For all intents and purposes, the Town of Oakhurst died in the dark early morning hours of October 9, 1914. Since its founding in 1910, Oakhurst had a single public building which housed the town’s school and municipal office. The Oakhurst school was a frame building located on the southeast corner of Johnson Place and Winter Street in the heart of the subdivision that took its name from the town. When it burned to the ground in the early morning hours, all of the town’s records were destroyed. The blaze occurred under suspicious circumstances just weeks ahead of Oakhurst’s merger with Decatur. Continue reading →

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In the spring of 1979 the South Decatur Community Council, a volunteer group credited with helping revitalize the area now known as Decatur, Georgia’s Oakhurst neighborhood, raised serious concerns about gentrification and displacement. “Gentrification, Speculation, Displacement, Investment Potential. These will soon become common terms as more and more home buyers discover South Decatur,” wrote the organization in its April 1979 newsletter.¹

As gentrification has taken hold in Oakhurst over the past decade or so, the SDCC’s concerns have materialized in ways the organization could not have conceived. Not only has Oakhurst become whiter and more affluent than it was in the 1970s, it also has become less tolerant of people once welcomed by the community. More than 30 years ago South Decatur’s community leaders called on their elected and appointed officials to maintain housing, ethnic, and economic diversity in the neighborhood. Instead, their entreaties fell on deaf and disinterested ears, according to many of those leaders who still live in Oakhurst and others who have moved away, propelled by the loss of diversity they foresaw. Continue reading →

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Hot off the press from the DeKalb History Center:

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The Coventry and Pierce families bought two of the 113 homes the Decatur Housing Authority sold for one dollar over six years between 1976 and 1982. Decatur, Georgia, was one of 23 cities selected by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to participate in  the Urban Homesteading Demonstration Program.  The program was authorized in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, landmark housing and urban redevelopment legislation that also introduced Community Development Block Grants.

The Coventrys and Pierces won lotteries and the privilege to buy vacant and foreclosed homes. After paying their dollar, each family then worked with City rehabilitation advisors to bring the homes up to code using low-interest loans guaranteed under the urban homesteading program. Each urban homesteader was required to occupy the new property for at least three years. What makes the Coventry and Pierce families remarkable is that they are among a handful of urban homesteaders who have remained in their dollar homes. Continue reading →

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Nineteen forty was a good year for builders and real estate entrepreneurs. The nation was emerging from the Depression and consumer tastes were being influenced by the immensely popular 1939-40 New York World’s Fair. Marketing techniques perfected in the 1930s were used to sell modern homes with the latest in appliances, engineering, and construction materials in newly platted suburban subdivisions. One of these new subdivisions emerged at the intersection of East Lake Drive and Third Avenue in what is now Decatur, Georgia’s, Oakhurst neighborhood. Dubbed “Edgemoor,” the subdivision was touted by its developer as “one of the finest developments to be found in the South.” Continue reading →

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