1925 to 1950

During the 1920s and 1930s, the new Douglass Theatre was the home of African American entertainment. Charles H. Douglass, a successful African American entrepreneur, built a theatre and hotel on Broadway. Many of the most popular jazz bands and dance teams performed at the theatre, which would provide fertile ground for Macon’s world-renowned musical talents in later decades.

The season of progress and plenty passed with the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression brought a loss of business, building retraction, and many hungry people.

Prior to and during his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt provided the Macon Telegraph with many timely guest editorials from his second home in Warm Springs, Georgia. Upon FDR’s election as president, Warm Springs became known as the “Little White House.”

Macon’s “Young” Stribling Jr.’s fight against Max Schmeling for the heavyweight championship of the world in 1931 diverted Macon’s attention from the tough times. Alas, Stribling was also involved in a fatal motorcycle accident in 1933 here in Macon. Thirty-five thousand bereaved friends and neighbors attended their favorite athlete’s funeral in the City Auditorium. Three years later, Spring Street Bridge was renamed in his honor.

The depression did not curtail Macon’s appreciation for its history and culture. The excavation of the Indian mounds by A.R. Kelly, PhD, of the Smithsonian resulted in the designation of the Ocmulgee National Monument as a national park by President Roosevelt in 1934. During that same year, the Macon Little Theatre was organized. After remodeling an old building on the river, the theatre hosted its first play, Noel Coward’s Hay Fever.

Fort Hawkins, the birthplace of the city of Macon, had long ago disappeared. In 1939, however, local citizens, in cooperation with federal workers and the Daughters of the American Revolution, built a replica of one of the fort’s blockhouses atop Fort Hill.

The Second World War required great sacrifice by all Maconites. December 7, 1941, was a day that will long be remembered for its infamy, as well as Macon’s mobilization for another world war. The city’s young men and women, black and white, rallied to fight vicious regimes that threatened America’s bold experiment.

Defense activities resulted in Middle Georgia’s growth and a resurgent Camp Wheeler. Benefiting from local U.S. Congressman Carl Vinson’s influence, a new Air Corps Depot was established at rural Wellston, south of Macon in the fall of 1941. The depot would eventually develop into the sprawling Robins Air Force Base and Logistics Center, now Georgia’s largest employer.

During the war in 1942, playwright Tennessee Williams spent the summer in Macon, working at a local eatery, the Pig and Whistle. It is said that the characters in his book and movie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,came right off the streets of Macon. God is My Co-Pilot, the book written by local war hero Robert Scott, also became a Hollywood movie, premiering at the Grand Opera House in 1945.

Following the war victorious Maconites returned, some to a thriving city, while others found a final place to rest in cemeteries overlooking the Ocmulgee River.    

In the 1940s the Chamber of Commerce reported that Macon had doubled in size to eighteen square miles, with a population increase from 68,500 to 100,814 residents. The war also produced a broader perspective to human relations in Macon and a reawakening of social conscience.