30 Things You′ll Never See In Athens, GA Again

1. Technically Speaking, You'll Never See Athens Again

No, this isn't a ransom note. As far as the government entity once known as the city of Athens goes, it no longer exists. It was consolidated with the Clarke County government in 1991 to officially become Athens-Clarke County. But the only ones who call it that are government and newspaper people.

2. A Goat Or Bull Terrier As UGA's Mascot

Before the bulldog came to town, UGA (that's the University of Georgia) had a long run with a series of other mascots. In fact, the football team's first mascot is said to have been a goat. And the first bulldog to serve as mascot was actually a bull terrier. Don't tell Uga!

3. House Parties Like Back In The Day

House parties with bands playing till the wee hours still occur in Athens, of course, but back in the 1970s it was a house party nirvana that helped to launch the Athens music scene into the stratosphere in the '80s. In a college town with a lack of real music clubs, it was bound to happen. It's how the B-52s started, as well as many other Athens luminaries, including Pylon. These parties also took place in abandoned factories, train depots, apartments, empty lots and churches. Speaking of which…

4. The Church Sanctuary Where R.E.M. Played Its First Gig

All that's left of the abandoned church where R.E.M played its first gig in 1980 is the crumbling steeple. The rest of the building was razed and today is a parking lot for student condos. There's been a movement to save the steeple, but even R.E.M. doesn't seem to care about it that much —the band has released a statement saying it would not be officially participating in any movement to save the remnants of the old St. Mary's Episcopal Church.

5. The 40 Watt Club Lit By A Single 40 Watt Bulb

The now legendary 40 Watt Club started as a loft party in a room lit by a bare, dangling 40 watt light bulb. Over time, the loft party morphed into a club that moved around town a lot before settling into an old furniture store on Washington Street.

6. The Dead Milkmen Crashing At Vic Chestnutt's Place

When Philly brat-punkers the Dead Milkmen breezed through Athens in the summer of 1986 to play a gig at the 40 Watt, they were planning on staying at a cheap motel. Instead, a nice guy in a wheelchair offered to let them crash at his place; the band took him up on the offer. That guy was Vic Chestnutt, who was still fairly new in town but would go on to become the most beloved song-poet on the Athens scene as well as achieve international acclaim. Chestnutt, who had serious medical issues, died in 2009 while in a coma after overdosing on muscle relaxants.

7. Steve Martin Doing Stand-Up At the The Last Resort

The Last Resort was a downtown nightclub in the late 1960s and '70s, a rare thing in Athens at the time. It was a tour stop for many acts of the day. Steve Martin did his wild and crazy guy schtick there before he became mega famous. The Last Resort still stands, but today it's a fancy restaurant.

8. Community Trolls

Community Trolls was an Athens group in the early 1980s that few people realize even ever existed, but the band has a Wikipedia page for some reason. That's probably because it consisted of Michael Stipe and Matthew Sweet. The "Trolls," as no one refers to them ever, never released an album but apparently played a couple of sidewalk shows. That was before Sweet got a major label record deal and dusted Athens off his heels. Stipe went on to work in the film industry.

9. The Original Tree That Owns Itself

One of Athens most well-known and quirkiest attractions is "The Tree That Owns Itself." But it's not the original tree that was deeded to itself in the 19th-century. That one fell in 1942. The new tree in the exact same location came from an acorn of the fallen tree, making it "The Son of the Tree That Owns Itself."

10. Covered Bridges Connecting It To The Rest Of The World

Covered bridges once connected Athens to the rest of Georgia and the world, with major spans crossing the rivers and creeks that flow past both sides of town. When the bridges became obsolete they were either destroyed or moved to other locations. One is now inside Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta, the other crosses Rose Creek just south of Watkinsville.

11. Elite Debate Societies Shooting At Each Other On Campus

On North Campus there's a mysterious looking old brick building, built in 1836, with no windows in front. It's Phi Kappa Hall, home to an elite campus debate society. The windows were bricked up because Phi Kappa's rivals from across the quad—the Demosthenians—kept shooting them out.

12. The Love Shack

A group of tourists once pulled alongside a local and asked him for directions to the love shack that the B-52s sang about in the band's mega hit from 1989. The local gladly directed them down the Atlanta Highway towards a love getaway, but the ramshackle house purported to be the love shack burned down in 2004. The tourists would've probably ended up at the mall, anyway.

13. Twenty-Five Cent Beer At Allen's

Speaking of the B-52s, in the song "Deadbeat Club" they sang about "going down to Allen's for a 25 cent beer." Allen's was a famous hamburger joint founded in 1955. The former governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, flipped burgers there as a student. It closed in 2004 and the building was later razed.

14. Naval Officers And Townies Hanging Out Together At Foxz Tavern

Athens was once a Navy town, even though it's nowhere near the coast. Between 1954 and 2010, it was home to the Navy Supply Corps School, where all supply corps officers were trained. The school was located in the Normaltown neighborhood. Also in Normaltown, underneath Allen's, was a hole-in-the-wall lesbian dive bar called Foxz Tavern. You could always find an assorted cast of characters at Foxz, including naval officers looking for cheap beer and good times.

