Georgia Trivia & Tidbits

Looking for Georgia trivia? Try our list Georgia little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—The Adelphean Society, now Alpha Delta Pi, is believed to be the first sorority for college women. It was founded in 1851 at Wesleyan College in Macon (pop. 97,255).

first appeared: 6/14/2009

—Called the "black Babe Ruth," Josh Gibson was famous in the Negro League for hitting 500-foot and greater home runs. The National Baseball Hall of Famer, who hit "almost 800 home runs," was born in 1911 in Buena Vista (pop. 1,664) and died in 1947, three months before Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball. Gibson played for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays in Pennsylvania.

first appeared: 5/17/2009

—Hoschton (pop. 1,070) residents scared up some fun last fall by making 5,441 scarecrows and setting a world record for having the most scarecrows in one location, according to the World Records Academy. Some scarecrows were dressed as University of Georgia football players, Elvis and the cast of The Wizard of Oz.

first appeared: 5/3/2009

–More than 300 photos of babies, known as the "eggplant babies," decorate a wall at Scalini's Italian Restaurant in Smyrna (pop. 40,999). According to restaurant lore, the eggplant parmigiana dish induces labor in mothers–to–be within 48 hours.

first appeared: 4/19/2009

—Hiawassee (pop. 808) is applauded as the state's "country music capital" because of its many music and folk festivals, including the state fiddlers convention and Georgia Mountain Fair.

first appeared: 4/5/2009

—The first transcontinental telephone call took place in 1915. It was a four-way call among Theodore N. Vail, president of American Telephone and Telegraph Co., on Jekyll Island; Alexander Graham Bell, telephone inventor in New York; Thomas A. Watson, assistant to Bell, in San Francisco; and President Woodrow Wilson, in Washington, D.C.

first appeared: 3/22/2009

—In the early 1900s, Consolidated Gold Mines in Dahlonega (pop. 3,638) employed up to 1,200 miners and was the largest gold-mining operation east of the Mississippi River. Today, visitors can tour the abandoned mineshaft 60 feet underground and pan for gold.

first appeared: 3/8/2009

—The state’s official marine mammal is the right whale, which was adopted in 1985 and is the only whale native to the state’s waters.

first appeared: 2/22/2009

—The first Georgian to build and operate an airplane was Ben Epps, who flew his first plane over an open field in Athens in 1907. He was born in 1888 in Oconee County (pop. 26,225).

first appeared: 2/8/2009

—The Waffle House Museum opened in September in the original Waffle House diner near Decatur (pop. 18,417) where the chain began in 1955. Menus, uniforms and other memorabilia are displayed.

first appeared: 1/11/2009

—“Worship in your car, just as you are” is the theme of the drive-in services offered by the New Hope Methodist Church in Marietta (pop. 58,748). Worshippers can attend a conventional service indoors, or worship in their cars in the church parking lot.

first appeared: 12/29/2008

—Jonathan Miller, of Savannah, won the 2008 Best Teen Chef competition sponsored by The International Culinary Schools at The Art Institutes. The high school senior won a $40,000 scholarship, along with a chance to be an intern for a day at The Food Network Kitchens in New York City.

first appeared: 11/30/2008

—A large wild hog population in Abbeville (pop. 2,298) led to the town’s nickname, the “Wild Hog Capital of Georgia” and the annual Ocmulgee Wild Hog Festival.

first appeared: 11/16/2008

—Sometimes called “Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon,” Providence Canyon State Park near Lumpkin (pop. 1,369) features a multicolored network of gorges, some more than 100 feet deep.

first appeared: 11/2/2008

—The SAM Shortline Excursion Train with its vintage air-conditioned passenger cars rumbles through southwest Georgia and includes stops at Georgia Veterans State Park in Cordele (pop. 11,608); the Georgia Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie (pop. 455); Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village and Discovery Center in Americus (pop. 17,013); and the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains (pop. 637) and the former president’s boyhood home in Archery.

first appeared: 10/19/2008

—Born in 1849 on a plantation in Harris County (pop. 23,695), a blind slave known as “Blind Tom” Wiggins or Thomas Bethune toured concert halls across the nation as a musical oddity and performed at the White House. Wiggins could play any piece of music on the piano from memory after hearing it once.

first appeared: 10/5/2008

—Displayed since 1893, the Atlanta Cyclorama bills itself as the world’s largest oil painting. The nearly 16,000-square-foot panoramic painting, completed in 1886, depicts the Civil War Battle of Atlanta and is viewed from a rotating platform.

first appeared: 9/21/2008

—The Remington typewriter used by Margaret Mitchell to write Gone With the Wind, along with her library card, the books she used to research the 1936 novel and the Pulitzer Prize she won for the Southern classic, are on permanent display at the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library in Atlanta.

first appeared: 9/7/2008

—The Friendship Monument in Cartersville (pop. 15,925) is believed to be the only monument erected by a debtor to honor his creditors. During the Panic of 1857, Mark Anthony Cooper, owner of Etowah Iron Works, faced a financial crisis, and 38 friends came to his aid and signed notes totaling $100,000. When the debt was repaid in 1860, Cooper erected the monument with his benefactors’ names.

first appeared: 8/24/2008

—G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, was named secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in March. Clough is the 12th person to head the world’s largest museum and research complex.

first appeared: 8/10/2008

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