Using Newspapers to Track Dates and Locations: The B & L Warehouse/ Buckhead Beach (Part Two)

For now at least, the historical record of the Hodgson Oil building after the Buckhead Beach nightclub closed gets choppy. Although tax records give the names of persons or companies that owned the building, details regarding what went on inside have to be gleaned from newspapers. We get our first clue from the January 14th, 1987 Red and Black: an advertisement for the Athens Institute of Karate. No address given, it’s “at the old Buckhead Beach”—the readers knew where that was.

Five years later, the Flagpole published on May 13th, 1992 includes a note about a new club, Diva’s Dance. A few other notices from Flagpole later that year confirm that at least a few events took place there, but beyond 1992 the references to Diva’s are in the past tense. A mailing address is also found in this clipping, a rare occurrence in Buckhead Beach’s informal later years.

In the March 10th, 1998, issue of the Red and Black, we learn about perhaps the strangest use of the Buckhead Beach building. Sure it’s large, it’s a former warehouse with cavernous interior spaces (at the time, if not any longer). But a skateboard park? Inside? Alas, those who lived in Athens at the time likely remember the drawn-out controversy over skateboarders using empty lots at the corner of Pulaski Street and Hancock Avenue (later, two office buildings filled in the space). Studio E, as this new skate park was called, was meant to solve that problem.

The Flagpole for May 27, 1998 follows up on this story. A skateboarding facility entailed too many individuals being in the building at the same time; the fire marshal shut it down. As the article notes, bands were using Buckhead Beach as rehearsal space and parties were taking place. The former use did not present safety concerns and was common enough. In fact, in this author’s personal experience, I first became aware of goings-on at the building because I knew musicians who practised there.

Buckhead Beach as a venue for live music, however, did present safety concerns. Unsurprisingly, the December 15, 1999, issue of Flagpole, as seen below, mentions a concert supposed to be held at Buckhead Beach that was shut down by local authorities. The promoters moved the show to House of Joe (the short-lived successor to the original location of Jittery Joe’s, in a space later occupied by the bars Engine Room and, later still, Max Canada; as seen in the image, the same column notes that another Jittery Joe’s located on Prince Avenue, where the Healing Arts Centre is now located, would soon close). This performance, though it did not end up happening at Buckhead Beach, provides a fine example of the kind of events taking place there in these years: unofficial, yet at times featuring artists of national renown who for the most part played proper nightclubs and theaters. The article also serves as a secondary source confirming that this Buckhead Beach was in the same building that housed the B & L Warehouse. (It also suggests that Athenians may have still called the building the B & L Warehouse instead of Buckhead Beach.)

Another memory of mine from that time is of reading about a pirate radio station in Athens. An article in Flagpole understandably did not give the station’s address. The station did not last long, shut down by governmental authorities. For years to come, I wondered where it had been located, but did not give the matter much thought. More recently, I talked with one of the persons who ran the station, someone I had known for some time without being told he had been involved. He confirmed for me the station’s location at Buckhead Beach. However, unless someone were to interview this person or others involved and thus create primary documents–that is, sources for other researchers to draw upon–such information remains hearsay. Where else is the illicit broadcasting operation mentioned?

In a Flagpole column earlier that year (March 17th, 1999) shown above, William Orten Carlton (“Ort”), Athens’ beloved record-store owner (Ort’s Oldies), raconteur, and newspaper columnist, provides a clue, stating that the station “broadcast out of a building on Oconee Street.” Our intrepid proverbial researcher, however, wants to confirm as well as possible that the pirate radio station operated out of the same building that once housed the Buckhead Beach nightclub and, before that, the “i and i club” and the B & L Warehouse. This clue is not specific enough.

A retrospective article about a local Athens band (Flagpole, December 6th, 2006) provides first-hand account of the activities that took place in the building toward the end of the 1990s. A primary source, a local musician involved in Spaceball Entertainment, the loose outfit that ran the rehearsal spaces and performance venue, confirms the location of the pirate radio station. He states plainly, Buckhead Beach was “where that pirate radio station was.” A secondary source, the author of the piece, further aids our inquiry, noting in passing that the “aging Hodgson Oil warehouse” and Buckhead Beach were one and the same.

While more details may await us in the microfilmed Athens Banner-Herald and Daily News, as well as the Athens Observer (up to the early 1990s at least), nonetheless we see clearly here how historical research, when it turns from public affairs to social happenings more private in nature depends more upon first-hand accounts: diaries, correspondence, interviews, memoirs, photographs, and so on. A recent book about Athens music, Grace Elizabeth Hale’s Cool Town, does not cover the late 1990s, but what will similar, future books about Athens or specific musicians who worked here have to say about Buckhead Beach? What sources will their authors turn to?

To bring this particular version of the Buckhead Beach story to an end, we turn to the April 29th, 2003 issue of the Red and Black, which bared on its front page a photograph of renovations taking place at what became the Hodgson Oil Building, the accompanying note letting us know of a couple other businesses that had been located in the building, perhaps around the same time as the karate school.

