This past week I finished my big calculus test, which was a blessing. I think I did alright on it. Since that is over, I can pretty much coast my way to finals in about 20 days. 

Today I went to the library on a whim. There were throngs over-zealous students competing in the freshman olympics right outside my entryway, so I couldn't really get into my dorm. I then decided to spend some time in the library until they dispersed. At the library, I pressed a random button in the elevator and found myself in the Slavic Reading Room. It was a nice reading room, but everything was in slavic languages, so I couldn't understand anything and left. 

 There was some nice artwork in there though:

After I left the slavic reading room I went to the 7th floor and stumbled across a state history section, where I found lots of interesting things about the state of Georgia's history. Quite frankly, I learned more about where I was raised (Georgia) in this library 1000 miles from home than I did in my entire year of 8th grade Georgia History. 

They even had some really obscure county records... something I might expect to find in a county library, but not at Yale's library.

So the first book I decided to look through was "Historical Collections of Georgia"... a book printed in 1855. 

I scoured through the book and found Cherokee County, where I found out some interesting stuff, like there is a place called "Long Swamp" in Cherokee County. Also, the native Chief of Ballground's name was "Chicken."

Reading about Cass County confused me, because I didn't remember ever hearing about a Cass County... so I googled it on my phone and found that it is what is nowadays Bartow County. Pretty Cool. 

Here's a fun newspaper clipping I found from Athens:

 A map of Athens from maybe 1930?

They even had a fun book about Rome, Georgia and Floyd County:

I even found some information on 3 revolutionary war soldiers buried in Cherokee County:

This is probably the coolest thing I came across... a directory from Savannah in 1870.  

This next one made me laugh out loud as I read it... "Don't lend your directory. Your neighbor is as well able to purchase one as you are." They just came out and said it. That made my day.

And then I ended it with a book written in 1898 about the history of Atlanta. The picture below is Atlanta in 1898.

So I came across this really cool seal, and come to find out, it's still the official seal of Atlanta! The book from 1898 was just plastered with this everywhere. I guess during reconstruction everyone really took this idea and ran with it.. "rising again out of the ashes"

This is a book from 1902, and once again has the cool seal.

Even if you read nothing else on my blog, I ask you to read this next page about Atlanta...it is probably the most eloquent and amazing way to describe the city of Atlanta I have ever seen. 

I didn't actually open this next book, but I wanted to point out how much of a misnomer this book is. If you look closely, its title is "The first hundred years, a short history of Cobb County, in Georgia" 

Well, at the thickness of two Bibles, I would hardly say this is a short history book by any means.