"Checkers Alley"

"Checkers Alley". . On this site through the early teens of the last century, there was an alley used to access businesses off of main street, including Arthur Maloney's corn mill which was located in the area directly Behind these buildings. It also led to one of the two public outhouses that flanked each end of South Peachtree Street., In the early 1900's local dry goods merchant Abe Johnson, who owned the alley and the building next door, and banker Gus McDaniel, frequently engaged in a spirited game of checkers in the alley. One day, a mule drawing a large wagon being driver by a teenage Reps Miller became spooked and sprinted through the alley, knocking over the two checker playing combatants. Ole Abe was so incensed "with having to dodge wagons on his own property" that he enclosed the alley and built a building that became #19 Jones St. and was used as an annex to Johnson's store. The closing of this narrow thoroughfare was met with stif opposition from the public as they were forced to take a more circuitous route to seek access to needed facilities., As time wore on, many townspeople laughed about the incident and called the alley by many graphic names including the most common and acceptable name for this blocked access "Checkers Alley".