Athens Sister City collection

Evangelos C. Terzopoulos was an artist, writer, and photographer. In addition, he was also the editor of Greece’s first women’s magazine. He visited the United States in the spring of 1955 as part of the U.S. State Department’s international educational exchange program. Besides visiting Athens, Georgia, Terzopoulos visited New Orleans, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; San Francisco, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Chicago, Illinois.

Terzopoulos visited Athens and Atlanta, Georgia, March 23-27, 1955. At ceremonies on the first day, March 23, Terzopoulos presented the city of Athens with a skyphos circa 2,600 B.C. (a clay drinking cup; created using a low-fire glazing process), shards related to the skyphos, and a gold coin. He was made a citizen of Athens, Georgia, and honorary mayor. Over the next few days, he toured Athens and the University of Georgia, presented the Athens Regional Library with the book Eternal Greece, and traveled with Mayor Wells to Atlanta to meet the governor, Marvin Griffin, and Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield.

Upon his return to Greece, Terzopoulos reported on his trip via his magazine, radio, and other media outlets. The people of Greece sent invitations to towns in the United States that shared Greek city names, and in the summer of 1956, Athens mayor Jack R. Wells led a group of thirty-eight U.S. mayors and their families on a good-will tour of Greece. In addition to Wells, Tony Galis, his wife, and son Costas also represented Athens, Georgia on the trip.

The Athens Banner-Herald ran several stories related to the trip, including one on local silversmith, Ann Orr, who created a bowl to be presented to Queen Frederika of Greece. The people of Athens also raised money to buy a station wagon to be presented to the queen to assist in orphanage work. Other Athens businesses and individuals contributed materials to be given as gifts to the people of Athens, including the Thomas Textile Co. that sent a donation of clothing to one of the orphanages.

The skyphos was installed at the Athens-Clarke County Library in 1957 and remained there until the move to Baxter Street. A second gold coin was added to the collection in 1996, when a reception commemorating the first visit with the then mayor of Athens, Greece was held as part of the Spirit of Athens celebration.