Rom Audiotour: Echos der Zeit zwischen den Flüssen

Coming up on your right... this is the Noble Brothers Foundry site. Today it’s quiet, but around 1855 this spot was the kind of place where the air would’ve tasted like coal smoke and hot metal, and the soundtrack was hammers, steam, and a whole lot of stubborn ambition. James Noble Senior and his six sons built a major ironworks here, and they weren’t thinking small. They ordered a huge lathe from Pennsylvania... then hauled it an absurdly complicated way: by boat to Mobile, up the Coosa River until the water wouldn’t cooperate anymore, then by horse and cart the rest of the way to this corner of town. If you’ve ever complained about delivery fees, just remember these guys dragged industrial machinery across half the South. The foundry turned out steamboat engines, furnaces, and locomotives. In 1857 they built the first locomotive for the Rome Railroad... and it was a big deal: the first locomotive manufactured south of Richmond. Then the Civil War hit, and the Confederate government came calling for cannons. The Nobles were so valuable that Jefferson Davis basically said, “Let other folks fight... we need these men making artillery.” Nothing says job security like being too useful to send to the battlefield. There’s a twist, though: cannon work got investigated and halted, but the foundry still produced war materials, especially locomotives... which helped put Rome on the Union army’s target list in 1864. When Sherman’s troops left, they burned the place and tried to wreck that giant lathe with sledgehammers. The lathe survived anyway, and those hammer marks are still visible... a sort of tantrum in iron. When you’re set, Between the Rivers Historic District is a 7-minute walk heading northeast.

On your right is the Between the Rivers Historic District… about 90 acres of Rome squeezed onto hilly ground where the Etowah and Oostanaula wrap around three sides like a watery fence. In 1983, the National Register counted nearly 300 contributing buildings and a few structures here, which is a polite way of saying: this neighborhood has been busy for a long time. Picture Broad Street in its working-clothes glory: the Busy Bee Cafe feeding regulars, Southern Bell wiring up phone calls, pawn shops and Montgomery Ward selling everyday hopes, and Esserman’s dressing people for Sunday. Around the corners, you’ve got the Greystone Hotel and apartments for travelers and new arrivals… plus a Tribune building pushing headlines, and even a Coca-Cola bottling plant keeping the fizz local. Commerce has always loved a river town. And those bridges? One elegant concrete arch carried Broad Street over the Etowah in 1916… while the old Second Avenue truss over the Oostanaula got replaced around 1983. Ready for Clock Tower (Rome, Georgia)? Just walk southeast for 6 minutes.

On your left, look up to the top of the hill for a tall red brick tower with four big white clock faces, capped with a little belfry. This is Rome’s Clock Tower, planted on the summit of Clock Tower Hill, also called Neely Hill... one of the city’s “Seven Hills,” because Rome’s never met a good nickname it didn’t like. The tower you’re seeing started life in 1871 with a very unglamorous job: holding water. James Noble Junior and his family oversaw the build, and it was basically a massive water tank wrapped in red brick to look respectable. Inside, the tank rose about 63 feet high and 26 feet wide, built around a frame made from 10-foot iron sheets. Practical... and just a little intimidating. Then in 1872, the city decided the utilitarian tower needed some flair. Up went four clock faces and a bell, turning it into an instant centerpiece. The clocks came from the E. Howard Clock Company, and each face is a full nine feet across. The hour hand alone is three and a half feet long... which is a polite way of saying, “You will know what time it is whether you asked or not.” The bronze bell is 40 inches wide, with “1872” engraved on its rim, like a signature on a job well done. By the 1890s, Rome outgrew the tank, and the tower drifted into mild neglect for decades. Then, in 1986, the Rome Jaycees raised over $80,000... about $230,000 today... to spruce up the hilltop, and by 1995 they helped open it as a museum. Inside: 107 spiral steps and artwork displayed in the old tank space. Not bad for a retired water bucket. When you’re set, the Floyd County Administration Building is a 4-minute walk heading south.

