These two businesses are long gone, but their names survive. E. A. Burke is located on the left; Shivers & Kelley is on the right.
Historic Storefronts, Vidette
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown
Since 2008. A visual survey of Georgia's historic architecture and culture. 9,000 locations. 30,000 images.
I linked this post into one of mine: https://neatnik2009.wordpress.com/2019/06/05/abandoned-storefronts-vidette-georgia/.
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I lived in Vidette from 1980 to 1982, when I was seven, eight, and nine years old. My father was the pastor of the United Methodist Church there. The buildings were empty then. They might even have looked very much as they do in this photograph.
In the federal census of 2010 Vidette had a population of 112, which was probably what the town had in the early 1980s. The fact that the town had been more populous active was evident then in many ways, from the existence of abandoned stores to the remnants of the railroad to the fact that Vidette UMC could sit more people (with room to spare) than lived in the town.
By the way, do you know where the old Vidette High School (long gone before my time) was? My best guess is that it was across the street from the (now demolished) UM parsonage (https://neatnik2009.wordpress.com/2017/06/28/site-of-the-former-parsonage-vidette-united-methodist-church-vidette-georgia/), hardly a showcase house in the early 1980s. The tale-tale semi-circular driveway of the house across the street, combined with that lot being adjacent to the town park, prompts me to say this.
My mother graduated from Vidette High School in 1942 she is sitting beside me now and 98 years old. The school was next door to Rose Dhu Cemetery. The Gym was built about 1940 (she was on basketball team)Coming down that road was the gym then the school then the cemetery (her parents and most of her family are buried there McBrides)
Thank you for sharing that information. I have vague memories of the cemetery. I had also guessed the location of the school, based on satellite images.
excuse me, the book title was “The Little Lame Prince.” gah! on me.
Many years ago while on one of our Sunday ramblings, my family stopped at Vidette. There were a couple more businesses attached to the ones pictured here, and one of them had lots and lots of books, many of them quite old. We picked up a few hardbacks for next to nothing by today’s standards, maybe 50 cents each. I still have the one my dad let me choose, “The Little Prince.” Those Sunday ramblings nurtured a love and fascination for local history and hatched my tendency to ‘brake for historical markers/places.”