Sgt. W.F. "Fred" Black is buried on the slope of a hill in Riverside Cemetery. The family plot is flanked by a large cedar and crape myrtle tree. His grave site lets us know he was born April 1, 1911. If he were still alive, he would be approaching 100 years old in a few months.
But the grave marker also tells us he never lived to see his 30th birthday. He died on Dec. 20, 1940. That was 70 years ago today. There is no footnote on the headstone, no asterisk weathered and covered up by the years. So, there is no mention that Black was captain and played center for the 1931 Lanier High Poets football team, which won the state championship. Or that he played both football and basketball at Auburn University, then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, where he studied aeronautical engineering.
But William Frederick Black Jr. deserves to be remembered on this day, for he staked his own tragic place in history. He was the first Georgia State Patrol trooper killed in the line of duty.
On the night of Dec. 20, almost a year before Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, Black was fatally shot after pulling over an escaped convict on a traffic stop near Ringgold, in north Georgia.
I had never heard of Black until my friend, Arthur "Bubber" Schmidt, brought the story to my attention several months ago. Bubber had been doing some research on the history of Lanier High football from 1920 to 1969, and he came across Black's name in the archives.
He just happened to see the front-page newspaper accounts of Black's death in December 1940 and remembered Black's name from the microfilm reels of a decade earlier.
Black was a reserve officer in the U.S. Army and was one of the first men to sign up for the state patrol, which was organized in 1937. He worked at patrol posts in Waycross and Washington before being assigned to the north Georgia district in Dalton.
He was married to Juanita Stokes Black, who never remarried and was a widow for 54 years until her death in April 1994. Juanita Black was well-known locally for her social work and civic involvement. After her husband's death, she served with the Works Progress Administration at Fort Benning, training women to sew parachutes and military uniforms. (She worked with two famous generals -- George Patton and Omar Bradley -- and was once invited to sit on the review platform with Patton.)
Black was on patrol with fellow officer Vass Farr on that Friday night, five days before Christmas. They were about three miles north of Ringgold on U.S. 41 -- the same road, in the days before interstates, Black would always follow south 166 miles to his parents home, located a block off U.S. 41 on Ridge Avenue in Macon.
Black and Farr noticed a man and woman in 1936 Buick sedan, weaving in the road. The two patrolmen pulled over the vehicle. When Black approached the driver, he was shot three times -- in the chest, chin and thigh -- with a .38-caliber pistol.
The man was 28-year-old Charles Clinton Coates, the son of a respected physician in St. Joseph, Mo. He had served three prison terms and was being held for trial for a drug store robbery. He and three other prisoners escaped by climbing down some water pipes, overpowering a night jailer and taking away his keys. Coates had stolen a car in Miami, Okla., and stopped in Kansas City to pick up a woman named Letha Pauline Brisbine. Traveling under the alias of Charles and Mary Butler, they were headed to Florida, stopping in Memphis, Tenn., to get married by a justice of the peace Dec. 17.
Farr fired six shots at Coates, who was slightly wounded but managed to escape into the woods. Farr apprehended Brisbine, who was still in the stolen car. He tried to rush Black to a hospital in Chattanooga, but Black died on the way.
Coates led more than 200 law enforcement authorities in Georgia and Tennessee on a five-day manhunt before he was captured near 70 miles north of the crime scene near Decatur, Tenn. His feet had to be treated for frostbite. A day after the slaying, Georgia Public Safety Commissioner Lon Sullivan issued special orders to posthumously promote Black, a corporal, to the rank of sergeant "in testimony of his tireless efforts on behalf of the safety of human lives on streets and highways and his valiant courage in fulfilling his oath to enforce the laws of the commonwealth of Georgia." Georgia Gov. E.D. Rivers ordered that Black's body lie at the Capitol in Atlanta. An honorary guard of highway patrolmen and Army officers stood duty.
Source: Macon website
But the grave marker also tells us he never lived to see his 30th birthday. He died on Dec. 20, 1940. That was 70 years ago today. There is no footnote on the headstone, no asterisk weathered and covered up by the years. So, there is no mention that Black was captain and played center for the 1931 Lanier High Poets football team, which won the state championship. Or that he played both football and basketball at Auburn University, then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, where he studied aeronautical engineering.
But William Frederick Black Jr. deserves to be remembered on this day, for he staked his own tragic place in history. He was the first Georgia State Patrol trooper killed in the line of duty.
On the night of Dec. 20, almost a year before Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, Black was fatally shot after pulling over an escaped convict on a traffic stop near Ringgold, in north Georgia.
I had never heard of Black until my friend, Arthur "Bubber" Schmidt, brought the story to my attention several months ago. Bubber had been doing some research on the history of Lanier High football from 1920 to 1969, and he came across Black's name in the archives.
He just happened to see the front-page newspaper accounts of Black's death in December 1940 and remembered Black's name from the microfilm reels of a decade earlier.
