06/10/2026
6/9/2026 Celebrate Mableton history utilizing brick and stone! Submit ideas by July 31. Can you help create an art or memorial feature with salvaged red brick and fieldstone from the razed historic Hooper-Turner House (see photos) which stood at 5811 Oakdale Rd., Mableton, GA? The brick/stone is ear-marked for integration into the landscape of the nearby family Turner Cemetery on Veterans Memorial Hwy. Please submit ideas or designs by 7/31/2026 to Joe at [email protected]
HOUSE HISTORY
On 2/18/2015 The City of Smyrna demolished the historic Hooper-Turner House after they purchased it with the intent of preservation. It was a hall & parlor type house typical of the 1850's. The neighborhood elders knew it through oral history as a "Civil War Hospital", which was centrally located in the heart of the 6 mile River Line Battlefield fortifications. Typically any structure with a roof during the war where soldiers were medically treated was dubbed a "hospital".
The Smyrna councilman who advocated for the house preservation lost interest when written records supporting the oral hospital history could not be found. He said the City didn't value preserving an old farmhouse, which aligned with the disposition of the presiding 7th District Councilman where the house was located that led to its demise.
The house was a River Line Historic Area landmark offering the most public visual exposure to the local Civil War era remains.
It was listed on the Cobb County Historic Register. The Register's function is to defend the structure's preservation, but the Cobb County Historic Preservation Commission would not enforce preservation due to Smyrna's ownership.
Thanks to River Line Historic Area friends, Ken & Cynthia Patterson of Patterson Services, who contemporaneously accepted 14 truck loads of the home's brick & stone to their nearby property on River View Road, where it was stored until it was sorted for reuse.
Many volunteers including the late Cobb County Chairman, Mike Boyce, salvaged the bricks by chiseling off the mortar over several months. Some of the brick has been incorporated into the Turner Family Cemetery in the form of a path and borders for the unmarked graves; however, we are reaching out to the public for creative use of the chimney fieldstone and additional leftover red brick.
