Dear Editor,

I watched the saving of the Fox Theater story on PBS last night. My sentiments exactly. We almost lost it. I was one of the first to recognize that the Candler home in Decatur was being used by homeless people and got the ball rolling on saving that one. I’ve been involved in several of these, but you know what, the money grubbers in Covington, they have never really cared about landmarks or history.

Traveling the back roads of America, there is a history museum in every little pig patch, except Covington. It is a shame to look back and see what we have lost. We have/had so much history. The county even used the story they were going to restore the old jail and give it to the Newton County Historical Society in order to get a larger segment of the people to vote for the SPLOST. They lied. Soon after some of the work began, "someone’" with the County decided not to give it to the Historical Society. There were so many people who had inherited so many historical relics and documents and were ready to turn them over the The Historical Society once they had a repository. Almost all I knew, including myself, were not going to turn them over to the county because we had seen what had happened to some of our treasures in the past.

So, many of these treasures have been blown to the four corners just in the last four or five years as older members of the community died, and their families didn’t want the stuff or divided it up, and now it’s gone. I heard the other day Porterdale was planning a historical museum. A great move. But Covington continues to lag, not just on this issue but so many more.

It is so hard to understand. It is an embarrassment. The movers and shakers seem to only be interested in what "they" want and feel is important. I’ve always had this one question lingering in my mind, "How much money does one person need?" I can give you a list of dozens of structures with huge historical significance which are now gone forever. The heart of a community is its history and its landmarks. We just continue to lose more and more each year.

Shame on those who destroy these treasures simply to make another dollar, and shame on the county for not allowing the Historical Society to utilize the old jail as a museum and repository. Despicable!

Samuel Hay

Covington