In 1893, a 12-year-old girl from Whitfield County was visiting a cousin and saw a tufted bedspread that had been in the family for years.
Intrigued, Catherine Evans began teaching herself how to make such bedspreads, preserving and eventually improving the process. In 1900, she gave one of her creations to her brother as a wedding gift. Their friends and neighbors saw it and asked her to make some for them.
Soon Evans, who would later be known by her married name of Catherine Evans Whitener, had a thriving business making bedspreads.
From that simple beginning, Whitfield County became the hub of a thriving industry that would eventually develop into the multibillion-dollar carpet industry.
Now, city officials and other groups are looking at a plan that would create a monument to Catherine Evans Whitener at Gateway Park, the small park at the intersection of Cuyler Street and Thornton Avenue.
“Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful is looking to revitalize that small park, sometimes referred to as Gateway Park, and create a beautiful and useful area for our community,” said Amy Hartline, executive director of Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful. “A citizen suggested having it honor Catherine Evans Whitener and our board loved that concept. The project is in the very early stages so we don’t have anything firm to announce right now but we wanted to try and cover all of our bases before we began work on it.”
Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful is a local nonprofit that, as its website notes, focuses on volunteer “activities that promote litter prevention, beautification, sustainability and water protection.” Two years ago, the group spearheaded the revitalization of Lackey Park, a pocket park near the intersection of Morris Street and Fields Avenue/Fifth Avenue, by helping to create a sculpture called “Among the Someone” that features a bridge over a no-longer-functioning fountain in the park.
At a meeting of the city of Dalton’s Finance Committee earlier in the month, City Administrator Andrew Parker said the only thing the group has asked of the city is “the infrastructure work, removing the old fountain, pumps.” The Finance Committee is composed of the members of the City Council.
“I think this will be a very first class project, and the city will not be out anything except some demo(lition) and providing the space, since it is a city park,” he said.
Gateway Park was once a popular downtown gathering place, with a working fountain that children would play in. But city officials closed the fountain in 2007. Officials said it appeared homeless people were washing their clothes and bathing in the fountain. The soap they used destroyed the chlorine used to kill bacteria in the water. So city officials had to drain the fountain frequently and fill it with new water for safety reasons. City officials said they were using an average of 1,500 gallons of water each week.