Tucker High School - Tiger Yearbook (Tucker, GA)

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4 . .ifw Originally Bmwning's Courthouse and dating back into the last century, this building is located on LaVista Road across from the school. The Tucker area is still known as the Browning Voting District. building on Main Street. In the early I900's, the railroad was purchased by Seaboard, and the community was ofHciaIIy surveyed' and laid out as the town of Tucker in honor of Captain Tucker, an ofhcial of the Railroad. lAnother story says the town was named for a prosperous farmer who lived in the com- munity. 2 Prominent families of the community in 1900 included the Hendersons, Brownings, Chewnings, Englands, Burns, Gozas, and Chestnuts. In addition to Mr. Chewningsis general store and Post Offce, George M England and his son, Junius, operated a dry goods store at the present intersection of LaVista and Chamblee- Tucker Roads. The building, which still stands, is located across the street from Tucker High School, and most recently housed a printing company. Another business in the community in 1900 was a blacksmith shop on Main Street oper- ated by Edwin P. Dunagan. About 1900, a larger, three-room school building was constructed on Main Street ad- jacent to the present site of the First Baptist Church. This was an ungraded school and the level of education extended to approxi- mately the eighth grade. It was a growing community, and the overflow from this building was housed in the nearby Methodist and Congregational Churches. In 1915, in an effort to improve com- munity education, the citizens of the town cut and sawed their own timber and used the lumber to construct a new, two-story, ante-bellum structure on the former site by the Baptist Church. Soon, it too was over- Mr. J . M. England and his family are shown in his l9lO Reo, the first automobile in the Tucker com- munity. AMHTT-14's

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Built in 1915 this school located on Main Street iear the First Baptist Church served the oom- nunlty until 1929. loon afterwards. Aside from these two estab- lishments, the Browning Comm unity at this time consisted of about two country stores, a grist rnilL a cotton gin, a sa wmilL and a government operated still which manufac- tured peach and apple brandy and corn whis- key. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the community consisted of farming people of English, Scotch, and Irish descent who had migrated south after the War. Very poor, and not generally well-educateal these people proved to be quite industrious. The comm unityis first school was begun in this era, probably in the late 1880 is. It was a one-room building near the present inter- section of Lawrenceville Highway and Lalfista Road A story which still circulates in the comm unity has it that about 1890 this school committed the then unheard of act of hiring a woman teacher. According to the story, several disgruntled parents founded a second school on Fellowship Road at the site of the Primitive Baptist Church.. During these early years the Hon. Mr. Steele, report- edly DeKalb Countys Hrs! school superin- tendent, visited the Tucker schools on horseback. In 1892, the Georgia, Carolina, and Northern Railroad laid a track and con- structed a depot at the present site in T ucket: Naturally the train brought the mail to the community, and Mr. A. C KAW Chewning became the town is first Postmasten a job he held for about 25 years. During his early years as Postmaster he operated the Post Of jice from his wooden general store on Rail- road Avenue. He later moved to a brick A school group about 1910 shown outside the school on Main Street in Tucker. This building housed the school from about 1900 to 1915 . Z-vis, ,if 4.JmEvw1Q .1 N wr. g 'H 'eu Zhvi-big: 5.44.-jg E I f' i v,:.. .xt-1,4 fr..f1L5iZNTI.Ei?5Ti:.r,ft:f?gqafiSf fr2:YT.Y2?'?5: '-hiker.:'L' --5-'i - ' V' The Tucker Congregational Church, located on Main Street across from the old school was used to house the overflow from the school. It is now a dwelling house.

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crowdeal and they continued to use nearby churches for the overflow. This became the communityls first high school In 1918, R. E Carroll was elected County School Superin tenden t. Eager for ad- vancement for the school system, he urged that high school courses be taught and stand- ardized throughout the system. Tucker made progress immediately: arithmetic, history, languages, literature, and English grammar comprised the curriculum. There were so many classes that each period was limited to 25 minutes. The hrst high school principal was Mr. Drukenm1'ller. Dr. Marion Flowers was principal of the school during the period 1919-1925. Mr. Carroll commended Dr. Flowers by saying that T uckerfs curriculum was worthy of ac- creditation by the state. Tucker could not be accredited however, because it had neither laboratory nor library of its own. The Sea- bord Railroad had a circulating boxcar li- brary that provided Tucker with its books. Under the direction of Mr. Carroll and Dr. Flowers, Tucker became one of the su- perior schools in the area. Certain courses were required for graduation: Tucker grad- uated its first high school class in 1918. There were also many extracurricular even ts for the students enjoyment. Field days, in- cluding academic and athletic competition, were held with other schools. There was no football team then, but basketball was played on outsidex courts. A Tucker set out early to make its name known. Dr. Flowers, now living in retirement in Clarkston, reports that 1'n 1922, Tucker Pictured about 1920, this building was in use until its demolition in l966 I The Tucker High School Class of 1922. Seated, l-r: Howard England, Gndy Cain, Lula Mae Cain, Veatrice Lewis, and Cecil Flowers. Stand- ing, l-r: Andrew Ashworth, Dr. Marion Flow- ers, Principal, and Horace Ambrose.