Buchanan Timeline - 1960-present

1790s to 1870s • 1880s - 1902 • 1903 - 1909 • 1910-1959 • 1960-present

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1960
Buchanan Housing Authority Created
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1960-1961
Harold Jeffers shoots Buchanan on Parade - Part II
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1960-1965
Mayor Noel Cook
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1963
The Central of Georgia Railway passing through the City becomes part of the Southern Railway.
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1970
Buchanan is marked on one new map as well as another new map.
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Buchanan High School closes; building now used as Primary School. County students outside Bremen's independent school district start to attend new, racially-integrated, Haralson County High School outside Tallapoosa.
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1973
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Bird's eye view of the city, viewed from the west
(click on image to view full-sized version)
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1970-1989
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Mayor Evelyn Shepard Wade - first female in office
(click on image to view full-sized version)
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1971
Southern Railway's Central of Georgia Railway division, passing through the City, is renamed the Central of Georgia Railroad.
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1972
New Haralson county courthouse erected in town.
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Aug 1973
The Haralson County Historical Society is founded to save the historic courthouse in Buchanan from the wrecker's ball.  It will take three decades to rehabilitate and reopen the building.
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Jun 1974
The historic county courthouse is placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Jan 1975
Tom Murphy raises $10,000+ from two anonymous donors to rehabilitate the Historic (second) Haralson County courthouse
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Aug 1983
The Haralson County Tribune publishes what is likely its last issue.  This year sees big changes in newspapers throughout the county.
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1983
Photographs from this year (clockwise, from top left):  Buchanan City Hall, eastern side of city square, Historic Courthouse (before addition of elevator), and Buchanan Junior High School.

(click on an image to view its full-sized version)
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Nov 1984
The New York Times carries an AP report this month that A Federal jury today convicted three Ku Klux Klan members of civil rights violations in what prosecutors called racially motivated beatings in western Georgia in 1982 and 1983... [including] Mailon Wood, 54 years old, of Buchanan, Ga. Next month Wood received a 40-year prison sentence and $40,000 fine for just one of the convictions.
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Dec 1987
The New York Times carries an AP story this month that The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission this week honored... 19 people from 11 states and Canada who risked their lives to help others. Five died in their attempts... the commission... awarded... $2,500 to each of [them... Those honored include] Joel C. Clark, 26, of Buchanan, Ga., who pulled a year-old boy from a burning car in Douglasville, Ga., on July 15.
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1990
Buchanan pop. 1,009. Southern Railway Company, whose Southern Railway's Central of Georgia Railroad division passes through the City, is renamed Norfolk Southern Railway Company. The Central of Georgia Railroad division continues to exist today (2007).
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Jan 1990
Under the heading New Task for the Computer: Making Clothes, this month The New York Times reported that Engineers and computer scientists at two colleges here say they have harnessed computers to standard industrial sewing machines to produce a larger variety of garments more quickly and cheaply than conventional clothing factories do... Southern Tech and Georgia Tech engineers said that new computerized systems are in use at an Arrow Shirt plant at Buchanan, Ga... The industry, which has long trailed others in integrating computers in its factories, is taking seriously the experiments...
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Early 1990s
Factory making Arrow shirts closes after many decades.
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1990-1995
Mayor Donald Rainey
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Apr 1995
City limits extended.
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1996
Olympic torch visits city
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1996-1999
Mayor Clovis Biggers Momon (pictured at)
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Feb 1997
Georgia Highway 120 section in eastern half of city limits is designated "Evelyn S. Wade Highway".
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July 1999
The New York Times takes note that Buchanan's Whitlow Wyatt, a key figure in the Brooklyn Dodgers' celebrated 1941 National League pennant victory and a leading pitcher of the early 1940's, dies this month at 91.
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1999
Buchanan is marked on a new map. The new Georgia 27 Bypass east of the city is shown.
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2000
Buchanan pop. 941
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2001
Buchanan is marked on one new map as well as another new map.
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2000-2005
Mayor Jerry Hood
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Jan 2003
Ribbon-cutting ceremony for new City Hall.
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Mar 2003
Restored Historic Courthouse reopened, housing the muncipality's first public library, the Buchanan-Haralson branch of the West Georgia Regional Library system.
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2003
Historic Courthouse recognized by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation with an Excellence in Rehabilitation award.
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2004
Photographs from this year include (from top): old railroad depot site, western side of the square, eastern side of the square. (click on images to view full-sized version)
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2006-2007
Mayor Jason Jarrell
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Aug 2006
LDS church consecrates new building at City limits
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Sept 2006
Decision 1856, historical pageant about the US presidential race of 1856, debuts at the city's Fair on the Square, as part of the Haralson County Sesquicentennial.  Playful and informal mock election in Buchanan yields these results:

Millard Fillmore (American): 72 (41.1%)
James Buchanan (Democrat): 67 (38.3%)
John C. Fremont (Republican): 36 (20.6%)

Total votes: 175

(total votes in actual 1856 county-wide election: 338)
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Apr 2007
The Haralson County Historical Society, headquartered at the Historic Courthouse in Buchanan, receives the Roger K. Warlick Local History Achievement Award from the Georgia Historical Society for its Media Project, The 1856 Handbook, which features the US presidential race of 1856 including the Buchanan, GA pageant Decision 1856.
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May 2007
A comprehensive new City charter, sponsored by Rep. Howard Maxwell, comes into force. Provision is made for a city manager.
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Sept 2007
Decision 1856, an annual historical pageant about the US presidential race of 1856, plays at the City's Fair on The Square. Playful and informal mock election in Buchanan yields these results:

James Buchanan (Democrat): 77 (55.0%)
John C. Fremont (Republican): 32 (22.9%)
Millard Fillmore (American): 31 (22.1%)

Total votes: 140

(Total votes in actual 1856 county-wide election: 338)
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Dec 2007
Famous Georgia House Speaker and Buchanan courthouse veteran Tom Murphy dies on the 17th.  Buchanan 150th anniversary on the 22nd; a celebration takes place at the Historic Courthouse on the 23rd.
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Jan 2008
Mayor Benjamin S. "Buster" Biggers
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More coming soon