The village of Avalon is hard to distinguish from nearby Martin, Georgia, today, but it was once a settlement unto itself. The two communities are less than a mile and a half apart. Richard Dempsey Yow (1844-1899) founded the community in 1880, when a post office named Avalon was opened, though most sources date the founding to 1882. Yow and his brother, Thomas Russell Yow (1855-1922), ran a successful mercantile here. [It may have been in the building pictured here, but I have been unable to confirm at this time.] Cooper and Meier were other merchants associated with this structure. The post office located in this block closed in 1955, long past Avalon’s prime, but this village, named for the island of Arthurian lore, hasn’t completely disappeared.