It’s been quite awhile since I visited Berlin (BUR-luhn) down in Colquitt County, but I’m told most of the old buildings I photographed are still standing. This one, which featured in another one of my Berlin photographs from 2013, has quite the history. The architectural style [shotgun] leads me to believe it was originally a general store of one kind or another, but it’s best remembered as General Browning’s barber shop. Wes Carter wrote to say that there was a red, white, and blue barber pole out front. More recently, it served as the Berlin Diner, whose faded sign is barely visible here. Surveys I consulted date the building to 1950, but I think it’s at least 20 years older.
I lived down the street from this building from June 1986 to June 1989. I recall that a family lived in the old Berlin Diner, which had a faded sign even then.
I grew maybe 2 miles outside of Berlin and the good memories from Mr. Noah Browning telling you to sit down on the bus while waving his hand to Mr. Jim Croft running off of the road screaming at us to “sit down”