A Time When Horses Ruled North Druid Hills – and DeKalb

If you look closely, you can see signs of a bygone era. Like when humans sat on top of hairy, maney quadrapeds and let them do all the work as we bumped around town here in North Druid Hills.

Or so I'm told, according to a column this month in Decatur Dispatch.

I was flipping through this month's issue when I was at Subway in Shamrock Plaza, and on page 5, I came across a short article, "Horses Were Once Everywhere in DeKalb," by Dick Funderburke.

This seemed fairly obvious, but I continued reading.

According to Funderburke, there remain a bunch of little places in our community where people used to go bonkers over horses. (Kind of cool detail: He mentions a sign circa 1900 at the courthouse in downtown Decatur that advises riders that it's not legal to park horses and buggies down there.)

From the story:

Also, the Little Wagon Horse Farm (now a county park) remains active with pastures full of horses at Scott Blvd. near North DeKalb Mall. Finally, Coca-Cola heir Walter Candler had a private horse racing track on his estate (now the president's house at Emory) where the now stands.

Interesting details, Mr. Funderburke.

No direct linkage here. Decatur Dispatch is still putting press to paper like they're Johannes Gutenberg, so you'll have to go to their parent company's homepage and check out the digital version of the paper.

Remember: Decatur Dispatch, page 5. And there's other cool stuff in this month's issue as well.