ATF National Response Team Activated to Georgia Mill Fire

PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Response Team (NRT) from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) along with ATF special agents from the Columbus Satellite Office and the Macon Field Office, of the Atlanta Field Division, have entered into the investigation of a large commercial fire at the request of the Columbus Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services. The fire occurred Thursday, Oct. 30, at the Bibb Mill located at 3715 First Ave., downtown Columbus. The NRT arrived today and will begin its work at the scene.

The 750,000 square foot structure was built around 1920 and holds significant historical value to the community. The approximate loss is estimated at $2 million. The Mill housed several businesses and a portion of the property was to be converted to a condominium community. There are no reported injuries at this time and the investigation is continuing.

In 1978, ATF developed the NRT to provide resources to federal, state and local investigators in meeting the challenges faced at the scenes of significant arson and explosives incidents. The NRT consists of four teams organized geographically to cover the United States. Each team can respond within 24 hours to assist state and local law enforcement/fire service personnel in onsite investigations.

In addition to investigating hundreds of large fire scenes, the NRT has also been activated to scenes such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing and the 9/11 Pentagon crash site, as well as explosions at explosives and ammunition manufacturing plants, legal fireworks factories and illegal explosive device manufacturing operations.

The teams are each composed of veteran special agents who have post blast and fire origin-and-cause expertise; forensic chemists; explosives enforcement officers; fire protection engineers; accelerant detection canines; explosives detection canines; intelligence support, computer forensic support and audit support. The teams work alongside state and local officers in reconstructing the scene, identifying the seat of the blast or origin of the fire, conducting interviews, and sifting through debris to obtain evidence related to the bombing/arson.

Further complementing the team's efforts are technical, legal and intelligence advisors. Moreover, a fleet of fully equipped response vehicles strategically located throughout the United States is available to provide logistical support.

This will be the NRT's second activation in fiscal year 2009 and the 660th activation since the inception of the NRT in 1978.

ATF is the federal agency with jurisdiction for investigating fires and crimes of arson. More information on ATF can be found at www.atf.gov.

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Civil Rights Digital Library Wins Award for Archival Excellence

The Civil Rights Digital Library is the 2008 winner of an Award for Excellence in Archival Program Development conferred by the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board. Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel and GHRAB chairperson Ross King presented the award as part of the GHRAB Awards ceremony at the Georgia Archives in Morrow on Oct. 6. The CRDL is a GALILEO initiative based at the University of Georgia.

The Civil Rights Digital Library is an archive of news film and related historical materials from educational institutions across the U.S. According to P. Toby Graham, director of the Digital Library of Georgia, it is the most ambitious and comprehensive initiative to date to provide educational content on the Civil Rights Movement via the Web.

“The University Libraries have been proud to play a leadership role in developing the Civil Rights Digital Library,” said William Gray Potter, university librarian, “and we are pleased that GHRAB shares our enthusiasm for this important initiative.”

The CRDL promotes an enhanced understanding of the movement through its three principal components: a digital video archive delivering 30 hours of historical news film; a civil rights portal providing drawing together holdings from more than 90 libraries and allied organizations across the nation; and instructional materials to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.

The Civil Rights Digital Library receives financial support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The CRDL will continue to grow through its partnerships with allied organizations across the U.S.

The Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board (GHRAB) works to promote preservation, access, and educational use of Georgia’s documentary heritage. Its twelve members are appointed by the governor.

See the Civil Rights Digital Library online at http://www.civilrightslibrary.org.

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The BeltLine is Happening: Historic Fourth Ward Park Breaks Ground

PRNewswire/ -- Thirty-five acres of blighted industrial lowland near City Hall East will move closer to transformation into Historic Fourth Ward Park after a groundbreaking ceremony at 10:30 a.m., Wed., Oct. 15: approximately 695 North Avenue, 30308. Construction of a detention pond, part of the Clear Creek Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Capacity Relief Project, will pave the way for the development of the first park in the "emerald necklace" that will ultimately be Atlanta's BeltLine. Land for the park was first secured by the Trust for Public Land in 2004.

"This park will provide vital greenspace and improve the quality of life for our neighbors in the Historic Fourth Ward," Mayor Shirley Franklin said.

Initially, the City intended to address CSO overflow problems in the Old Fourth Ward area of the Clear Creek Basin by extending the West area CSO tunnel. Instead, the City is reclaiming a former wetland and creating a centerpiece for the future park at a cost lower than the cost of the tunnel extension. The park will connect several historic neighborhoods and downtown, which have long been separated by racial, economic and physical barriers.

