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'Stunning': Macon Bicentennial Committee unveils 3D documentary dive into city's history

The first installment, called 'Origins,' explores the history of the Muscogee Creek people.

MACON, Ga. — Macon is celebrating a big birthday in 2023. It's turning 200!

Friday, the Macon-Bibb Bicentennial Committee continued a year of celebrations with a screening of a 3D film projected right onto the Macon City Auditorium. Many people may be used to the arts happening inside the auditorium, but the bicentennial committee sees its walls of columns as a blank canvas.

With a drum roll and a light show, the committee began a series of presentations thousands of years in the 'Macon.'

"The technology was stunning," said Suzanne Doonan, who came out to watch the show.

The purpose was to help Maconites learn more about the city's history.

"To give greater understanding of Macon's rich history, all the way back to the first inhabitants of this special place on the banks of the Ocmulgee River," Alex Haversham explained to the crowd.

Haversham is on the committee. The inhabitants he spoke about are the Muscogee Creek people. 'Origins' focuses on them, and there's a reason for it.

"To truly tell the story of Macon-Bibb, you have to tell the story of the people who were here first," Tracie Revis, the storyboard consultant, said. "So, my ancestors were here for thousands of years."

The Muscogee Nation called this area home for 17,000 years before Macon was founded. The film, made with 'state-of-the-art technology,' takes people back to a time when Macon was a thriving Muscogee capital city. Then, it takes the audience on a journey from their forced removal from their ancestral lands, to the first buildings rising up in downtown Macon in the 1820s.

"All of that done with no words. It was all visual. And very dramatic, and very artistically presented. It was thrilling," Doonan said about the debut.

This was just the first part. They plan to have even more installments that will take the audience up to the present day.

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