I believe the Williamson’s (Williamson) Mill precinct house was the last such structure built by Ben Hill County. The area is also known as the Salem Community, but the precinct was always known as Williamson’s Mill. If I recall correctly, all of these rural precincts have now been abandoned. Earlier examples were of wood frame construction.
The area takes it name from the Williamson family, who operated a shingle mill and founded Salem Baptist Church.
Identifying this school in my hometown has been a bit of a challenge. When I worked at the Fitzgerald-Ben Hill County Library in high school in the 1980s, I assisted on the Bookmobile and we regularly stopped beside this building and it was referred to as the Callie Garbutt School, likely due to its proximity to the church of the same name. It was not in use as a school at that time and may have been a neighborhood resource center.
It’s the fourth and final school to have been built in Fitzgerald’s cotton mill village. Two small schools originally served the area and were replaced circa 1910-1915 by a stone veneer building known simply as the Cotton Mill School. This structure, in the Mid-Century Modern or International Style, opened in 1957.
Our friend at the Georgia High School Basketball Project who knows these schools better than anyone I know did some digging and shared the following history:
This was built as Hunter Elementary. It was not an equalization school.
Closing seems to have been in 1965, or within a year or two of that. It was a Ben Hill County School. Fitzgerald still had its own city system then.
The name was previously Cotton Mill, but almost assuredly changed in 1957 when the Macon News confirmed the new building opened.
Looking at the state school directories, the building was possibly named for the Ben Hill County school superintendent, J.C. Hunter. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard of one of the new school buildings named for a superintendent.
I’m shocked it was actually built.
Hunter was four classrooms. The state was normally not into building schools that small. Hunter was close enough to have gone to another county school or for the county to have made arrangements with a city school.
It was grades 1-8 in 1964-65. I can’t find any articles in available online papers on its closure, but the state would have been pressuring Ben Hill to close it at the very least because there were four teachers for eight grades.
The old Hunter building housed a Headstart program in 1980. It had been remodeled in 1972 to educate mentally challenged students.
This church in the Fitzgerald Cotton Mill was named for Callie Belle Phillips Garbutt (1869-1940), who, with her husband Moses Wadley Garbutt (1869-1937), came to Fitzgerald from Emanuel County. The Garbutt family were prominent entrepreneurs involved in many of the businesses that dominated the economic backbone of South Georgia at the turn of the last century, including timber, cotton mills, and real estate. Though I haven’t been able to locate a history of the congregation, the property was likely given to the church by the Garbutt family and therefore named for Mrs. Garbutt.
Callie Garbutt Baptist Church was established in 1907 and the first church building was of typical wood frame construction, as best I can discern. The present structure was built in 1978; it was designed by John Dennis, Jr., who was the third generation of a prominent Macon architecture firm.
This house has always beckoned me to stop and make photographs, and I made these in 2011. It’s a classic single-pen tenant house, complete with “tar paper” to keep cold out of the cracks in winter. The last time I checked, it was still standing, albeit in worse condition. I’ve often encountered a wake of buzzards perched on the roof, and once even scared a bunch from inside the house. In my notes, I call it the Buzzard House.
The Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus) is one of Georgia’s most beautiful butterflies, easily distinguished from other swallowtails by its long greenish-white and black pattern, said to be reminiscent of a zebra. It also has notably longer tails than other swallowtails in Georgia. They can be found in numerous environments, and are occasionally even spotted in yards, but most commonly gather in overgrazed pastures and roadsides. This individual was photographed in August 2009 on Dickson Mill Pond Road, not far from the Ocmulgee River. Someone who knows plants better than I do may be able to confirm, but I believe it’s feeding on a Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis). Swallowtails are known to have an affinity for a variety of milkweeds.
I have never been able to identify this early-20th-century structure, located in the extreme eastern section of Ben Hill County, near Macedonia Baptist Church. Obviously, it has been used as a barn for many years, but the architecture would suggest some other original purpose. My best guess is that it was a schoolhouse, but it could have also been a church or even a store. The photograph dates to circa 2012, and I’m not sure if the building is still standing.
This structure takes the concept of the curtain wall, a popular Mid-Century commercial building style, and prefabricates it into a smaller form. Numerous companies, including Fentron and PPG, made colorful panels for use in this type of architecture, but I imagine the company that created this curiosity was just doing ready-made kits. For most of my life, this was a beauty salon and it was located just a few blocks from my grandmother’s house. It always reminded me of the Partridge Family.
