Roy Cromartie Remembers The Gower Springs Neighborhood

I had a great talk about old Gainesville with Roy Cromartie the other day. Roy had been reading my history of Northeast Georgia, and it had triggered a lot of memories about the Gainesville in which he grew up. Roy Cromartie was born in 1916, and his family lived on Thompson Bridge Road, sort of across the street from where the Publix Supermarket is now located. Green Street pretty well ended at the intersection in front of the present-day Civic Building at that time, so he and a handful of other families lived in an area that was somewhat on the edge of town. A little further out of town, close to where the Westminister Presbyterian Church is now located, as Roy Cromartie remembers it, was where Byron Mitchell had his slaughter pen. And toward town on the North side of Thompson Bridge Road, on the land where the Publix Shopping Center is located, was the big sand pit. And just toward town from that was another house up on the hill (probably where "UN is now located, or maybe the cable company offices) The hillside in front of WDUN had Chinquepin trees on it, and of course the Chinquepins were wiped out with the same blight that got all the Chestnut trees.

The focal point of that area of town, along about the early 1920's, was Gower Springs. This was a large and free-flowing spring with high concrete sides, and Roy remembers there were concrete steps leading down into the spring area to make it easy for people to get their water. It was located near where present day Green Street Circle dead ends into Thompson Bridge Road. By the time Roy Cromartie and his young friends explored the area, as only young boys can do, the famous old Gower Springs Hotel ... a favorite in Gainesville's Health Resort era ... had burned and all that was left was the foundation.

As late as the 1920's Gower Springs was a favorite stopping place for farmers who came to town with wagonloads of produce and chickens and eggs and bags of Chestnuts. They would go downtown and sell their goods, then come back to Gower Springs where they would spend the nite before heading home the next day. And if some farmer's kid got sick, Roy remembers, someone would knock on Mrs. Cromartie's door, and she would give them medicine to get them through the nite.

This is Gordon Sawyer, looking out a window at WDUN, across Thompson Bridge Road to the hill where the posh old Gower Springs Resort Hotel once stood.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/2/183270