Friends pay tribute to Kennesaw Civil War store owner

Harris reminded the crowd that Myers was instrumental in securing the historic General locomotive from the Civil War, as well as organizing area Civil War enthusiasts into what is now the Georgia Division Reenactors organization.

“Dent was a business owner, artist, cartoonist, model, writer and poet as well as a producer, director and comedian — and a friend,” Harris said. “For every person who didn’t like him, there were 50 who did,” he said.

“His outspoken, sometimes more racist views was often irritating to people who were more politically correct, but Dent never uttered a cuss word in all the years I’d known him. He wouldn’t have it in his shop, and he was above all, a kind man. He was a lot smarter than most people ever knew,” another friend commented.

Myers, born in 1931, was a son of sharecropping parents in rural north Georgia and served briefly in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He was married twice, and had no children, Harris said.

His interest in Civil War history deepened in the 1960s, during its 100-year anniversary, back when you could sell original muskets for $25, Harris said.

At the time, Myers was a production control worker at Marietta’s Lockheed plant. Myers purchased an Army surplus mine detector and used it to reveal buried relics in what were battlefields and campsites during the war.

“Many new relic hunters in the area bought their first metal detectors from Dent,” Harris said.”He helped start artillery, infantry and cavalry units and re-enacting became his passion, though he kept his distance from horses.”

Credit: Robin Rayne

Credit: Robin Rayne

Myers’ movie career as director, producer and technical adviser for several films allowed him to work with Johnny Cash, Tim Conway and Dennis Weaver, among others, Harris said. Myers had an uncanny resemblance to Confederate Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson, which he took to heart, one friend said.

He was most famous, however, for his controversial shop where he sold and displayed Confederate antiques and books, items that caricature African Americans, pro-segregation posters and a decades-old Ku Klux Klan robe. Wildman’s attracted international infamy and became the site of protests organized by those who wanted the shop out of downtown Kennesaw.

“We don’t have bias against anybody. It’s just history,” Myers said as protesters gathered outside his store in 2020, a viewpoint not shared by everyone.

Last summer, the Wildman’s building was vandalized with drawings of characters from “The Smurfs” cartoon displaying inappropriate gestures and behavior on the side of the building. The vandals had also spray-painted the words “RESPECT EXISTENCE” and, below, that, “OR EXPECT RESISTANCE.”

The summer before that, Myers’ shop was the setting of demonstrations sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“He’s an embarrassment to this town, and he needs to close up and go away. Cobb County is better than that,” Parker Quigley, of Smyrna, said at a June 2020 protest outside the store. “We want Cobb County to be for everybody, and many of my Black and Hispanic friends said they don’t feel welcome when they see the (Confederate) flags flying here. It gives off the wrong message.”

Since Myers’ death, the shop’s future and the building it occupies have been widely discussed.

Marjorie Lyon, who Myers often described as his “partner in crime” and business manager, confirmed for the crowd that the shop will reopen to the public next week, with regular hours Tuesday through Saturday.

“It is my wish to honor Dent in everything I do with this place, and he wanted it to continue for years to come,” she said.

“Those people who say they didn’t like him, I doubt they ever talked with him,” said Brandon Hammer, 21, from Bartow County, who is new to Civil War reenacting. “He was the kindest man I ever met.”

Credit: Robin Rayne

Credit: Robin Rayne

“He was a true ‘Son of the South,’ and hundreds of reenactors, Civil War historians, those who love the South, we will all miss him deeply. He helped put Kennesaw, Georgia, on the map, and people all over the world knew Wildman from all the magazine and newspaper stories about him and his shop. Dent was one of a kind,” a fellow reenactor said.

Credit: Marietta Daily Journal

Credit: Marietta Daily Journal

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