July 25, 1852

1852 Agnes Scott College founder and president Frank H. Gaines was born in Tellico Plains, Tenn. A Presbyterian minister by age 24, Gaines served churches in Kentucky and Virginia before coming to Georgia in 1888, where he became minister of the Decatur Presbyterian Church. Here, with the support of the church, he founded Decatur Female Seminary in 1889. Essentially a grammar school, the new seminary for girls opened with 4 teachers and 63 students. It proved successful, more than doubling in enrollment in the second year. Thanks to a generous gift from school trustee George Scott, the name of the school was changed to Agnes Scott Institute in honor of Scott’s mother. In 1896, Gaines became president of the the institute and began changing the school to a college preparatory orientation by replacing one primary grade each year with a secondary grade. In 1905, he divided the institute into an academy and a college, and the following year renamed it Agnes Scott College. Until his death in 1923, Gaines’ goal was to create a special learning environment for young women that fosters liberal arts and high scholarship standards.

July 25, 1859

1859 Atlanta experienced a terrible murder as Martin DeFoor and his wife Susan were axed to death and almost decapitated in their beds by an unknown intruder. They had no known enemies, and there was no apparent motive. The crime was never solved.

July 25, 1864

1864 Confederate Gen. Clement Hoffman "Rock" Stevens died from mortal wounds received in the Battle of Peachtree Creek during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. Born Aug. 14, 1821 in Norwich, Conn., Stevens served in the U.S. Navy and as a bank cashier before the Civil War. In 1861, he designed and oversaw construction of the fortress on Morris Island and was appointed as a colonel in the 24th South Carolina. At the time of his death, Stevens commanded a brigade in Walker’s Division.

July 25, 1889

1889 Black Georgia politician William A. Golding died in Liberty County, where he was born 80 years earlier. Little is known about most of his life, but presumably he was a slave until gaining freedom at the end of the Civil War. Shortly thereafter he was elected to represent Liberty Council in the convention that drafted the Constitution of 1868. That year he was among the first African Americans elected to the Georgia General Assembly, though that fall the black legislators were expelled until a second round of Reconstruction allowed him to regain his seat in January 1870. In some ways, Golding was better remembered for his work in promoting the education of black youth in Liberty County. Though barely literate, he recognized the importance of education and was a major factor in creation of what would become the Dorchester Academy.

July 25, 1900

1900 Southern union organizer George Googe was born in Palaky, Georgia. After attending a trade school for printing pressmen in 1922, he took a job in Savannah and became an officer in his local union. His ability to recruit union members came to the attention of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which named him its southern representative in 1928. Moving to Atlanta in 1933, he promoted unionism across the South and became the AFL’s most important leader in the region. From 1946 to 1947, Googe was credited with attracting a half million new union members. After the merger of the AFL and CIO, he held office in the new organization before retiring to the Pressmen’s Home in Tennessee, where he died in 1961.

July 25, 1906

Georgia cities and towns first incorporated by acts approved by the governor on July 25:

1906 Godfrey (Morgan County)

July 25, 1972

1972 Major League Baseball’s All-Star game was played at Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium. Atlanta Braves’ great Hank Aaron homered to help lead the National League to a win.

July 25, 1996

1996 This was seventh day of the 1996 Summer Olympics -- and day 6 of Olympic competition.

July 25, 1998

1998 Martin Luther King III was sworn in as the fourth president of the Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was founded in 1957 by his father, Ralph David Abernathy Jr., Joseph Lowery, and other ministers. King Jr. was the organization’s first president, followed by Abernathy and Lowery.

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Today in History

1955 Gov. Marvin Griffin signed a joint resolution of the General Assembly calling on Congress to call a convention to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution providing for separation … read more