It has been here since at least the early 1970s, if not earlier, and looks much as it did 50 years ago, except for the intrusive addition of the roof. The original roof was flat, which gave the building a much more modern appearance. I suspect the roof was added to protect the building. It no longer serves a commercial purpose and is now used for storage, if I understand correctly.
I don’t know what kind of preservation can be done with places like this, but it’s certainly an eye-catching relic, reminiscent of a very progressive era of American architecture.
This Craftsman townhouse was home for nearly 50 years to Foster Goolsby (1922-2016) and Frances Taylor Goolsby (1920-2011) and their family, and I had many pleasurable visits on this porch, in the shade of the two big magnolia trees that dominate the front yard.
Foster Goolsby was a B-17 pilot in World War II who had a penchant for telling amazing stories, and he didn’t mind telling anyone how much he hated Fitzgerald’s wild chickens, for their habit of destroying his wife’s flower beds. A Talbot County native, he came to Fitzgerald while serving as headmaster of Irwin Academy, after being principal of at least seven schools prior to his move. He was also superintendent of the Valdosta City Schools for 10 years. In addition to this work, he served for over 40 years as chairman of the board of the Georgia Accrediting Commission.
Frances was born in Elberton and was a genteel Southern lady of another era. A consummate hostess and homemaker, she was well known for her award winning flower arrangements and her time with the Magnolia Garden Club.
I don’t have information on who built the house at the moment, but will update at some point. I’ve identified it as the Goolsby House for their long association with the property.
I made these photographs in 2016 at the invitation of Al Johnson and the house was staged for sale at the time. The beautiful interior design work was done by Lisa Davis Eldridge. The house now has new owners.
It was amazing to see the house restored. I know the Goolsbys would be proud to see what it has become.
It’s a great example of what can be done with historic properties. The Craftsman style endures as one of the most practical and adaptable forms of American architecure.
The Victorian aesthetic of the cemetery as a public park was falling out of fashion by the time Evergreen Cemetery was established, but Fitzgerald embraced the ideal, planting trees and shrubs to enhance the landscape. Part of the park concept often included pavilions for public remembrances. Such remembrances were commonplace in the years just after World War I, when this Craftsman-inspired structure was built. At the time, Evergreen was a much smaller cemetery than it is today, and funeral services were sometimes held here, as well.
I inherited this photograph of the newly built pavilion from the daughter of the man standing beside it. They were distant cousins of mine. Needham John Trammell (1863-1938) was the sexton of Evergreen Cemetery during the 1910s and 1920s and he was charged with its upkeep and the recording of burials. I believe the photograph was made in 1924 (it’s one of several), but will have to locate more paperwork to confirm a specific date. I’ll update when I do.
I also have several volumes of his sexton’s monthly reports, covering most of the 1920s. This page indicates there were only two burials in April 1922.
As the preceding vintage photograph illustrates, the pavilion didn’t have the louvered sides when built. They were added for shade, no doubt.
The pavilion continues to be well-maintained and has become a symbol of Evergreen Cemetery over the years.
This Colonial Revival post office was always one of my favorite buildings when I was growing up. It was built in 1918 to replace the old granitoid post office that stood a block east on the corner of Central Avenue and Main Street. It was based on plans of James A. Wetmore, Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department. There were variations of Wetmore’s plans, and hundreds of similar or identical structures were built throughout the country. There’s a “twin” to the Fitzgerald post office in Barnesville, and there are likely others in Georgia. When a new post office was built on Main Street [opened in 1966], this structure became known as the Federal Building and still houses federal and county offices.
An aside: Alvin G. Brown (1876-1955) was the face of the post office for many years, an ambassador if you will, serving as a mail carrier from 1909-1941 and known in earlier years for using a horse and canopied mail wagon. His father was an original Fitzgerald colonist from Iowa. Brown also served a brief term as Fitzgerald mayor, if I recall correctly. I know he ran for mayor because somewhere I have a card from the campaign, showing him on his mail wagon.
Swan Postmasters, 1888-1895: Benjamin Drew, 1888-1891; William O. McKeithen, 1891-1892; Missouri A. Ford,1892; Kate Drew, 1892-1893; and David Drew, 1893-1895.
Fitzgerald Postmasters 1895-1978: David Drew, 1895-1897; David E. Peiper, 1897-1900; James William Huggins, 1900-1901; William H. Marston, 1901-1911; Eleanor M. Marston, (Acting Postmaster), 1911; George E. Ricker, 1911-1915; William A. Adams, 1915-1940; James Jarratt Pryor, 1940-1964; Clifford A. Pickens, 1964-1973; Baney R. Adams, 1973-1978; Idaleen C. Callis, 1978; John J. Wiggins, 1978-
Fitzgerald Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places