LOOKING BACK
Jan. 15, 1990: Threats of violence never materialized during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade held on this day in Springfield. Sheriff Van Findley said one of his deputies heard that there might be violence at the morning parade, but that turned out not to be the case. However, Effingham County Commissioner Homer Wallace claimed the local NAACP chapter faced resistance when it tried to find a place to hold a King Day rally.
Jan. 16, 1734: Georgia’s first governor, John Adam Treutlen, was born on this date in Kürnback, Germany, a village between Karlsruhe and Heilbronn in Württemberg (southwest Germany). Treulen later attended school at Ebenezer under the tutelage of the Rev. John Martin Boltzius. Treutlen remained at Ebenezer, where he was first a schoolteacher, then a store owner and finally a planter. He built a large, productive plantation and soon was the wealthiest man in the area that became Effingham County. In the early 1770s, Treutlen became one of the leaders of the American independence movement. When Georgia adopted its first constitution in 1777, Treutlen was elected governor.
Jan. 26, 2001: Neel Ackerman has been chosen by the four remaining Springfield City Council members to fill the unexpired term of former Mayor Doris Flythe, who abruptly resigned along with two other council members and the director of the city’s Better Hometown Program at a Jan. 9 meeting. Flythe and the other city officials, including Councilmen Stephen Mobley and Derrell Banks, had accused the other four members of blocking them out of major decisions.