Black was a reserve officer in the U.S. Army and was one of the first men to sign up for the state patrol, which was organized in 1937. He worked at patrol posts in Waycross and Washington before being assigned to the north Georgia district in Dalton.
He was married to Juanita Stokes Black, who never remarried and was a widow for 54 years until her death in April 1994. Juanita Black was well-known locally for her social work and civic involvement. After her husband's death, she served with the Works Progress Administration at Fort Benning, training women to sew parachutes and military uniforms. (She worked with two famous generals -- George Patton and Omar Bradley -- and was once invited to sit on the review platform with Patton.)
Black was on patrol with fellow officer Vass Farr on that Friday night, five days before Christmas. They were about three miles north of Ringgold on U.S. 41 -- the same road, in the days before interstates, Black would always follow south 166 miles to his parents home, located a block off U.S. 41 on Ridge Avenue in Macon.
Black and Farr noticed a man and woman in 1936 Buick sedan, weaving in the road. The two patrolmen pulled over the vehicle. When Black approached the driver, he was shot three times -- in the chest, chin and thigh -- with a .38-caliber pistol.
The man was 28-year-old Charles Clinton Coates, the son of a respected physician in St. Joseph, Mo. He had served three prison terms and was being held for trial for a drug store robbery. He and three other prisoners escaped by climbing down some water pipes, overpowering a night jailer and taking away his keys. Coates had stolen a car in Miami, Okla., and stopped in Kansas City to pick up a woman named Letha Pauline Brisbine. Traveling under the alias of Charles and Mary Butler, they were headed to Florida, stopping in Memphis, Tenn., to get married by a justice of the peace Dec. 17.
Farr fired six shots at Coates, who was slightly wounded but managed to escape into the woods. Farr apprehended Brisbine, who was still in the stolen car. He tried to rush Black to a hospital in Chattanooga, but Black died on the way.
Coates led more than 200 law enforcement authorities in Georgia and Tennessee on a five-day manhunt before he was captured near 70 miles north of the crime scene near Decatur, Tenn. His feet had to be treated for frostbite. A day after the slaying, Georgia Public Safety Commissioner Lon Sullivan issued special orders to posthumously promote Black, a corporal, to the rank of sergeant "in testimony of his tireless efforts on behalf of the safety of human lives on streets and highways and his valiant courage in fulfilling his oath to enforce the laws of the commonwealth of Georgia." Georgia Gov. E.D. Rivers ordered that Black's body lie at the Capitol in Atlanta. An honorary guard of highway patrolmen and Army officers stood duty.
Source: Macon website
Sgt. W.F. "Fred" Black is buried on the slope of a hill in Riverside Cemetery. The family plot is flanked by a large cedar and crape myrtle tree. His grave site lets us know he was born April 1, 1911. If he were still alive, he would be approaching 100 years old in a few months.
But the grave marker also tells us he never lived to see his 30th birthday. He died on Dec. 20, 1940. That was 70 years ago today. There is no footnote on the headstone, no asterisk weathered and covered up by the years. So, there is no mention that Black was captain and played center for the 1931 Lanier High Poets football team, which won the state championship. Or that he played both football and basketball at Auburn University, then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, where he studied aeronautical engineering.
But William Frederick Black Jr. deserves to be remembered on this day, for he staked his own tragic place in history. He was the first Georgia State Patrol trooper killed in the line of duty.
On the night of Dec. 20, almost a year before Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, Black was fatally shot after pulling over an escaped convict on a traffic stop near Ringgold, in north Georgia.
I had never heard of Black until my friend, Arthur "Bubber" Schmidt, brought the story to my attention several months ago. Bubber had been doing some research on the history of Lanier High football from 1920 to 1969, and he came across Black's name in the archives.
He just happened to see the front-page newspaper accounts of Black's death in December 1940 and remembered Black's name from the microfilm reels of a decade earlier.
Black was a reserve officer in the U.S. Army and was one of the first men to sign up for the state patrol, which was organized in 1937. He worked at patrol posts in Waycross and Washington before being assigned to the north Georgia district in Dalton.
He was married to Juanita Stokes Black, who never remarried and was a widow for 54 years until her death in April 1994. Juanita Black was well-known locally for her social work and civic involvement. After her husband's death, she served with the Works Progress Administration at Fort Benning, training women to sew parachutes and military uniforms. (She worked with two famous generals -- George Patton and Omar Bradley -- and was once invited to sit on the review platform with Patton.)
Black was on patrol with fellow officer Vass Farr on that Friday night, five days before Christmas. They were about three miles north of Ringgold on U.S. 41 -- the same road, in the days before interstates, Black would always follow south 166 miles to his parents home, located a block off U.S. 41 on Ridge Avenue in Macon.
Black and Farr noticed a man and woman in 1936 Buick sedan, weaving in the road. The two patrolmen pulled over the vehicle. When Black approached the driver, he was shot three times -- in the chest, chin and thigh -- with a .38-caliber pistol.
