Augusta has a hard time remembering its birthday

... Well situated in a pleasant, healthy part of the country.

-- Early description of Augusta

I didn't know whether you knew it, but today is Augusta's birthday.

In a letter dated June 14, 1736, Georgia founder James Oglethorpe ordered authorities to lay out a town up here on the biggest, flattest, driest patch of land along the Savannah River between the rapids and the ocean.

Over the years a variety of historic associations tried to get our town into the habit of celebrating each June 14, tying it in with Flag Day and the birthday of the U.S. Army, but it never seemed to catch on.

In 1739, the general came by to see what the town he'd created looked like. He rode in via the old Creek Indian trail -- what we now call Wrightsboro Road. His party was greeted with a musket salute, and he was generally pleased.

One of Oglethorpe's party described Augusta as a town "inhabited chiefly by Indian storekeepers and traders ... well situated in a pleasant, healthy part of the country."

Oglethorpe probably could have left more of an impact on his new metropolis, but he stayed only 10 days before hurrying home when he heard Britain was at war with Spain.

He left the town with a growth plan, but Augusta civic leaders being ... well, Augusta civic leaders, didn't follow it.

For one thing, he wanted the city to grow by adding squares, like Savannah.

Augustans appear to have thought such open parks a waste of prime real estate and filled them in with buildings. Also, instead of growing to the south toward what was then a swamp, Augusta construction went west down Broad Street for a financial reason -- the merchants kept "leapfrogging" each other toward the Creek and Cherokee Indian trails west of town, wanting to be the first store that traders came upon when they arrived from the west with fresh furs.

Though we didn't follow Oglethorpe's vision, we certainly tried to make it up to him. In May 1935, Augusta held an elaborate, weeklong bicentennial.

It was by all accounts an elaborate affair, with pageants, parades, dances and contests. There was even an official poem.

Central to the event was a dramatic recreation of Oglethorpe's arrival two centuries before.

In this dramatic version, he was greeted by Indians as his boat came up the Savannah River. He then haggled with them over possession of the land before claiming this spot. (Think of it as Columbia Discovers America meets the Purchase of Manhattan Island.)

Everyone who remembers the event, enjoyed it, but as Augusta's celebrated historian, the late Ed Cashin, liked to point out, not only did Oglethorpe come by horseback, not boat, but we celebrated the 200th anniversary the wrong year.

With our history of getting dates wrong, it's no wonder the June 14 birthday party never caught on.

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.