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Newspaper Articles
Alachua County, FL |
The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) May 29 1883 Shot in the Bowels Gainesville, Fla., May 23 Nelson Jordan, a negro, while drunk and riotous, resisted arrest at Archer, Alachua county, Saturday and shot the marshal in the bowels. Other negroes then joined Jordan. The mayor summoned a posse who were fired into by the negroes. The posse then returned the fire, killing Jordan. Sam Duncan, a colored politician, formerly in the United States land office was arrested among others. The prisoners were brought here to the county jail. Submitted by Nancy Piper |
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The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
February 10 1887 Submitted by Nancy Piper |
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The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
November 4, 1903 Submitted by Nancy Piper |
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The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
May 12, 1906 Submitted by Nancy Piper |
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The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
July 22, 1909 Submitted by Nancy Piper |
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The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
January 15, 1910 Submitted by Nancy Piper |
| New Smyrna Daily News (New Smyrna, Florida)
September 3, 1915 The pardoning of "Shorty" Davidson has again reminded the citizens of the cold blooded murder of Special Agent Sellars and the part Davidson and Kelley are believed to have taken in it and has recalled the sensational escape of Kelley from the camp in this county. Referring to the pardoning of Davidson, the Tampa Times has the following editorial, under the heading "Has Justice Been Ravished in Florida?" "Although we have received no report on the subject from Tallahassee, The Times has been informed by one of the bravest and most reliable officers of the law in Florida that "Shorty" Davidson was pardoned last week by the pardon board and returned Saturday to his old haunts in High Springs, Alachua county. If this is the case justice has assuredly been ravished through misuse of the pardoning power, for no legitimate reason could be advanced for relieving Davidson of the penalty that was imposed upon him." It is hardly necessary to inform people who have lived in Florida ten or fifteen years as to the identity of "Shorty" Davidson but for the benefit of newcomers we will say that he was sent to the penitentiary for how many years we do not remember, for complicity in the murder of W. C. Sellars, a one time police lieutenant of Tampa, who had been sent to High Springs as a special agent by the Atlantic Coast Line railway in the hope that he would be able to break up a band of thugs and thieves of which Davidson was declared to be the main spirit. Because of his bravery Sellars was shot to death from ambush and after a hard fight in the courts, Davidson and a side partner, Kelley, was sent to the turpentine camps. Kelley escaped, was recaptured and is supposed to be doing service now. Davidson did not attempt to escape and now, according to our informant, has been released. For years, High Springs, which contains as many good citizens as any community of equal size in Florida, was regarded as "hell on earth" because of mysterious murders and continued robberies of Coast Line freight cars. Many special agents were sent to High Springs in the hope that they would be able to end the depredations of the thugs and every man who undertook the task took his life in his hands. No sign of peace came until Sellars went to his death and Davidson and Kelley went to the turpentine camps. Since that time High Springs has been as law-abiding a community as can be found anywhere. On the day of the Sellars murder, the writer was visiting Gainesville, seat of Alachua county on business, and even in that city, where courageous men abound, Davidson and his gang were held in fear. Carlie Eaton, D. Bryan and other detectives who attempted to bring the guilty men to justice received threatening letters and the writer also received one because of the news stories written about the operations of the Davidson gang. Considering the manner in which the good people of High Springs were terrorized for years, also the cowardly manner in which Sellars was killed, we again declare that the pardon of Davison, even though he may not have committed the actual crime of murdering Sellars, is a travesty on justice. There was no excuse for releasing him, and the issuance of pardon in such cases serves only to inspire imposed upon people to act as those Georgians in the Leo Frank case. Submitted by Nancy Piper |
| The Winecoff is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died. It remains the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history, and prompted many changes in building codes. Guests at the hotel that night included teenagers attending a Tri-Y Youth Conference, Christmas shoppers, and people in town to see Song of the South. Arnold Hardy, a 26-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech, became the first amateur to win a Pulitzer Prize in photography for his snapshot of a woman (later identified as survivor Daisy McCumber) in mid-air after jumping from the 11th floor of the hotel during the fire. - Wikipedia The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)
