Mystery & History in Georgia – Volume 2
Georgia history enthusiasts and researchers alike will be captivated with the colorful topics and attention to detail of the many subjects in Mystery & History in Georgia, Volume II. Designed as a companion to the award-winning Mystery & History in Georgia, Volume I, author R. Olin Jackson picks up where he left off in his initial volume.
Grab an easy chair or cool spot beneath your favorite “spreading chestnut tree” and dig in. Just as with Volume I, this latest work will be difficult to put down.
Read about Hugh Jarrett, who once was a member of the famed “Jordanaires” vocal group who were the backing singers for Elvis Presley, and how Jarrett was strangely banished from the group in 1958, never again to appear with Presley.
Prior to his departure, Jarrett had appeared in Presley’s performances on the Ed Sullivan Television Show in New York and in many of his early Hollywood movies. After moving to Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1960s, Hugh lived an active life as a nightclub owner, a popular radio disc jockey, and as several other career reincarnations for many years before dying on May 31, 2008, from injuries suffered in a tragic automobile accident. His grave occupies a solemn cemetery plot on a quiet hillside at the small Cherokee County Methodist Church where he was a devout member and Christian for many years, far from the tumult of Hollywood where he spent his early days.
Learn how small-town vixen Virginia Hill from Marietta, Georgia, went on to become a Hollywood starlet and the girlfriend of one of the most famous mobsters of all time – Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Hill, who ultimately died a mysterious death far from home in Switzerland, became so famous that her story was featured in several major motion pictures, including the 1991 epic, “Bugsy,” starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.
Discover the details of a secret gold mine beneath the floor of the Smith House Restaurant in Dahlonega, Georgia, which had lain hidden beneath the eatery’s concrete pad until 2006, when renovators accidentally discovered it. Frank W. Hall, a mining engineer, had moved to Dahlonega in 1868 and discovered a rich vein of gold on what today is the Smith House property, but was denied the right to mine it by a town ordinance. To the surprise of many today, the remnants of his mine apparently indicate the one-time law-abiding stalwart citizen covertly and illicitly pursued the riches on his property before moving away and vanishing into history.
Enjoy the little-known details of a treasure in gold and silver in the U.S. Branch Mint which once existed in the former gold-rush town of Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1861. This immense cache of precious metal worth millions of dollars today, literally vanished after being picked up for shipment to Atlanta.
Find out the details of the many Hollywood movies filmed in the early 1900s in Dahlonega and Lumpkin County due to the area’s unusual “Western appearance” topography. The massively-deep gulches and other unusual landscape characteristics from the late-1800s-era hydraulic gold mining in north Georgia, provided the perfect back-drop for movie directors.
Read about old West icon John Henry “Doc” Holliday – who hailed from Griffin and Valdosta, Georgia – and his exploits in the Peach State prior to traveling out West where he gained lasting fame in the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory.
Savor the experiences of Polk County resident Guy Wilfred Jordan who spent his formative years in tiny Colton, California, where the Earp family (Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil and the rest) of Western fame lived and worked for decades as they gained renown across the West.
These and 62 additional equivalent articles await the lucky reader’s attentions.
