Historic Macon

CHAPTER V
T WENTIETH C ENTURY C ITY
A New York magazine in 1906 described Macon as one of the “most Southern of all old Southern
towns”. The twentieth century began quietly in Macon. Its people did not expect the events,
sometimes stormy ones, which changed the old Southern town into a modern American city.
Later, people remembered the early 1900s as a time of peace and comfort, of slow growth and
gradual change.
Macon’s major dispute of 1903 showed how little it took to upset people. Congress approved the
building of a new post office on the site of the old Federal Courthouse. Judge Emory Speer refused
to move out of his office to allow the old courthouse to be torn down. After several months of delay,
the government began to consider an idea of tearing down all the building except the Judge’s office.
After two years, President Theodore Roosevelt issued an order that the contract be carried out, and
the entire building was torn down. Judge Speer got the last word by adjourning court until, he said,
he had a new courtroom.
Other events at the turn of the century reflected gentle changes. In 1900 Macon’s last public
well was sealed. The same year a new library opened named for Mayor Daisy Price who died the
year before.
❖
A gift of land and money from Mrs.
Ellen Washington Bellamy in memory
of her brother Hugh Vernon
Washington was responsible for the
construction of the Washington
Memorial Library, completed in 1923.
Chapter V ✦ 47