"This is one of those rare public projects that has captured the imagination of everyone involved," said Atlanta City Councilmember Kwanza Hall. "The year-long design process brought residents, stormwater engineers, and landscape architects together as equals around a common table. Because the process respected the core values of the Old Fourth Ward -- diversity, innovation, and a commitment to social justice -- one of the city's most historic neighborhoods is now home to its most forward-thinking park."

Other organizations that are making the Historic Fourth Ward Park possible are:

The BeltLine, which will combine greenspace, trails, transit and new development along 22 miles of historic rail segments that encircle Atlanta, is a solution to the challenges that threaten to limit Atlanta's health and prosperity: traffic; lack of greenspace and recreation opportunities; and uneven economic development.

-- "Historic Fourth Ward Park is a shining example of how the BeltLine can facilitate more holistic consideration of our greatest urban infrastructure challenges," said Atlanta BeltLine Inc. President and CEO Terri Montague. "Beginning with passionate members of the community and continuing through the collaboration with government entities and leveraging of diverse public and private funding, we are delivering urban redevelopment."

The Department of Watershed Management is using the Clear Creek CSO Capacity Relief Project to create an amenity that will be enjoyed by residents in the area. The project will help reduce overflows in the low-lying area near City Hall East and provide additional combined sewer capacity for the community.

-- "This project not only helps eliminate a serious problem, it also provides an attractive and functional amenity," DWM Commissioner Rob Hunter said.

The Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs

Trust for Public Land is a national nonprofit land conservation organization that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, and natural areas, ensuring livable communities for generations to come. Since its founding in 1972, TPL has helped protect more than 2 million acres of land in 45 states.

The Park Area Coalition is a group of developers, property owners and neighborhood leaders committed to the development of Historic Fourth Ward Park as the centerpiece of a larger, higher density, sustainable urban neighborhood.

-- "The Beltline is the most potentially city-changing project that has ever been undertaken in Atlanta," said Bob Bridges of The Simpson Organization and founding PAC member. "Because of development patterns for intown Atlanta, H4WP is likely to be the most heavily used park on the BeltLine."

The Historic Fourth Ward Park Conservancy was formed in 2008 as the non-profit support arm for the Historic Fourth Ward Park.

-- "Our initial efforts focus on planning to enhance the City's maintenance and security of the park through direct contributions," said John Perlman of Adams & Co. Real Estate Company, Acting Chair of the Historic Fourth Ward Park Conservancy. "We hope to raise funds for adding amenities through memberships and other fundraising programs."

Historian and Author to Speak at China Research Center Event in Atlanta

The China Research Center at Mercer’s Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics will inaugurate a new event series with a lecture by noted historian and author Kenneth Pomeranz, Ph.D., at 7 p.m., Oct. 15, in the Rich Auditorium at the High Museum in downtown Atlanta. He will discuss his recent work on China’s state, society and economy in a presentation titled “Chinese Development and World History: Putting the East Asian Model in Perspective.”

The High Museum of Art is hosting the event in conjunction with its fall exhibition, The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army. No registration is required for this event. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In his lecture, Dr. Pomeranz will examine how the levels of economic performance in core regions of Europe and East Asia were surprisingly similar until almost 1800. Despite the enormous setbacks and turmoil of the 19th and 20th centuries, certain basic elements of the high Qing (i.e., China’s last dynasty) political economy remained intact and ultimately proved quite compatible with new waves of growth, at least for coastal China; those patterns resemble some aspects of a distinctive pattern of industrialization previously seen in Japan and Taiwan. In the Chinese case, however, the “East Asian” features of development along the coast must be seen in the context of relations between the coast and the Chinese interior. Today, the government’s “develop the West” program — set against a backdrop both of looming resource shortages in East China industries, unusually large regional differences in living standards, unprecedented rates of migration directed towards the coast and urbanization — may represent both the outcome and the end of social, economic and environmental patterns that have characterized China’s political economy for centuries.

Dr. Pomeranz has been recognized as a leading historian of China who moves beyond the study of a self-contained "China" or “East Asia” by attempting to understand the origins of a world economy as the outcome of mutual influences among various regions, rather than the simple imposition by a more "advanced" Europe on the rest of the world.

