Page 13 - Demo

Blasting and Cutting the Next Segment
of Altamont Road, 1908–1910, Platted 1911
Using an army of men, mules, plows, wheel scrapes, and drag scrapes, Jemison & Co. contractor Thomas Worthing- ton built the next segment of Altamont Road, extending it eastward above today’s Altamont Park. Construction of the road included rock excavation and cut and fill to lay down a road that hugged the mountainside and instilled a sense of safety. Rock and earth were removed. The excavated rock was not crushed and sold for road construction purposes as was commonly done; it was used to form the “Big Terraces.”
On one of the terraces beneath the future Woodward estate, a sandstone belvedere would be built to provide views of the increasingly attractive residential area of Mountain Ter- race, with its well-designed residences, and of the woodlands of the Birmingham Country Club (today’s Charlie Boswell Golf Course). Sandstone for the belvedere was most likely quarried at the nearby Helen-Bess Mine. George Miller’s plat for the middle section of Altamont Road would not be filed with probate court until November 1911.17 He must have been apprised of what Jemison & Co.’s engineers were doing in constructing other segments of the road; however, he was intensely occupied completing the massive undertakings at
above: Limestone layers. Louise McPhillips, 2019.
below: City view from the belvedere. Louise McPhillips, 2019.
Fairfield, Central Park, and Westleigh for other Jemison com- panies, as well as designs for subdivisions and golf courses in East Lake and Roebuck for Robert Jemison Sr.
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