On your left, look for the long, tan-brick government building with rows of arched second-floor windows and a big central entrance set between pale stone columns. This place started life in 1896 as Rome’s U.S. Post Office and Courthouse… which is a fancy way of saying it handled your letters AND your legal trouble under one dignified roof. Over the years it got stretched out-additions in 1904, 1911, and again in 1941-like a building that kept loosening its belt after a few big meals. Take in the exterior: that clean, balanced, horizontal look is the clue. It’s styled in what historians call “Second Renaissance Revival,” with hints of earlier Italian Renaissance details in the decorative relief. Translation: it’s trying to look calm, orderly, and important… the architectural version of clearing your throat before speaking. And in the Rome area, it’s basically the only one of its kind, so it’s been quietly showing off for more than a century. Inside, the setup was all business. Back in the 1970s, the first floor was a big post office workroom-imagine the clatter of sorting, the thump of stamps, the smell of paper and ink. Upstairs, the courtroom sat on the second floor, soaring up through the next level, with the judge and clerk close by. The third floor tucked under the low roof was part offices, part attic. In 1975, an Atlanta architectural historian, Elizabeth Z. Macgregor, helped get it listed on the National Register-right when it was sitting empty, waiting for a second act. That same year, Floyd County bought it, and today it runs as the County Administration Building-those commissioners meeting upstairs are likely sitting where the courtroom once held sway. Meanwhile, the modern federal building moved down the street, complete with a post office and federal courts. When you’re set, DeSoto Theater is a 5-minute walk heading northwest.

On your right, look for the pale blue and white storefront with the bright Art Deco “DeSoto” marquee and a classic cinema signboard hanging over the sidewalk. This is the DeSoto Theatre, downtown Rome’s old-school showstopper... the kind of place built to make everyday folks feel like royalty for the price of a ticket. Back in the early 1900s, a local entertainment man named O. C. Lam decided Rome deserved a real “movie palace,” not just a room with a screen. He bought prime main-street property for about $37,000 at the time... roughly around $700,000 today... and aimed high, taking inspiration from the big, glamorous theaters up north. When the DeSoto opened in August 1927, it cost about $110,000 to build... something like $2 million today... and it seated around 1,500 people. That’s not a neighborhood screening, that’s an event. And it wasn’t just fancy, it was futuristic: it was built specifically for sound films, making it the first theater in the Southeast designed for “talkies,” complete with a Vitaphone system. Add early heating and cooling tech, and enough exits to clear the place in two minutes... because nothing kills the mood like a fire hazard. The building even carries older layers: before this theater, the site housed Rome’s Freedmen’s Bureau office. Then came thirty-ish years where this marquee basically served as Northwest Georgia’s living room. When it closed as a movie house in 1982, it didn’t stay quiet for long. The Rome Little Theatre moved in, and today a nonprofit foundation keeps it going, still showing off that mirrored entrance, Georgian-style interior, and that stubbornly charming marquee... while working to restore more. When you’re set, Sara Hightower Regional Library System is a 5-minute walk heading northeast.

On your left, look for a sturdy red-brick building with a bright white arched entrance and the words “HAWKES CHILDRENS LIBRARY” across the top. Now, a small confession: when people say “the library,” they usually mean one building. Around here, it’s more like a whole neighborhood of libraries working together. The Sara Hightower Regional Library System covers six public libraries serving Floyd, Polk, and Chattooga Counties, with headquarters at the Rome-Floyd County Library. Think of it as a team effort… with fewer pep rallies and more paper cuts. The big magic trick is the PINES library card. One card, a whole lot of temptation. If you’re a Georgia resident, you can use it not just in this regional system, but across roughly 275 participating libraries statewide. That’s the kind of networking LinkedIn wishes it had. And the system also connects with GLASS, a statewide service that helps people who are blind or physically disabled get access to library materials-making “open to everyone” mean something real. Because this system stretches across multiple counties, it becomes a high-speed exchange zone for books. In 2015 alone, about 30,000 books moved through interlibrary loan-basically a constant relay race of novels, cookbooks, and last-minute school projects. Somewhere, a librarian’s sorting cart is still recovering. The roots of all this go back to the early 1900s, when Rome wanted a proper public library and civic leaders wrote to Andrew Carnegie-the steel tycoon who loved funding libraries almost as much as he loved rules. On December 24, 1909, he approved $15,000 for a building-around $500,000 today-on the condition the town paid $1,500 a year for upkeep, about $50,000 today. And he had one firm preference: no big auditorium inside. Carnegie didn’t want libraries turning into lecture halls… he wanted them turning people into readers. That first public library opened in 1911 with about 1,800 books, many coming from an older subscription collection-the kind where reading came with a membership fee, like a gym, but with less sweating and more Shakespeare. When you’re set, Forum River Center is a 10-minute walk heading north.