The man was 28-year-old Charles Clinton Coates, the son of a respected physician in St. Joseph, Mo. He had served three prison terms and was being held for trial for a drug store robbery. He and three other prisoners escaped by climbing down some water pipes, overpowering a night jailer and taking away his keys. Coates had stolen a car in Miami, Okla., and stopped in Kansas City to pick up a woman named Letha Pauline Brisbine. Traveling under the alias of Charles and Mary Butler, they were headed to Florida, stopping in Memphis, Tenn., to get married by a justice of the peace Dec. 17.
Farr fired six shots at Coates, who was slightly wounded but managed to escape into the woods. Farr apprehended Brisbine, who was still in the stolen car. He tried to rush Black to a hospital in Chattanooga, but Black died on the way.
Coates led more than 200 law enforcement authorities in Georgia and Tennessee on a five-day manhunt before he was captured near 70 miles north of the crime scene near Decatur, Tenn. His feet had to be treated for frostbite. A day after the slaying, Georgia Public Safety Commissioner Lon Sullivan issued special orders to posthumously promote Black, a corporal, to the rank of sergeant "in testimony of his tireless efforts on behalf of the safety of human lives on streets and highways and his valiant courage in fulfilling his oath to enforce the laws of the commonwealth of Georgia." Georgia Gov. E.D. Rivers ordered that Black's body lie at the Capitol in Atlanta. An honorary guard of highway patrolmen and Army officers stood duty.
Source: Macon website
But the grave marker also tells us he never lived to see his 30th birthday. He died on Dec. 20, 1940. That was 70 years ago today. There is no footnote on the headstone, no asterisk weathered and covered up by the years. So, there is no mention that Black was captain and played center for the 1931 Lanier High Poets football team, which won the state championship. Or that he played both football and basketball at Auburn University, then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, where he studied aeronautical engineering.
But William Frederick Black Jr. deserves to be remembered on this day, for he staked his own tragic place in history. He was the first Georgia State Patrol trooper killed in the line of duty.
On the night of Dec. 20, almost a year before Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, Black was fatally shot after pulling over an escaped convict on a traffic stop near Ringgold, in north Georgia.
I had never heard of Black until my friend, Arthur "Bubber" Schmidt, brought the story to my attention several months ago. Bubber had been doing some research on the history of Lanier High football from 1920 to 1969, and he came across Black's name in the archives.
He just happened to see the front-page newspaper accounts of Black's death in December 1940 and remembered Black's name from the microfilm reels of a decade earlier.
Black was a reserve officer in the U.S. Army and was one of the first men to sign up for the state patrol, which was organized in 1937. He worked at patrol posts in Waycross and Washington before being assigned to the north Georgia district in Dalton.
He was married to Juanita Stokes Black, who never remarried and was a widow for 54 years until her death in April 1994. Juanita Black was well-known locally for her social work and civic involvement. After her husband's death, she served with the Works Progress Administration at Fort Benning, training women to sew parachutes and military uniforms. (She worked with two famous generals -- George Patton and Omar Bradley -- and was once invited to sit on the review platform with Patton.)
Black was on patrol with fellow officer Vass Farr on that Friday night, five days before Christmas. They were about three miles north of Ringgold on U.S. 41 -- the same road, in the days before interstates, Black would always follow south 166 miles to his parents home, located a block off U.S. 41 on Ridge Avenue in Macon.
Black and Farr noticed a man and woman in 1936 Buick sedan, weaving in the road. The two patrolmen pulled over the vehicle. When Black approached the driver, he was shot three times -- in the chest, chin and thigh -- with a .38-caliber pistol.
The man was 28-year-old Charles Clinton Coates, the son of a respected physician in St. Joseph, Mo. He had served three prison terms and was being held for trial for a drug store robbery. He and three other prisoners escaped by climbing down some water pipes, overpowering a night jailer and taking away his keys. Coates had stolen a car in Miami, Okla., and stopped in Kansas City to pick up a woman named Letha Pauline Brisbine. Traveling under the alias of Charles and Mary Butler, they were headed to Florida, stopping in Memphis, Tenn., to get married by a justice of the peace Dec. 17.
Farr fired six shots at Coates, who was slightly wounded but managed to escape into the woods. Farr apprehended Brisbine, who was still in the stolen car. He tried to rush Black to a hospital in Chattanooga, but Black died on the way.
Coates led more than 200 law enforcement authorities in Georgia and Tennessee on a five-day manhunt before he was captured near 70 miles north of the crime scene near Decatur, Tenn. His feet had to be treated for frostbite. A day after the slaying, Georgia Public Safety Commissioner Lon Sullivan issued special orders to posthumously promote Black, a corporal, to the rank of sergeant "in testimony of his tireless efforts on behalf of the safety of human lives on streets and highways and his valiant courage in fulfilling his oath to enforce the laws of the commonwealth of Georgia." Georgia Gov. E.D. Rivers ordered that Black's body lie at the Capitol in Atlanta. An honorary guard of highway patrolmen and Army officers stood duty.
Source: Macon website
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