This endangered commercial block reflects the reality of hundreds of once-thriving communities in Georgia. Plainfield, located northeast of Eastman, is hard to find unless you’re looking for it, but in the early 20th century it was the center of a booming turpentine business.
This store had the coolest old Coca Cola Fountain machine in it when Mr. Lee ownwd the store. Use to go there with Math Parkerson the barber and electrician from Chester. I think his wife and Mr. Lee was brother and sister. From what I have been told Coca-Cola bought that old fountain for quiet a bit of money from his widow after he passed.
My Father was born and raised here. He was born in 1912. His mother was a Phillips.
Hello, Brian,
Thanks for sharing this series today. I’m not familiar with Plainfield, but assume it’s in or near Dodge County, which I believe is home to Eastman. My family’s wholesale business had a longtime good customer there, Coleman Hardware, so I am a little bit familiar with the area.
I have seen many old buildings like this in small towns across GA, SC & FL, as I think I have told you before. They always make me wish I could peer inside, in Time, and see what would have been during their heydays.
I have just started a book I came across some time back and put on the shelf for later reading. “Let Us Build Us a City,” by Donald Harrington. It’s the history of eleven small towns in Arkansas that once aspired to become “cities,” but for various reasons never got there. (An appendix in the back lists towns with “City” in their names, by state, some of which (asterisked) no longer have any residents.) I’m only in the first story, about the City of Sulphur Springs, AR, but it’s starting off interestingly.
Rafe Semmes Midway GA