They also found a pinkish-red stain in the corner of the girls’ dressing room that the State claimed as blood but Frank claimed to be red varnish. Furthermore, Lee, who the police initially suspected, revealed that Frank called after leaving the factory to verify that “everything was all right,” an out-of-the-ordinary move. He claimed that he stayed in his office for at least twenty minutes after Phagan left, but another factory worker, Monteen Stover, claimed she did not see him when she picked up her pay shortly after. The next morning, the police contacted Frank and began to find evidence against him. The time in between him paying her and the factory’s watchman Newt Lee finding her body in the basement, abused both physically and possibly sexually, offers the deepest mystery and the news of her death sparked outrage in the public. Frank, the last person to see her alive, paid her wages. The young Mary Phagan poses for a photograph.Ĭonfederate Memorial Day, with plans to attend the parade later in the day. Phagan, born on Jto tenant farmer parents who moved to Marietta from Alabama to capitalize on the financial success of the city, set out to pick up her weekly pay from the National Pencil Company downtown on the afternoon of Courtesy of the Leo Frank Research Library. Phagan’s grave, located in the Marietta Confederate Cemetery, stands tall with kids toys at the base brought by local citizens. However, the haunting memories of the case still lie beneath the new construction, serving as an omnipresent reminder of the power of regional division and warning a new generation of the dangers of mob mentality.
The City of Marietta placed a historical marker at the site of the lynching, 1200 Roswell Road, in 2008, but removed it in 2014 due to construction, and Waffle House built a location on the site in 2016. Phagan’s death stirred a controversy that spurred on two years of judicial proceedings, culminating in the 1915 lynching of Jewish factory superintendent Leo Frank by Marietta citizens and increasing levels of anti-Semitism and xenophobia that characterized the South until the end of the Civil Rights movement.Īs Marietta approaches the 104th anniversary of Phagan’s death, the story of Frank and Phagan lives on in museums and history books, but fall out of the minds of local citizens. The police will find her body, battered and lifeless, in the basement of the factory later that night. The Confederate Memorial Parade will occur tonight, gathering the town together, but Phagan will miss the very event that brought her to town. The day, April 26, 1913, marks Confederate Memorial Day and the thirteen year old Mary Phagan heads to the National Pencil Company in Atlanta to pick up her weekly pay of $1.20 ($29.55 in today’s dollar for her twelve hours of work). Lyrics from Alfred Uhry’s Parade, the Broadway musical about the Leo Frank case, proclaim “the dream of Atlanta.”Ī cool spring breeze wafts over the town of Marietta as the air buzzes with excitement. Warning: This story contains sensitive information and pictures that may be inappropriate for some readers.