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From the LaGrange Daily News, 1937.

Front Page News

Plans Accepted for New Troup County Courthouse — Plans for Troup County’s new $220,000 courthouse have been virtually accepted by the Board of County Commissioners and a contract for the new edifice will probably be let sometime in January, J.J. Milam, vice chairman of the County Commissioners announced today.

Acceptance of the plans ends a long controversy over arrangement of various offices in the new building – a controversy which has drawn county officials, lawyers, the architect and the commission into several heated discussions. A few minor changes are still to be made in the plans.

The building will face north and south on the courthouse square. The County Commission will advertise for bids during the month of December.

(In an earlier October edition of the paper, LaGrange residents read the following in City Briefs:)

Judge F.P. Longley, genial justice of the peace, has it all figured out as far as the courthouse question is concerned. The judge even knows when actual work will begin and gives freely of his knowledge of such facts.

According to Judge Longley, the delay in rebuilding the courthouse is due to the fact that the commissioners do not want to bother the square as long as the turnip greens are growing there.

Judge Longley says as soon as the turnip greens have been gathered by several “interested parties,” the commissioners will then build the courthouse.

All-Paved Route to be Opened Friday with Motorcade — Seeking a better understanding and a more closely-knit friendship between the two neighboring counties and towns, plans for a gigantic motorcade from LaGrange to Franklin next Friday afternoon were being whipped into shape today by the LaGrange Chamber of Commerce. Some 200 cars are expected to be in the motorcade.

Saturday will be “Franklin and Heard County Trade Day” in LaGrange. LaGrange merchants have been extended a “wide open” invitation to enter the motorcade. Floats, bearing advertising streamers, as well as cars will be admitted, and the whole theme of the occasion is “the more the merrier.”

The LaGrange Junior Drum and Bugle Corps will lead the motorcade.

(The next day) Tigner Thanks All for Cooperation — Frank C. Tigner Jr., president of the LaGrange Chamber of Commerce, today thanked LaGrange, Franklin and Heard County citizens for their cooperation in making the LaGrange-Franklin motorcade yesterday a great success.

LaGrange-Greenville Road Paving Asked by Citizens — Good roads boosters of Meriwether and Troup counties met in LaGrange today and adopted a resolution requesting the state highway department pave the LaGrange-Greenville highway.

The resolution pointed out that during the past three to five years, the highway, officially designated as Highway Number 109, has been “ready for paving or other hard surface treatment” and that during that time portions of the road have been impassable during inclement weather, resulting in the complete isolation of some communities.

Members of the State Highway Board and Gov. E. D. Rivers have been mailed a copy of the resolution.

Erect Monument to Term’s Origin — The term “Daughter of the Confederacy” was first used in West Point, Ga., on April 30, 1886, by Gen. John B. Gordon, when he introduced Miss Winnie Davis to the throng of people who had gathered at the railway station there to greet her distinguished father, Jefferson Davis. Davis was in route to Atlanta to deliver the dedicatory address at the unveiling of the Ben Hill monument.

Because of his feeble conditio0n, Davis was unable to speak, so General Godron presented Miss Davis as “The Daughter of the Confederacy.”

Commemorating that event, the Georgia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy has erected on the lawn of the Hawkes Library in West Point a boulder which bears an inscription stating that the title he used became the name of the present patriotic organization.

The West Point organization is arranging with state officers to have a dedication of the boulder at an early date.

Editorial

Opportunity Seldom Overlooked — The proposed trip of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to the United States is creating quite a furor in England and America. Governors and cabinet officers are sending cordial invitations to the ex-king, exiled Duke and muchly married duchess.

High officials in London are trying to find ways and means of preventing the trip, fearing the effects of the publicity on the masses in England. The English ruling class desire that Windsor stay put in an obscure castle and its surrounding gardens, but the Duke is not satisfied to spend his life playing at mumbletypeg.

Our reaction to the affair is that we hate to see an opportunity given us Americans to make fools out of ourselves. We so seldom overlook such opportunities.

Julia Dyar, a retired journalist, is active in the Troup County Historical Society.