October 31, 1913 |
| Abilene Reporter News (Abilene, Texas) December
8, 1946 116 Die in Hotel Fire At Atlanta By the Associated Press Atlanta, Dec. 7 (AP) American's most destructive hotel fire early today turned the 15-story Winecoff hotel here into a blazing inferno that brought death to 116 persons and injury to at least 100 more. While scores of guests trapped in the upper part of the building burned or suffocated, other men, women and children plunged screaming to death on the pavements below in the pre-dawn darkness. A revised death list compiled late tonight after a check of funeral homes and hospitals which was complicated by the removal of bodies from one mortuary to another set the toll of the disaster at 116. Of these, 103 had been identified and 13 bodies still were unidentified. It was possible, however, that the total might be changed slightly upon completion of the difficult casualty check. At daylight the sides of the tall, chimney-like structure were draped with torn bed-sheets and blankets, marking in grim silence where victims tried to escape. Eyewitnesses told how panic-stricken guest swung from tenth and twelfth story windows on flimsy, makeshift ropes. A few were rescued but most fell headlong as flames burned away their supports or they lost their grip. Others were seen briefly at flaming windows, shrieking and praying, then disappearing into the terrible inferno. At one time, a half-dozen broken bodies lay at the intersection of Atlanta's famed Peachtreee street and Carnegie Way, opposite the theater where the world premier of "Gone with the Wind" was staged. Some who kept their heads were saved. White-haired Mrs. Banks Whiteman, manager of the hotel cigar county, pulled the wife and children of her employer, Arthur F. Geele, Jr., from the 14th floor to the top-floor apartment of Mrs. Arthur Geele, Sr., There they huddled in a corner until the fire subsided. The origin of the blaze apparently was buried in the charred wreckage or sealed with the dead. City Fire Marshall Harry Phillips could say only that the flames started in the corridors of the third or fourth floors. Phillips, accompanied by fire inspectors, said in every instance the flames had burned into the rooms of the third, fourth and fifth floors, indicating that the origin lay somewhere in the carpeted hallways. The fire was out of control within a few minutes after it was discovered and before every piece of fire fighting equipment in Atlanta could be summoned, Phillips said. The Marshall said a bellhop testified he had noticed no fumes or smoke when he delivered some soft drinks to a room on the fifth floor. But, when he turned to leave the room he found he was trapped by flames in the doorway. The mystery that surrounds the origin also gave rise to speculation as to how the fire could spread so rapidly through a fire-resistant building. The brick, concrete and stell structure had no outside fire escapes, but was classed as "fire resistant." Fire Marshall Phillips said it met all safety codes when it was built in 1914. (1913) The fire apparently started on the third or fourth floor and Mayor William B. Hartsfield said its origin was under investigation. Would-be rescuers told of vainly seeing many forms silhouetted against boiling flames, praying vainly for succor that could not reach them. Thudding bodies crashed in ghastly procession into the street and into smoke-filled alleyways. There were 285 guests registered at the hotel, which was one of Atlanta's leading hostelries. Spreading with disastrous rapidity through the southwest side of the building, flames races up stairways and elevator shafts to trap nearly half the guests. The death toll eclipsed Chicago's LaSalle hotel fire of six months ago, when 61 died and more than trebled the 34 dead in Atlanta's Terminal hotel fire of May 16, 1938. The nation's previous record toll in a hotel fire was 71 in the Newhall House holocaust at Millwakee in 1883. Among the identified dead was W. F. Winecoff, 70, one of the hotel's builders, who died in his upper-floor apartment. His wife is missing. Mr. and Mrs. T. G. Turk of Tulsa, Okla., held their two-year old daughter, Nancy Dianne, outside their window until firemen reached them. They were rescued. Turk's two brothers, John M. and Richard, swung from the tenth floor to the ninth by bed sheets and were rescued by firemen. Bodies were found on every floor above the third where bedroom facilities began. Those not in direct line of the flames suffocated. Fifty Hi-Y girls from all over Georgia were quartered in the hotel. Some escaped and the fate of others was unknown. Emergency mortuaries were set up throughout Atlanta after the Municipal morgue reported it was at capacity. The fire was reported shortly after 3 a.m. Firemen brought it under control by 7 a.m. and the last bodies were removed by 9:30. Police Chief M. A. Hornsby said "at least 25 or 30 persons were killed by leaping from windows. One woman tripped on a ladder where fireman Jack Burnham was attempting to reach another woman. Burnham was critically hurt, the woman killed. |