His book, “The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy” (Princeton University Press, 2000), makes groundbreaking arguments on issues concerning global history and challenges the conventional notion of China’s backwardness in the modern era. It won the 2000 John K. Fairbank prize, making Dr. Pomeranz the only historian who has won this prestigious prize twice. “Great Divergence” also won the 2001 World History Association Book Prize and was chosen as one of Choice’s Outstanding Academic Books of 2000.

He is also the author of “The World that Trade Created” (with Steven Topik). He is currently working on a variety of projects, including a general history of Chinese political economy, from the 17th century to the present for Cambridge University Press, two edited volumes that will come out in 2009. Dr. Pomeranz was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006.

Dr. Pomeranz is Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, and founding director of the University of California’s Multi-Campus Research Program in World History.

The event is co-sponsored by the School of History, Technology and Science and The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology; The Program in World History and Cultures, Department of History, Georgia State University; The Stetson School of Business and Economics, Mercer University; and The Confucius Institute of Atlanta.

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Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea

For the Civil War in particular and American history in general, there are few more powerfully evocative events than Sherman's March to the Sea. To this day Sherman is still remembered as both a savior of the Union and as an unprosecuted war criminal. Why?

The Georgia Historical Society invites you to attend a free lecture by award-winning Civil War historian Noah Andre Trudeau.

The lecture will be held on Thursday, August 14, 2008, at 7:00 p.m. at Congregation Mickve Israel, 20 E. Gordon Street, on Monterey Square in downtown Savannah.

Copies of Trudeau's book Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea will be available for sale and a book-signing will follow the lecture.

Drawing on Research conducted at the Georgia Historical Society, Trudeau has written a fascinating new account of United States Army General William Tecumseh Sherman's epic march-a targeted strategy aimed to break not only the Confederate Army but an entire society as well. In vivid detail, Trudeau explains why General Sherman's name is still anathema below the Mason-Dixon Line, especially in Georgia...

The Georgia Historical Society, headquartered in Savannah, is the oldest cultural institution in the state and one of the oldest historical organizations in the nation. It is the first and only statewide historical society in Georgia. For nearly 175 years, GHS has collected, preserved, and shared Georgia history through a variety of educational outreach programs, publications, and research services. For more information visit: www.georgiahistory.com.

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University of Georgia Helps Restore Historic Athens Town Spring

As part of the Athens Town Stream Restoration Project, the University of Georgia is helping to reveal a historic stream located at the intersection of Fulton and Spring streets.

Scheduled to be completed by the start of fall semester, the project aims to restore the spring—thought to be the namesake of Spring Street—to be more reminiscent of what it used to be: a rock outcropping providing water to UGA students and Athens townspeople. The project also will help in the broader goal of making campus more green.

Physical Plant employees have mucked out dirt and decades worth of debris out of what was previously a grassy shoulder behind the business services building to reveal old cobblestone streets, railroad ties and a rock outcropping thought to be the very one John Milledge mentioned in his letter to the search committee responsible for finding a location for the University of Georgia.

With its “copious spring of excellent water,” the stream is heralded as the reason UGA stands where it does today. It served as Athens’ primary water source for decades, and its water was later pumped into a cistern in the mid-1800s. Eventually covered up by a lumberyard, the stream still is only partially “daylighted,” or exposed to the open air, while much of the stream, which flows into the North Oconee River, is piped underground.

The spring may become further exposed to celebrate the university’s history. Danny Sniff, associate vice president for facilities planning, said he’d like to see the stream head, thought to reside under the Central Duplicating Services building, exposed one day. While there is no time frame on that project, the university’s master plan eventually calls for the elimination of the building and the small parking lots in the area—replacing them with two smaller buildings and extending green space east of North Campus into the new northeast precinct. Sniff said he’d also like a historical marker for the area.

The restoration has been a collaborative effort between facilities planning and the grounds department at UGA and the Athens-Clarke County Public Works Department and its stormwater team.

Dexter Adams, director of UGA’s grounds department, said the restoration has been a good project for the landscaping crew to work on while other water-dependent landscaping projects have been put on hold due to the drought.

Because the stream provides its own water source, Jennifer Perissi, a landscape designer, has stocked the area with water-loving native plants including spikerush, Juncus, Carex and Hydrocotle, all of which grow in the gaps between old railroad tracks.

An old brick wall has been restored with wood beams and even some authentic old railroad hardware. Adams said he wants the entire project to look as authentic as possible, and thus has left the old building footings that were uncovered.

“I wanted to leave the artifacts that were here—the tracks, the cobblestones—and really do as little disturbance as possible to the stream,” said Adams.

