that's the truth. But I eventually traded with him on his property, and I traded with it on the basis of we went down Robinson Road for three-four miles down there, and we gave him four acres of land and built him a nice wooden frame house―had four rooms. And the house is still down there―and he moved down there. He wanted he told me he had been married six times. I don't know how many times he’d been married, but this lady he was married to at that time was, oh gosh, she must have been fifty years younger than him, or something, I don't know. (Watts laughs) But anyway, they had a child, and Mr. Gurd said it wasn't his, (all laugh) so don't know. It was a boy, and the boy was about, at that time was I don't know, he was about six,
seven, eight years old. But, you know, there’s an old still on that golf course. I don't know what you all ever a wooden still still out there. It’s an old ground (??) But it was his wife that ran that thing. (crosstalk)
HIESTAND: How do you spell his name?
FARR: Gurd Tinsley.
HIESTAND: (crosstalk) This is like Tinsley's Mill?
WATTS: G-u-r-d for Gurd probably? Gurd is probably G-u-r-d?
FARR: Yeah.
WATTS: Yeah. About what year was this that he that you would have seen ?
FARR: I have no idea what year it was. (Hiestand laughs)
WATTS: That would have been ’30s or ’40s?
FARR: No. It was when we was putting the land together.
HIESTAND: Oh, buying the land.
WATTS: ’50s, yeah.
1B |00:24:23|
FARR: Mr. Gurd was a good friend of mine, and one day while he was having court over there, I was subpoenaed to his court for something. I don't remember what it was now, but anyway I was real busy in the cotton season, you know, fooling with cotton, buying it, ginning it. I forgot about it. He sent a bailiff after me. (all laugh) And when I walked in that little courthouse, he was kind of upset with me. And he said, "Mr. Farr " He says, "Didn't you have a subpoena to come to this court?" I said, "Yes sir " He said, "How come you didn't come?" I said, "I forgot it." He said, "Well, three days in jail will remind you." (all laugh)
WATTS: Oh! (laughs)
FARR: He scared the dickens out of me. (laughs) He could have put me in jail!
WATTS: He just threatened you, though, he didn't do it?
FARR: It scared me and, of course, he didn’t do that. But he scared me. After we traded for his land, he wanted me to take he had some money left after we did all this other for him, and he wanted me to look after it for him. He had gotten real feeble and old at that time, and his health wasn't good. And he knew he wasn't going to live long. He wanted me to look after that money
for him to be sure he got buried. And I did. I put it in the bank not my bank, but I put it in a bank in Newnan. And he lived down there several years and died. And I saw that the property the money paid for all his doctor bills and paid for his funeral expenses, and gave the rest of it to his wife. And she lived there a while, and she left, and I didn't know what became of her for many years. And about just a few years ago, two or three years ago, somebody was talking to me and and that son he had at that time was just oh, not that old, just four or five years old but anyway, they told me that she sold that place and got the money and went to Texas with somebody. And this guy, this boy, has grown up and had come back to Griffin and was living in Griffin and working in a garage or something. I don't know, I guess she passed away or something. I never did know what happened to her.
WATTS: Wow. (Hiestand laughs) But the house is still down there on Robinson Road? The house still stands today?
FARR: It's down there, yes. Somebody owns it now. They bought it and fixed it up. Boy, it's a nice-looking house now.
1B |00:27:02|
HIESTAND: Do you remember Homer Parrott? And Mary Lucy Parrott?
FARR: Yes, I do remember.
HIESTAND: And their house was right there at the end of the pedestrian bridge.
FARR: Yeah Yes, I do remember
HIESTAND: And they swapped that house for a house on Willow Road.
FARR: Yeah, I knew the Parrotts. Mr. the older man Parrott at one time was, uh―lived at had a store in Tyrone. The first bank that I operated in Tyrone was a brick building. It was a small building. It was only twenty let's see, it was eighteen feet wide and twenty-two feet long. (Watts and Hiestand laugh) It was solid brick, and it had we had a little partition in the front of it and had a teller window and had a little lobby there, two windows and two double doors. It had a kind of porch over it, and that was the first bank that I worked at. I operated it for a while and then there was a store on to the left of me, and the old man Mr. Parrott ran that store. And I got acquainted with him real well. He always was close to the bank there. I was in and out there. He was a very nice guy.
HIESTAND: They were good people.
FARR: Yeah. Good people. It was of course, you know, it was the Huddlestons and the McWilliamses and the Whitlocks and the Pollards. Those were the main families. There was more than that too, but they were still the main families here at that time. And that's they was all farmers, you know.
HIESTAND: And I heard there was some moonshining in this area too.
FARR: Well, yes there was I'm, not going to record this now. (all laugh)
WATTS: This time anyway. We're about to the end of the tape.
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cassette tape 1, side 2 ends