Q: How did The Masters end up in Augusta?
A: Imagine the story being told in Jim Nantz's voice, which viewers hear throughout the prestigious golf tournament every April. Atlanta legend Bobby Jones and friend Cliff Roberts putted around the idea of creating a golf course after Jones, the winner of 13 major tournaments, retired from golf in 1930 at the age of 28. Roberts suggested Augusta, and they chose the Fruitlands Nursery property. As the story on the Masters website at www.masters.com goes, Jones saw the 365 acres that became the Augusta National Golf Club and said, "Perfect. And to think this ground has been just been lying around all these years waiting for someone to come along and lay a golf course on it." The course, designed by Alister Mackenzie, opened in 1932. When they were unsuccessful in bringing the U.S. Open to the South, they started their own tournament, the Augusta National Invitational, in 1934. Five years later, that tournament was renamed The Masters. It's still the only major golf tournament held at the same location every year, and it's where golfers compete for the coveted green jacket.
Q: How did Atlanta's Edgewood Avenue get its name?
—Lance DeLoach, Thomaston
A: This intown roadway is connected to a streetcar line dating to the late 1800s and the Atlantan who created Inman Park. Edgewood Avenue, or a portion of the road, was originally called Line Street between Peachtree Road and Pryor Street because it ran as "straight as an arrow" on the land lot line separating Atlanta's northern and southern business districts in the late 19th century, Don Rooney, curator of urban and regional history for the Atlanta History Center, told us. Joel Hurt, president of the East Atlanta Land Co., built the streetcar line (The Atlanta & Edgewood Street Railway Co.) before the street emerged to connect Atlanta's Equitable Building with his new development – Inman Park. The street railway opened on Aug. 22, 1889. Hurt took his naming opportunity from the fact that the community of Edgewood existed before his streetcar venture on the eastern edge of Atlanta, Rooney said. The town of Edgewood, 4 miles east of downtown Atlanta, was incorporated on Dec. 9, 1898, and annexed by the city on Jan. 1, 1909.
Q: I saw that the Booth Western Art Museum is holding an exhibition on Civil War art. What’s the background of the museum?
A: Say howdy to the Booth Western Art Museum, which opened in August 2003 in Cartersville, and is the second largest art museum in the state. The building, made of Bulgarian limestone, is touted as having the largest permanent exhibition space for Western art in the U.S. Its newest exhibit, "Mort Künstler's Civil War Art: For Us the Living," will feature 40 paintings by Künstler from April 2 through Sept. 4, coinciding with the Civil War's 150th anniversary. The 120,000-square-foot museum is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate.
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