ATLANTA — For more than 30 years, Jeff Hullinger has been one of Atlanta’s best known and most versatile broadcasters. He is also the keeper of many stories about the city's rich history. He shares them often on his Facebook page. Here is one:
It is an Atlanta neighborhood of power, money, and intellect .
Emory University, hospitals, the CDC, and the Marcus Center.
They are all here.
So is the last standing pacific tool of World War II.
The venerable LaVista Quonset hut.
This is a rare find intown.
An original.
It’s located off Lavista and Briarcliff Road, across from Mellow Mushroom.
This hut has been in Dekalb County since fighting ceased in the Pacific.
The Pacific as in Saipan, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Midway.
It was the original DeKalb County Fire Rescue Fire Station #8 before the replacement was built on Clairmont Road in the 1970s.
But Atlanta change is blowing; real estate prices in this zip code are like Doolittle’s Raiders in a B-25 Mitchell -- quick takeoff, flying long and high.
The first Quonset hut military order was sent immediately after Pearl Harbor.
The name derives from Quonset Point Naval Air Station, Rhode Island where the structure was first built 78 years ago.
Amidst the foliage and rusting automobiles, this hut serves as an Atlanta automobile repair shop in 2019.
The inside looks much as it did when those B-29s were being serviced on the runway.
Maybe the Marines need to return to organize the place.
When they were calling the shots and firing the shots, perfect order.
The impact of these small buildings can never be overlooked in the Allied victory over Imperial Japan.
Prefabricated corrugated galvanized steel structures based on a British World War I design.
The huts were manufactured in 1941 when the US Navy needed an all purpose building that could be shipped anywhere in the world and assembled quickly.
Between 150,000 and 170,000 Quonset huts were manufactured in WWII, the military sold it’s surplus huts to the public after the war.
The cost: $1,000.
Universities gobbled them up.
So did soldiers as civilian life beckoned.
TVLand favorite Gomer Pyle USMC was shot in and around a Quonset hut.
War hero, post war staple, legend of democracy, tool of victory, rusting Atlanta relic, Dekalb County business anchor.
The greatest generation’s best friend now slipping toward the surly bonds of the Atlanta land grab.
Atten-Hut!
At ease.
Quonset hut.
A mixed-use building is right around the Briarcliff corner.