That mindset falls in line with UGA’s master plan, according to Sniff.

“One of the things we’re trying to do with our planning is to keep as many of the indigenous materials as possible,” he said.

In the future, the area might even include picnic tables and an old rail cart. Though those plans aren’t yet certain, the historically significant stream will play a major role in the planning and development of the area, according to Sniff.

Sara Freeland
University of Georgia

History Workshop Brings Teachers from Across the U.S. to Georgia State

“The Problem of the Color Line: Atlanta Landmarks and Civil Rights History,” a workshop for elementary through high school teachers
July 13-19 and July 20-26

Atlanta’s historic sites may not be able to speak, but thanks to Georgia State history professor Timothy Crimmins, they have a voice.

Crimmins and fellow Georgia State faculty members Glenn Eskew and Akinyele Umoja are leading “The Problem of the Color Line: Atlanta Landmarks and Civil Rights History,” a workshop for elementary through high school teachers.

Participants in the workshop, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, will visit several sites in Atlanta key to the civil rights movement, attend lectures by faculty from Georgia State and other area schools, and meet with those who participated in the demonstrations that characterized the struggle for equality. At the Fox Theatre, one of the sites on the landmarks tour, participants will enter the venue twice — through the main entrance, once reserved for white patrons, and through the back entrance previously used for black theatergoers. As time moves away from the days of segregation, it’s a rare chance to better understand the social and political climate of the past.

“The understanding of how the color line functioned and what the civil rights movement was protesting against begins to fade,” Crimmins says. “Going through the Fox Theatre and seeing it from the standpoint of the white patrons who have come to the theatre and then to go and see what it was like for African-Americans who would have gone there is a great revelatory experience for many of the teachers.”

Throughout the course of the weeklong workshop, now in its second year, participating teachers put together lesson plans using Atlanta’s historic landmarks to teach their students about the civil rights movement. The teachers also share project ideas with each other long after the workshop is over through a special Web site.

“For me, the purpose of preservation is so the history that the sites represent can be told,” Crimmins says. “We have just an incredible number of sites here in Atlanta that tell a very important chapter of American history, and so having been involved in the preservation of these sites, now is a chance to use these sites to teach history.”

PTC Flying Museum to Host Mustang Meet July 20

WWII Fighters and Ford Classic to Join Forces July 20

Classic cars will join vintage World War II aircraft when the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Dixie Wing hosts the Georgia Regional Mustang Club (GRMC) monthly meeting on Sunday, July 20th. The event will be held at the Historical Airpower Facility, Falcon Field, 1pm-5pm.

Over two dozen Ford Mustangs will be on hand, including “Eleanor”, a 1967 Mustang Shelby GT 500 Custom featured in the 2000 motion picture “Gone in 60 Seconds”. Joining the street ponies will be the CAF Dixie Wing North American P-51 Mustang, arguably the best all-around fighter of the Second World War.

“The CAF is dedicated to preserving American history by restoring and flying World War II aircraft” stated Chris Madrid, Public Information Officer, CAF Dixie Wing. “We welcome opportunities to partner with organizations like the Georgia Regional Mustang Club that share a similar passion.”

The event will be the second car meet held at the flying museum in as many months. The aviation heritage preservation organization hosted the Peachstate Region Porche Club of America inaugural Peachtree City Summer Rally June 22nd. Additional car meets are planned later in the year.

The CAF Dixie Wing Historical Airpower Facility, built in 2002, is part hangar and part workshop, but it is also a museum that includes German, Japanese and U.S. uniforms, equipment, a large collection of model airplanes, 1940’s toys and home front artifacts. Volunteers will be on hand during the Mustang Meet to provide guided tours. The public can also recreate history by purchasing a ride in one of the wing’s award-winning warbirds.

The Georgia Regional Mustang Club is a non-profit volunteer group of people dedicated to the restoration and preservation of the FORD MUSTANG. GRMC, founded in 1979, is the second oldest Chartered Mustang Club in the nation.

Suggested donation for the Mustang Meet and CAF Dixie Wing Open House is $5 per adult. Children 12 and under admitted free. Please no pets. For more information, please visit www.dixiewing.org or call 678-364-1110.

The Commemorative Air Force is a non-profit organization dedicated to flying and restoring World War II aircraft. Based in Midland, Texas, the organization has over 9,500 members and operates a fleet of over 150 World War II aircraft. www.commemorativeairforce.org