Baconsfield: Macon’s Missing Park
The year is 1971. The sun rises, dew set on bushes of azaleas and roses across from a little league field. It is the last day of Baconsfield Park. By 1986, the fields and garden paths will be overgrown and bulldozed over for a shopping center and apartment complex.
“It was a small city within a park: playgrounds, gardens, fields, even an elementary school. But it’s a sore spot in Macon’s history,” said Pamela Stanescu of Mercer University and a Macon native.
Comprised of sports fields, a women’s club, and hundreds of flowers, the 75-acre park sat nestled between North Avenue, Spring Street, and Nottingham Drive.
Senator A. O. Bacon bequeathed the park to the city for “the use, benefit, and enjoyment of the white women and children of the city of Macon to be by them forever used and enjoyed as a park and pleasure ground” upon his death in 1911.
Together with the Works Progress Administration, the City of Macon funded the paving and construction of this whites-only public park, according to Mary Anne Berg’s dissertation on The City of Macon, Georgia’s sacrifice to Jim Crow : A.O. Bacon’s gift of Baconsfield Park, 1911–1972 .
In 1966, Rev. Evans went to the Supreme Court over the segregation of the park. In Evans v. Newton it was argued that, as the park was operated by public funds, it was subject to the protections of the 14th amendment, which requires equal protection on factors that include race.
Although Evans won this case, board member Guyton Abney returned to the Supreme Court in 1970. The Evans v. Abney case was over what to do with the park now that it was desegregated- should it be returned to the heirs or should the will be adjusted to allow for desegregation.
The court ruled that since the segregation of Baconsfield was central to the will, the park must be returned to the heirs.
After news of the verdict traveled back to Macon a group of the board members wives, led by Ginger Birdsey, began Save Old Baconsfield Inc., according to Berg.
This group sent out pamphlets and petitions and ran ads in the newspaper, all in an attempt to preserve the park that had been central to their city.
Save Old Baconsfield Inc., cited members’ fond memories of the park or listed fears of a “cement city” if the park was torn down, wrote Berg.
They gathered support from the Macon Bibb County Beautification Commission, the Macon Bibb County Recreation Commission and the Girl Scouts, among others.
Their efforts even made it up to Governor Jimmy Carter, who offered his support in a letter to Ralph Birdsey in 1971.
But the Supreme Court’s decision was final, and the land was under contract for development just one year after the court case.
As one last effort, Birdsey reached out to Jim Nabritt of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund for assistance. But Nabritt refused, saying that after the way that Macon had “conducted itself” during the Evans v. Abney court case, he “would not life a finger to help,” wrote Berg.
Save Old Baconsfield Inc., was out of options and the land was going to be developed. A McDonalds was the first building up, standing where the women’s club once did.
This was followed by a shopping center where an elementary school and playground used to sit. And lastly, office buildings were constructed over a little league field.
By 1990, Baconsfield was gone except for what remains in between the houses of the Shirley Hills development by Nottingham Drive.
