Backyard chicken lovers and poultry enthusiasts are in for a treat today. We’re running another article on the history of poultry farming in Cobb County. The one we published earlier today was about a 1907 poultry show.
In our continuing research on the Georgia Historic Newspaper site, we found this article from the March 11, 1911 issue of the Atlanta Georgian highlighting Smyrna’s chicken industry.
The Atlanta Georgian and News—Poultry, Pet, and Livestock Section.
Smyrna Grew Around the Chicken Industry
Finest Plant in Dixie a Few Miles From Atlanta on Marietta Trolley—Worth a Day of Anyone’s Time.
By Claude B. Nealy
Smyrna, Ga., Feb. 4.—The chicken hatches a town. Incredible, impossible, you will no doubt exclaim. But, nevertheless, it is a fact—even though startling. Actual evidence can be found right here. In fact, Smyrna itself is the evidence.
This beautiful little town of 1,000 inhabitants, situated 18 miles from Atlanta, on the Western and Atlantic and the Atlanta Northern Interurban railways, can trace its present prosperity and progress directly to the chicken—literally built upon the fine-feathered fowl, as it were.
In other words, Smyrna, as its leading citizens agree, owes its rapid and substantial growth of the past few years to the chicken industry—to the marvelous success of Belmont Farm. This celebrated farm, which is now devoted practically exclusively to chicken raising and which is known the country over for its fine fowls and heavy egg production, lies half a mile north of Smyrna in a beautiful section of rolling country and bordered on all sides by a picturesque landscape. It is recognized as the finest poultry plant in the South today and, for that matter, one of the greatest in the entire United States. Its fame has spread far and wide, and wherever there is a chicken fancier, there you will find a person who cherishes and prizes the products of Belmont Farm. And it is this farm that…
Read the full article here
