NewcomersGuide_2017_SpringSummer_-web

AUGUSTA’S STORY, cont’d
ESSENTIALS
In the mid-1840s, the community built
a canal for hydro-mechanical power
and early industry emerged. Having
this source of water-power resulted in
the construction of the Confederate
Powder Works. Today only the chimney
remains as a stark Civil War reminder.
During the war Augusta was a major
center for manufacturing and medical
care. Future President of the United
States Woodrow Wilson learned about
war firsthand when his father’s First
Presbyterian Church became a hospital
after the Battle of Chickamauga. Today
his boyhood home is a historic site
telling that story.
For Augusta’s African-American
community the end of the war
brought emancipation and citizenship.
Churches, schools - including Lucy
Laney’s Haines Institute, and Paine
College – along with businesses and
cultural institutions. In Springfield
Baptist Church, one of the two oldest
independent black churches in the
country, both the Georgia Equal Rights
Association and the school now known
as Morehouse College began.
After the war, Augusta became a
“New South” city. Enlarging the canal
increased its horsepower and large,
architecturally significant textile mills
surrounded by mill neighborhoods rose
along its banks. Today Sibley and King
Mills are the cornerstones of a National
Historic District. The restored Enterprise
Mill houses an interpretive center that
tells the story of the mills and offers
Petersburg boat rides on the canal, now
a National Heritage Area.
In 1888 Augusta held a national
exposition that triggered the winter
tourism industry. For decades the
wealthy of the North spent their winter
months enjoying Augusta’s milder
climate in resort hotels or in fine homes
they built on the Hill in Summerville.
In the early 20th century, growth and
modernization continued with the
building of the first skyscrapers, still
part of Augusta’s skyline. Like other
cities, Augusta had a roaring side in
the 1920s and then suffered through
the Depression in the 1930s. The
bright spot of that decade was the
establishment of the Augusta National
Golf Club and the beginning of the
annual Masters Golf Tournament.
Augusta has always had a connection
with the military—Fort Augusta, the
US Arsenal, Camp MacKenzie in the
Spanish-American War, Camp Hancock
in World War I, and Camp Gordon in
World War II which became Fort Gordon
in the 1950s. Now home to the US Army
Signal School and Cyber Command,
Fort Gordon remains an integral part of
16 | THE NEWCOMERS GUIDE: GREATER AUGUSTA