Jan.6, 1884: Harry Herbert Pace – successful entrepreneur, music publisher and lyricist – was born in Covington, Ga. to Charles and Nancy Ferris Pace. While an infant, his father, a blacksmith, died and Harry and his mother eventually moved Atlanta. In 1903, he graduated valedictorian of his class at Atlanta University. W E.B. Du Boise was one of his instructors. Pace worked in printing, banking and insurance industries first in Atlanta and later in Memphis. In 1912, he met and collaborated in Memphis with Alabama native and blues composer W.C. Handy. They formed the Pace and Handy Music Company, using Pace’s business knowledge and Handy’s creative genius. While the company was profitable and artistically effective, Pace was frustrated. He observed as white recording companies bought the music and lyrics from them and then recorded them using white artists. Pace resolved to start his own record firm. By March 1921, he launched the Harlem-based Pace Phonograph Company, the first black-owned recording company. In summer 1921, under the Black Swan label, the company released one of “Down Home Blues” by Ethel Waters.
Jan. 6, 1979: Emory University’s landmark buildings are placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The buildings were designed by New York architect Henry Hornbostel. The architect created more than 225 buildings, bridges and monuments in the United States. Currently, 22 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including Callanwolde, the Tudor Revival style home on Briarcliff Road built for Charles Howard Candler completed in 1921 and now used as the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center.
Jan. 10, 1931: Sinclair Jacobs, son of drugstore founder Joseph Jacobs, opened his new Five Points drugstore on the southwest corner of Marietta and Peachtree streets, where his father had established the original Jacobs’ Pharmacy 46 years earlier. Jacobs’ Pharmacy was the first place where Coca-Cola was sold.
Jan 11, 1969: The American Institute of Architects (AIA) appointed Atlanta Architect Henri Jova as a contributing member to the organization’s committee of design. An 11-year member of AIA, Jova had served as chairman of the design committee for the North Georgia Chapter. The graduate of Cornell University was a Fulbright scholar and winner of the Prix de Rome. Jova’s architectural firm Jova, Daniels, and Busby was completing the construction of the multi-million dollar, 25-story office building Colony Square on the corner of Peachtree and 14th streets in Midtown.
Jan. 12, 1871: Atlanta As It Is: Being a Sketch Of Its Early Settlers was a brief, 116-page history of the city with a business directory and 16 pages of advertising. By March, over 5,000 copies had been sold for 75 cents each. The author, John Stainback Wilson M.D., was an Augusta native who arrived in Atlanta in 1870 after serving as a surgeon in the Confederate Army. The same year his book entitled The Woman’s Home Book of Health was also published. He mailed free copies to all who sent him a postage stamp for return mailing. He is also credited with opening the city’s first Turkish bath at 14 Lloyd Street, today’s Central Avenue. Wilson died Aug. 2, 1892, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery beside his wife Martha Eleanor Loftin Wilson.
Jan. 19-20, 1909: The annual convention of the Coca-Cola Bottlers of the South was held in Atlanta. Registration took place in the company’s office on the second floor of the Candler Building in Downtown. One of the highlights was a theater party at the old Orpeheum on Marietta Street. On Wednesday afternoon, company founder Asa Griggs Candler conducted a tour of the operation of the bottling plant and gave the history of Coca-Cola.
Jan. 21, 1940: Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital became part of Emory University. The hospital was founded in 1908 as the Davis-Fischer Sanatorium. In 1931, it was renamed after Long, who had discovered ether for use as anesthetic during surgery. In 2009, the name was changed to Emory University Hospital Midtown, but the Crawford W. Long name remains on exterior monuments.