On your right, look for the big red-brick complex with those tall, half-moon black windows and a broad staircase leading up to the entrance marked “THE FORUM.” This is the Forum River Center, or as locals keep it simple... “The Forum.” It’s Floyd County-owned, which means it’s basically Rome’s living room: one week it’s sports, the next it’s suits and name tags, and by the weekend it might be a full-on concert. Inside, the arena flexes-about 2,140 seats for arena football, up to 3,116 for other sports, and nearly 3,932 when the stage goes up and the amps come on. For trade shows, it opens into roughly 21,000 square feet of floor space, plus another 14,269 square feet of meeting rooms for all the serious conversations that somehow require pastries. It even hosted the Georgia Fire indoor football team-and on March 9, 2024, it turned into a political spotlight when Donald Trump held a campaign rally here, right before Georgia’s primary. When you’re set, Barron Stadium is an 8-minute walk heading northwest.

Look to your right for a wide bowl of bleachers facing a bright green turf field wrapped by a red running track, with tall light poles and a big scoreboard anchoring the far end. Alright, you’ve made it to Barron Stadium… a place that looks like “just a football field” until you realize it’s been soaking up Friday-night nerves and hometown pride for more than a century. In stadium years, that’s practically ancient Rome… and yes, we’re in Rome, Georgia, so the joke is legally required. This is a 6,500-seat football and track stadium, and on game nights it can feel like every one of those seats has an opinion. It’s home turf for Rome High’s Wolves and Shorter University’s Hawks, which means the paint lines and goalposts have seen everything from pep-band joy to the quiet, dramatic misery of a last-second fumble. The story starts way back when this ground was known as Hamilton Field-over 100 years ago. In 1925, it became Barron Stadium, named for local businessman William F. Barron, who helped secure the property. The Barron name had some fizz behind it too: his father founded the Rome Coca-Cola bottling plant in 1901. So if you’ve ever associated football with soda… congratulations, you’re historically accurate. By 1937, the stadium got lights-because nothing says “community gathering” like playing football under towering bulbs while somebody yells advice from the stands like they’ve been personally hired by the coaching staff. Operation shifted around over the decades: the school district handed it to the city recreation department in 1957, and today it’s owned by the Rome-Floyd Parks and Recreation Authority-a city-county team-up-but operated by the Rome City School District since 2015. It’s a whole relay race of responsibility… which feels right for a track stadium. And speaking of the track: it’s named for John Maddox, a local standout and 1932 Olympics hopeful who pushed hard for a better municipal track and helped launch the Rome News Relays. After he died suddenly, the city named the track for him in 1971-one of those quietly meaningful tributes that sticks. Barron’s hosted serious football history too: state championship games here in multiple years, plus championship wins for East Rome and West Rome in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. The last East-versus-West crosstown rivalry game played here happened in 1991, before the schools consolidated. Nothing like a merger to end a perfectly good grudge. In 2010, the place got a major glow-up-about $3.4 million at the time, roughly $4.8 million in today’s money-funded by local sales tax. That brought in artificial turf, an NCAA-certified track, a new scoreboard, and expanded facilities. It also hosted big-time events like the NAIA Football National Championship from 2008 to 2013, and even served as a filming location for the 2021 movie Black Widow. So yes… your humble stadium has been in the same cinematic universe as superheroes. Take a second and listen… you can almost hear the echo of cleats, the starter pistol, the crowd rising like a wave. That’s Barron Stadium-Rome’s long-running stage for sweat, speed, and just enough drama to keep everyone coming back.