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It is not rare for the Troup County Archive to get “donations,” or collections of documents and items from residents. Sometimes the items are of high significance to the county’s history, but sometimes they are significant to the person donating. 

“Our history, it’s so important. I just felt like this was more Troup County property than it was my property,” said Judge A.E. “Danny” Daniel. 

Weighing what is historical and what is sentimental is the difficult job of the archivists. What passes is enshrined in the archive for people to use for research. This balance was exemplified on Thursday when Daniel donated items from his law career that were both sentimental and historical.  

Executive Director, Shannon Johnson, and Manuscripts Archivist, Randall Allen, waited for the judge in the museum portion of the main street building. Allen was ready with a cart and intake form, not knowing the size of a donation until it was brought in. Daniel ended up with a crate full of a few items, both important to him and the history of the county. 

“I thought I’d just go back in time and tell you a little bit of my own history of myself,” Daniel said. 

The judge is a native of LaGrange and attended LaGrange High School. He played in the inaugural game at Callaway Stadium in 1959, as a member of the Grangers football team. 

“The old stadium was actually a baseball field, and I remember playing in that old stadium, and you’d be running along, you’d run over the pitcher’s mound,” Daniel laughed. 

His father was from LaGrange as well and met Daniel’s mother at LaGrange College. His grandfather owned a bottle company, Cherry Cola Bottling Company, which was down the street from the archives. 

He left Troup to attend North Georgia Military Academy, before finishing at the University of Georgia. After getting a law degree from Mercer and meeting his wife Margie, Daniel was commissioned into the Judge Advocate General’s Office (JAG). He practiced law in the military for a few years before he got a call from back home. 

Joseph C. Jackson was a superior court judge. At the time, there were concerns about the justices of the peace abusing their authority, around the state of Georgia. According to Daniel, Jackson he was instrumental in writing the legislature to create the Small Claims Court. 

“[Jackson] said, ‘Danny, we have created a small claims court, and [Troup’s] going to be on a pilot program. There are three other counties that will have this program…would you run for office?’,” Daniel recalled.

While unsure originally, the JAG officer came to a decision with help from his wife. 

“We decided that it would be the thing for me to do to start my career when I came back here to LaGrange,” Daniel said. 

He was sworn into office in 1973. One of the items he donated is his oath signed by the then Georgia Governor, Jimmy Carter, and his executive secretary and one of Daniel’s fraternity brothers, Hamilton Jordan. Other items now in the archive are clippings from the LaGrange Daily News of Daniel’s being sworn in, following the creation of the court. 

The new court was a pilot program and aimed to replace or work alongside the justice of the peace court, depending on the county. At the time it had jurisdiction for claims up to $5,000. In the 1980s the court was renamed to the Magistrate Court, and the jurisdiction was expanded to hear claims up to $15,000. 

“In my opinion, the Magistrates Court is one of the most important in our county, because it is a grassroots program where people can come without an attorney and represent themselves,” Daniel explained. 

At the time of its inception, the court heard all sorts of claims, from automobile claims to paternity lawsuits. 

“I call it the People’s Court…The Rules of Evidence have been relaxed considerably so that you don’t have to be as technical in the court. And I think it’s a wonderful thing that in our country, that we have these liberties,” Daniel said. 

Daniel’s box of items also contained some family history. His grandfather had been a justice of the peace. When the younger Daniel took office, he was given a tome complete with every Georgia law and statute at the time. On the front cover is signed, ‘A.E. Daniel, Sr. 1947-1962,’ noting when the senior Daniel served. Underneath is another A.E. Daniel, but with a ‘III’ next to it. 

He also gifted his grandfather’s gavel to the Archive, which he used as a small claims court judge. A nameplate and a leather-bound anthology of some of the first Georgia Supreme Court rulings completed the collection. 

Together all of these items tell a story of Daniel, but also of Troup County. They are primary sources for the creation of the Georgia Magistrate Court. 

“Lagrange had been so good to me,” Daniel said. “So I wanted to leave this little part of my history of Troup county [for] somebody, someday, maybe my family or my grandchild…they can come by here and look and see what I might have been involved in.”

The judge wanted to highlight the role the archive has in preserving the history of his hometown. 

“I think it’s important for us to look back at history because by looking back at history, we understand a lot of what has happened to us today,” he said. 

Before wheeling the box of treasures to be cataloged, Allen said, “It can be frustrating sometimes for us because people don’t come in tomorrow and want to see it. We have to look at the long-range…That’s why it’s so important to keep it. [It] may not be used tomorrow, may not be used next year, but somewhere down the line, it’s going to be important.