OHC NEWSLETTER

April – June 2021
Waycross Entertainment History by Marla Howell
Waycross has a wealth of history but more specifically we are addressing two areas being those who performed live at our City Auditorium and the magnificent theaters of our town, one that hosted three world motion picture premiers.
Our City Auditorium was built in 1937 by the people for the people. The Waycross Chapter of the Lion’s Club was the driving force of funding from the Work Progress Administration (WPA).
It was built with its current stage but had a full balcony around the perimeter of the interior. After many years of events and activity, it fell into a state of needed repair. We are blessed to have seen a fantastic renovation in 2008. Since that renovation, it has been used and enjoyed by all as an event center operated by the City of Waycross.

Find out more in our Newsletter, click the link below:

OHC Newsletter

Jan, Feb & March 2024
Waycross Sesquicentennial & Ware County Bicentennial When Waycross Was Tebeauville

Those who believe wiregrass history began with Waycross would do well to return to those days of yesteryear. Older than all the rest of course is Waresboro, a farming community that, save for a desire not to have the railroads disturbing their livestock, might have become the center of South Georgia.

OHC Newsletter

October – November
& December 2023
DID YOU KNOW?
When The “Waycross Victory” Ruled The High Seas

Waycross and Ware County men and women did more than their share to aid the effort in World War II. A little-known chapter in that effort was the building of the “Waycross Liberty.” Many Ware Countians drove daily to Brunswick to work in the Brunswick Shipyards, but the city’s namesake wasn’t built in Brunswick, but in Baltimore.

OHC Newsletter

October – July, August & September 2023
In Memory of Susan Lott Clark
Susan Lott Clark, 98, passed away peacefully at her home on May 2, following a long and productive life. She was preceded in death over 20 years ago by her husband, Dr. S. William Clark, Jr., a prominent ophthalmologist in Waycross.

OHC Newsletter

April, May & June 2023
Jewish American History in Waycross, GA
Despite the extreme level of population turnover, the Jewish community of Waycross began to organize in the 1920s. In 1920, Jews in the area first gathered to pray together. Four years later, 13 men officially organized a congregation, with Alex Gilmore as its first president.

OHC Newsletter

October – Jan, Feb & March 2023 When Pogo’s Father Visited the Ok’fenok’
by Larry Purdom
Our memory returns to the good ol’ day of PogoFest and to the man who helped put our little corner of the world on the map. He was Walt Kelly, as almost everyone knows, the cartoonist who created Pogo…

OHC Newsletter

October – December 2022
Gram Parsons Guitar Pull
by Dave Griffin

Ingram Cecil Connor III, known to the world as Gram Parsons, spent the first 12 years of his life in the small, South Georgia railroad town of Waycross.
It was here in Waycross that he hunted and fished the Okefenokee Swamp …