—Justin J. Kau

Using Newspapers to Track Dates and Locations: The B & L Warehouse/ Buckhead Beach (Part One)

The story begins simply enough: in the early 1970s, with a restaurant/ bar/ concert venue located in a building repurposed from its original industrial use. Nearly three decades later, that building was home to a variety of activities, at times of dubious legality and not exactly well-organized, but which together made the building an outpost, a final relic, of an older version of downtown Athens, or at least the eastern “warehouse district” part of downtown.

The B & L Warehouse opened in 1972. The article clipped below, from the November 16th, 1972, issue of the Red and Black, confirms the venue’s opening and profiles those involved in the endeavor. The B & L became a major go-to place for live music in Athens, alongside the Last Resort (in the same location but certainly not the same business as the present-day restaurant of the same name), T.K. Harty’s Saloon, the J & J Center, and the Armadillo Palace. By the end of the decade, two venues, Tyrone’s O.C. and the 40 Watt Club, featuring a new generation of popular music, strikingly different from the country, R & B, and rock selling in the millions at the time, were making their mark.

In the early 1980s, the artists who made this “new music” (the vague term often preferred at the time) made Athens an international phenomenon, winning raves in the New York Rocker and across the Atlantic in the New Musical Express and elsewhere. They developed their work in the wake of the surprising success of the B-52’s, a band founded locally but who moved to New York to move forward artistically and commercially. The likes of Pylon, the Side Effects, and Love Tractor, in contrast, remained based in Athens, encouraging new local talent. Appropriately, new nightclubs emerged as well: the Mad Hatter, Smoke’s, and the Uptown Lounge (not to the be confused with the bar that in the 1990s took the name and lasted considerably longer). Another band from the Tyrone’s-centered scene, R.E.M., quickly became the most talked-about in town. There was some bad news too, though, as the Tyrone’s building fell prey to a fire, the Georgia Theatre returned to its former function as a cinema for much of the 1980s, and the Last Resort closed.

The B & L building was destined for a fate more peculiar and convoluted. First, it became the “i and i club,” which aimed to take the place of Tyrone’s as a home of sorts for the new music scene. The short article from the October 21st, 1982, issue of the Red and Black, seen below, makes note of an upcoming R.E.M. show at the club, one of the last times the band could play such a small venue, as the next year they would release their debut album, Murmur, a critical and commercial smash.

(The advertisements below it have been included to offer a little slice of Athens commercial life, not least the Putt-Putt business at the time playing host to many children’s birthday parties.)

The “i and i” did not last long. The clipping above, from the May 12, 1983, issue of the Athens Observer gives the lowdown (written by local legend Phil Sanderlin, no less) and explains the origin of the club’s name, if not its curious non-capitalized inscription. New bands playing in the “new music”/ “new wave” style gravitated to the 40 Watt Club at its “uptown” location on Broad Street, where the short-lived Smoke’s had been located, and the Uptown Lounge. The article even quotes a manager of the “i and i” passing the torch, if you will, to the new version of the 40 Watt.

The advertisement below, from the November 20th, 1981, Red and Black launches the next part of our story. At first, it may seem woefully out of place. An Atlanta nightclub? In Buckhead, no less? Sure enough, if you were to review articles from the time, you would find that Athenians, especially University students, loved going to this place to… “celebrate that Bulldog Bite”?

Apparently they loved it so much, the place moved to Athens, taking the place of the “i and i” in 1983. The Red and Black once again covered the opening a new venue, in its September 22nd, 1983, issue.

An advertisement from the October 7th, 1983, issue shows that indeed the Athens version of Buckhead Beach was up and running.

An article from the November 1, 1983, Red and Black suggests some of the changes taking place in the music that seem to correspond to these changes in the nightclubs involved, and their location downtown (or “uptown”). The stated interest of Buckhead Beach’s management in “fun” did not necessarily translate into live music (which is not to say that the club did not want to book bands).

In the club’s extremely-short history, however, the topic of alcohol consumption became primary. Its”Drink n’ Drown” nights, noted in the advertisement above, incited controversy. These theme nights were also promoted at another nightlife hot spot, O’Malley’s, located just down the road (in the old mill building that later housed Dial-America Marketing and is now the University’s School of Social Work). The April 17th, 1984, Red and Black piece provides the scoop. O’Malley’s claimed that they had begun providing the specials in order to compete with Buckhead Beach. After the latter closed, O’Malley’s kept the deals, leading to complaints from local citizens who were part of broader efforts at the time to raise awareness about drunk driving and other alcohol-related problems.

As the article indicates, Buckhead Beach, the venue, was gone after less than a year, apparently closing on April 7th, 1984. But the name would live on. The building would be referred to as Buckhead Beach for another two decades. The name was so common that journalists did not bother to explain its origins. Part Two will pick up the story, using old newspapers to provide glimpses into the numerous activities that went on in the building, nowadays owned by the University and called the Hodgson Oil Building.

