Did you know that Gone With the Wind was originally to be called Tomorrow Is Another Day? And that when it came out it sold 600,000 copies for an unprecedented $3.00 each?
These facts are found in Editor Frank Weimar’s column A Little Ado About Something by A. Hick in the Alto Herald of February 18, 1937, even before the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
I never knew Mr. Weimar well, but I was a little surprised to find him following the news about the book and the casting of the movie in his column throughout the years 1937-1940. He had definite opinions on which actress should not play the part of Scarlett, and how the cast should be coached in Southern speech.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Alto had a special connection with Gone With the Wind, because Alto had a special connection with Margaret Mitchell. The author’s grandfather, Russell Crawford Mitchell practiced law in Alto before the Civil War. He came here after meeting Robert Mitchell, founder of the town, on the stagecoach coming to Texas from Georgia. Although they could not prove a kinship he and Robert Mitchell became such close friends that many years later Russell named a son for Robert.
When War broke out, Russell Crawford Mitchell was quick to organize a company of soldiers but when the company voted to go to Missouri, Mitchell resigned and joined the First Texas Infantry because he wanted to go to Virginia where the fighting was. He was seriously wounded at the battle of Sharpsburg (known in the North as Antietam) and taken back to Atlanta to recover. He had always intended to go back to back to Texas, but military government made that difficult, especially for lawyers, as the courts were closed.
In a letter expressly written for publication in the Herald, Miss Mitchell says “he finally gave up the idea of returning to Texas. He had loved the little town of Alto. In the 1870’s he acquired a considerable body of timber land about 80 miles northeast of Atlanta and laid out a little town he named Alto.”
In another letter, to the Fort Worth Press, Miss Mitchell says “I have never been to Texas but I have always hoped to see it someday.” Her dream was not realized, as she was killed in a car accident in 1949.
The movie finally got to Alto May 16, 1940 but not before several local citizens, including the Thursday Study Club as a group, had “jumped the gun” by going to Dallas or Tyler to see it. In Alto there were two showings on Thursday and two on Friday. The matinee tickets were open seating at the regular price of 25 cents, but evening showings were all reserved seats at $1.20.
The Study Club used the book for its study in March 1940, and later reviewed the biography of Margaret Mitchell in January of 1966.
To read Margaret Mitchell’s letter, which gives a lot more detail about her grandfather’s life, go to the second page of the February 25, 1937 issue of the Alto Herald. And breathe a word of thanks to the Tocker Foundation for making it possible.