15. The Varsity Directly Across From Campus

This legendary Georgia fast food joint has been in Athens since 1932. What new timers may not realize is that for 40 years there was a location downtown across from the arch on Broad Street. The Varsity is still on Broad, but now about a mile west of downtown, far away from campus at the intersection with Milledge Ave. "What'll ya have?"

16. The Iron Horse

In the mid-1950s, an abstract iron sculpture of a horse was placed on the UGA campus. Apparently, students didn't appreciate or understand this work of modern art, so they tried to burn it, urinated on it and spray painted it. It was removed from campus, and Athens, and today sits in the middle of a pasture in Greene County about 30 minutes south of town.

17. Widespread Panic At The Uptown Lounge

In the mid-1980s, the Uptown Lounge was the hippest music club in town. It's where Widespread Panic started out, as the weekly house band. Seeing the list of bands that played there is like reading a Who's-Who of '80s and '90s alt-rock. In the mid-'90s the space became home to the Atomic Music Hall and the nastiest bathrooms in the world. Today, it's home to the Copper Creek Brewing Company. Happy drinking!

18. Thrasher's Grocery... And Those Biscuits

Maybe the biscuits and gravy weren't as good as everyone remembers, or maybe they were. Time plays tricks on your memory. But Thrasher's Grocery was, in its early days, a real-deal neighborhood corner grocery store. Before it closed for good it still served food over the counter but the grocery selection was a small, odd assortment of staples covered in dust. Today, the building houses the White Tiger Gourmet restaurant.

19. Parties At Stitch Craft

Across the street from the church where R.E.M. played its first gig stood an old sewing factory where the band also played, along with many other legendary acts from Athens and points beyond, such as the Replacements. Like the former church, the site now serves as a parking lot for student condos.

20. Ort Without A Gray Beard

Athens' beloved lover of craft beer, spinner of tunes and walking encyclopedia of the arcane, William Orten Carlton—Ort—is still a man about town, but that dark beard has given way to gray. And he seems all the wiser for it. Forget about that dude in the stupid Mexican beer commercial, Ort is the most interesting man in the world ... or at least in Athens.

21. Tyrone's Unpaid Bar Tabs

Tyrone's O.C. was one of the few real music clubs in town when the "scene" began to take off. R.E.M. and Pylon played there often. Then the club burned down in 1982. Legend has it that many unpaid bar tabs were incinerated in the fire, including those of certain members of the two aforementioned bands.

22. Cindy Wilson And Kate Pierson Working At El Dorado

The gals from the B-52s used to work at El Dorado, a restaurant in the historic Morton Theatre building downtown that later became the first location of the Bluebird Cafe, a legendary vegetarian restaurant that also no longer exists.

23. Powerhouse Eggs At The Bluebird

Speaking of the Bluebird, a staple of my breakfast/brunch diet used to be the Powerhouse Eggs —a soy-sauced seasoned heaping of scrambled eggs topped with nutritional yeast and melted white cheddar. It was best accompanied by a whole wheat biscuit on the side laden with apple butter from the squirt bottle on the table.

24. A National Championship

Yes, I just went there. It's been since 1980 since the Dawgs have won a national championship in football and it doesn't seem likely to happen again anytime soon under Richt unless UGA can bring back Herschel Walker to get the job done. Just FYI: I'd love to be proven wrong on this one.

25. The Jesters Playing Smooth Grooves

Long before there was an "Athens Music Scene" there was the Jesters. This nine-person party band formed in 1964 and lasted for 50 years before calling it quits in May of 2014 with a farewell concert at the Georgia Theater.

26. Rocky's Pizzeria

This pizzeria had an authentic, Italian cafe vibe due to its location in a historic building and it was a fixture downtown from the early 1980s until the early aughts attracting college kids, families and the business lunch crowd. An Italian restaurant opened in the same location in 2004. The new owners decided to restore a popular feature of the old Rocky's: the toy train circling high above the main dining room.

27. Walter's Bar-B-Q

This is one of those spots that hardcore R.E.M fans want to see when they come to town for the first time, because the band did a jingle for Walter's that ended up on their outtakes album "Dead Letter Office." Walter's pit cooked fare is long gone, but the 1950s-era brick and glass building with rounded corners is still there, and numerous other businesses have occupied the space since.

28. Barnett's Newsstand

The Internet officially won in 2008 when this longtime downtown newsstand closed down. It was an old-school style news stand with papers from multiple cities on a stand out front and aisles of magazines and fading paperback books inside accented by the smell of pipe tobacco. It was also the go-to spot in town for cheap candy.

29. The Potter's House Thrift Store On Prince

When this thrift store moved just outside the perimeter from its longtime location at the intersection of Prince and Barber, Athens' hipster nexus point, to make way for the expansion of a church, townies and starving artists had to actually get in their cars (or bum a ride) to go furniture and wardrobe shopping. Or, make the longer walk to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore just down Barber.

30. The Carafe And Draft

The Georgia Theatre wasn't always the Georgia Theatre, nor was it always one of the most prominent music venues in town. For a good portion of the '80s it was a dreary movie house called the Carafe and Draft. Because they served wine and beer, get it? What do you miss in Athens? Tell us in the comments below!