Here are the answers to Girl Scout Scavenger Hunt 2023:
1. 2003
Mayor Maynard Jackson served as Atlanta’s first African American mayor. He is known for many accomplishments including the international terminal at Atlanta’s airport (now named Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in his honor) and the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. He was raised in a family who believed in education and civic duty.
2. Atlanta’s official historian author scholar southern gentleman
Franklin Garrett was born in Wisconsin but moved to Atlanta as a boy. He joined the Atlanta Historical Society in 1927 and was known as Atlanta’s official historian. Garrett called Oakland Cemetery “Atlanta’s most tangible link between the past and the present.”
3. Austell
Alfred Austell lived from 1814 to 1881. He was a merchant, banker, financier, and railroad builder who organized the Atlanta National Bank (now a part of Wells Fargo Bank). He is the namesake of Austell, GA.
4. November
Richard Peters was involved in various modes of transportation – stagecoach, railroad, and street railway. He supported a petition to adopt Atlanta as the name of our fair city, or you might be living in “Marthasville.”
5. 1879
Henry Hornady’s headstone provides insight into this man’s life. His obituary tells us from a very young age Henry loved to read.
6. Samuel
Mayor Massell was the first Jewish mayor of Atlanta. As a young lad, he started a lemonade stand. Massell earned degrees from three universities and became a successful realtor. As mayor, Massell is credited with many accomplishments including establishing the city’s first rapid transit system, MARTA.
7. Hungary
Emanuel Rich, born in Hungary, moved to Ohio, and then to Atlanta at the Civil War’s conclusion. His brother Morris opened a dry goods store at 36 Whitehall Street. Emmanuel and another brother, Daniel, joined the business and soon the M. Rich and Bros. Co. opened a flagship store in downtown Atlanta. Rich’s Department Store was known for its popular holiday traditions, the Great Tree and the Pink Pig.
8. Elsas
Jacob Elsas left Cincinnati for Atlanta and worked in the rag, paper, and hide field. He later operated the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill – you can see its smokestacks rising to the east of Oakland Cemetery in Cabbagetown. The Fulton Cotton Mill building has a new life as lofts and apartments.
9. Ivan Allen Jr.
Mayor Ivan Allen was a two-term mayor who played a pivotal role in bringing several sports teams to Atlanta, but his impact reached beyond the playing field. Mayor Allen guided the city through the turbulent 1960s, and his political leadership led Atlanta’s transformation into a progressive metropolis and international city.
10. Carrie Steele Logan
Carrie Steele Logan was born enslaved and orphaned as a child. After emancipation, she worked as a maid in the waiting rooms at Union Station, where she saw many children abandoned. She let the children play in a boxcar during the day while she worked, and at night she took them to her home at the intersection of Wheat Street and Auburn Avenue. Carrie Steele was eventually able to build a larger facility. The Carrie Steele-Pitts Home continues to serve abused, neglected, and orphaned children today.
11. Selena Sloan Butler
Selena Sloan Butler started the nation’s first African American parent-teacher association (PTA) at Atlanta’s Yonge Street Elementary School. She later founded a statewide PTA in Georgia and the National Congress of Colored Parents & Teachers. After this organization merged with its white counterpart in 1970, she was named one of the founders of the National PTA.
12. Bishop Wesley John Gaines
Bishop Wesley John Gaines was born enslaved and was self-taught. Bishop Wesley John Gaines was the sixteenth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, the second pastor at Atlanta’s landmark Big Bethel A.M.E. Church, and a founder of Morris Brown College.
13. Marie Woolfolk Taylor
Marie Antoinette Woolfolk Taylor was a life-long champion for education and the rights of Black women. She co-founded Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) Sorority, Incorporated, the first sorority established by and for African American women. Taylor attended Atlanta University and later Howard University, where she developed close friendships that led to the founding of Alpha Kappa Alpha.
We hope you enjoyed this Oakland Cemetery Hunt and learned about a few of the people who shaped this city and state. All the people mentioned here believed in education, and if there was a need, they sought to find a solution. Careers included social work, civic duty, the law, retail, teaching, religious pursuits, transportation, manufacturing, architecture, and banking. Perhaps you will enjoy one of those careers, or perhaps you are interested in opportunities that didn’t exist when many of these people lived. Good luck on your journey!