—Justin J. Kau

Using Newspapers and City Directories to Track Dates and Locations: Bell’s Food Stores

As discussed in the fourth edition of the Heritage Room’s Tuesday Tutorials, city directories can be a valuable resource in historical research. Many researchers turn to a city directory to find the address of an individual, perhaps an ancestor. Newspapers, meanwhile, are used to find an obituary or an article about that ancestor. While they are usually not the researcher’s initial destination, another feature of city directories and newspapers can be useful in multiple ways: advertisements. Not only do advertisements at times provide much of the funding that keeps directories and newspapers in operation, but, decades later, they seem less annoying or distracting, more like welcome glimpses into a past time and place. Either way, printed advertisements, unlike like those found on television and YouTube, do not yell at you.

For local historians, advertisements are perhaps most helpful in determining the opening and closing dates of businesses. And, in the case of businesses that moved or had multiple stores, the different locations as well. A fine example of this here in Athens, Georgia, are the Bell’s Food Stores. Since 2005, when their store on the east side of town closed, Bell’s has been a regional chain, found in Athens, Watkinsville, Jefferson, Lexington, and Lincolnton. There were also locations in Hartwell and Gainesville that did not last. But from its origins until the 1980s (when these non-Athens stores started popping up) Bell’s was a local chain. At its Athenian peak, it had four stores in town, as longtime residents undoubtedly remember: on Prince Avenue, near downtown, in a building that later housed the Potter’s House Thrift Store; in Five Points, at the same spot where Earth Fare operated 1999-2020 (and perhaps will soon again, under new ownership); the current Athens location on Hawthorne Avenue on the west side; and the aforementioned east-side spot, in a shopping center that was torn down to make way for the Lowe’s currently on that site.

When did these locations open? How did we go from four Bell’s stores to only one? Were there other locations besides those four? The official Bell’s website provides some historical background, even as some of the dates are incorrect or only approximate. Researchers, though, are often looking for information about businesses that are no longer extant and largely forgotten. In addition, they want to find historical data from at least two different sources, because to do so confirms, at least to a greater extent if not absolutely, the accuracy of information already found. And because, as we hope you’ll conclude when reading this long-ish post, the research process, though convoluted at times, can be fun too.

A thorough history that expands upon and clarifies the information found in the history at the Bell’s website would be a large project requiring access to the full gamut of materials available in the Heritage Room, not to mention Bell’s company records. With the library building currently closed, we instead provide a snapshot of the research process, focusing on the downtown and Five Points locations.

First, the following advertisement, found in the 1954 Athens City Directory, published by Nelsons’ Baldwin Directory Co., confirms that the long-standing downtown Bell’s was located in a building at the northern corner of Washington Street and Pulaski Street, later occupied for many years by Sunshine Cycles. And it confirms that a second location had opened in Five Points.

Now we briefly turn away from advertisements, noting the first page of an extensive cover article about natural-foods grocers in an issue of Flagpole, dated 10 February 1999, which provides some crucial information: the Five Points location suffered a fire in August, 1997, paving the way for Earth Fare to move into the location. This article also notes that the new grocer planned to open later that year.

An advertisement from an issue of Flagpole, dated 3 November 1999, shown below seems to confirm that the store had opened.

As seen here and in the first image, ads indicate the obvious fact that a business is open and usually provide postal addresses. City directories can be doubly useful in this way, as the business listing in the directory, plus an advertisement that the business placed in the directory, both confirm an address. However, the first ad, like another found in an issue of the Red and Black, only notes that the Five Points Bell’s was to be found on Lumpkin Street.

In an Atlanta publication (originally based in Augusta), the Southern Israelite, dated 11 September 1953, we find a Bell’s ad that does give the address: sure enough, it is 1689, the same as Earth Fare. Perhaps the Bell’s staff at the time knew that Athenians could find their way around Five Points, but other Georgians would need some help!

The Red and Black ad noted above is next; it comes from an issue dated 23 September 1965. While not providing an address, the ad confirms that the east-side store was open and that a location on Prince Avenue was near the General Hospital, what we now call Athens Regional. This would appear to confirm what the Bell’s official website tells us: at some point, the downtown location closed, replaced by this store next to the hospital, which itself was replaced by the future-Potter’s-House location at Prince and Barber Street. Alas, we don’t have an address!

The 1956 city directory comes to our rescue. 1237 Prince Avenue: this address, when looked up on our 21st-century fancy toys, puts us in a parking lot at the southwest corner of Talmadge Drive and Prince. Both the store and the building are lost to history.

To conclude, let’s connect some of the these “dots” and recall that the 1954 city directory had listed a Bell’s at 294 West Washington. Apparently, sometime between the publication of that directory and the 1956 directory, the move took place. We should note here that the Bell’s website claims the Prince-Talmadge store opened in 1957. Again, without access to a fuller run of city directories available at either the Heritage Room or the University of Georgia Libraries, or microfilm copies of the Athens Banner-Herald for these years, we cannot attempt to solve this particular puzzle. Nonetheless, using sources found entirely online at the Digital Library of Georgia, themselves scanned copies of printed publications from several institutions throughout the state, we have disclosed quite a bit of history. A future post at this blog, hopefully later this year, will uncover more of the history of Bell’s Food Stores. In the coming weeks, this series of articles will continue using online directories and newspapers to lay out chronologies of Athens businesses and culture.

-Justin J. Kau