Category Archives: Crawfordville GA

Last Supper Mural, 1980s, Crawfordville

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This easily overlooked landmark is actually a manufactured image, made for Hollywood, but nonetheless has become a symbol of the town for me.

As a work of art, it’s a grand interpretation of the folk art religious signs once found on fence posts and roadside messages once found throughout the American South.

The artist Joey Potter contacted me and said: I painted this mural on the train depot wall in the early 1980s when I was a scenic for cinema and stage…for the movies Stars and Bars and Home Fires Burning…

As the detail views attest, the mural is fading into oblivion.

The depot itself appears to be highly endangered, though the owner has placed a new roof on it, so there may be hope for its future. In The Courthouse and the Depot (Mercer University Press, Macon, 2002) Wilber W. Caldwell identifies it as a depot of the Georgia Railroad. The combination of the broad eaves, the gentle curve of the roof and the distinctive broken based pediment is unique to depots built on the Georgia Railroad in the 1880s and early 1890s.

The depot is posted so please do not attempt to trespass here.

Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Chapman-Steed House, Circa 1895, Crawfordville

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In the nomination form for the individual listing of this home on the National Register of Historic Places, the contributor wrote: The Chapman-Steed House is significant in architecture because it is an excellent and highly intact example of the Georgian House type in residential architecture in a small town setting. It retains its character-defining overall form and floor plan as well as many of its original exterior and interior building materials. According to Georgia’s Living Places: Historic Houses in their Landscaped Settings, a statewide context, the Georgian house is an important historic house type in Georgia.
The two-story Georgian house is less numerous than the one-story Georgian cottage, but it was also popular from the first decades of the 19th century into the 20th century. Most examples of the type were built in larger towns and cities. While the Chapman-Steed House does not contain high-style ornamentation, it retains most of its original materials including its chimneys, stone piers, truncated hipped roof, full-facade, two-story front porch, doors, windows, stairway, and fireplaces with original mantels. Indeed the absence of applied stylistic ornamentation makes this house an excellent and clear example of the Georgian House type. The house was the home to two generations of a locally prominent family who were an integral part of the activities of this county-seat town. The builder and owner, W. C. Chapman , born 1866, built the house shortly after his marriage. Known as “Chapman
the Grocer,” he ran a grocery in Crawfordville for many years. The house passed to his daughter, Mary Lela Steed, who was a public school teacher for forty-two years in Crawfordville. The house left the family in 1991.

National Register of Historic Places [individual listing] + Crawfordville Historic District [contributing structure]

Vernacular Neoclassical House, Crawfordville

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I’ve always liked this home, located across the street from the courthouse in Crawfordville. It’s difficult to classify, at least for me, but those with more knowledge have identified the type as a vernacular interpretation of the Neoclassical Revival style. My best guess for a date would be circa 1890-1910.

Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Crawfordville Methodist Church, 1920

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A Georgia Historical Society marker placed in 1956 notes: This church, originally known as “Bird’s Chapel,” was founded in 1826 as the first church in the newly formed town of Crawfordville. It was an outgrowth of the now defunct Powder Creek Meeting House near Sandy Cross, which came into existence about 1805. “Bird’s Chapel” was ministered to by the Rev. Williamson Bird, Jr., who built and lived in the house now known as “Liberty Hall,” the home of Alexander Hamilton Stephens. This chapel, originally located at the corner of what is now Jackson and Askin Streets, was later moved closer in to town for the convenience of its members. It was disbanded just before the War Between the States due to the moving away of many of its members, but was re-formed by the Rev. Allen Thomas, in 1876, on the southwest corner of the Liberty Hall lawn on land donated by Alexander H. Stephens. By 1911, this old church was outgrown and a new and larger building was built a half-block north of this present site; that building was destroyed by a cyclone in 1918. The present building, of Greek Colonial design, was erected in 1920.

The church is a wonderful example of the use of Greek Revival architecture in public buildings in the early 20th century.

Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Dr. White House, Crawfordville

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Every time I’m in Crawfordville I check to make sure this house is still standing. It’s one of my favorite houses in Georgia, though notoriously difficult to photograph. It is essentially a Greek Revival form with Gothic Revival elements.

The only information I’ve been able to gather from locals is that it was the home of Dr. White, and that it’s been empty for many years. I hope someone can save it before it’s too late.

Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Queen Anne House, Crawfordville

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This is next door to the colorful Queen Anne shown in the previous post.

Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Queen Anne House, Crawfordville

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Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Bonner’s Cafe, Crawfordville

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This location has been featured in several Hollywood movies, including Sweet Home Alabama. It was about the only place to get a good home-cooked meal in Crawfordville for nearly sixty years, and Mrs. Annie Lou Bonner was a well-loved local fixture throughout her long life. It closed in1997, but has since been reopened with another name.

Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Liberty Hall, 1872, Crawfordville

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Liberty Hall was the home of Confederate Vice-President and Georgia Governor Alexander Hamilton Stephens, known as Little Aleck for his small stature. Though often associated with the Civil War, the historic house you see today was actually built after the war. The rear ell of the house, partly visible in the next photo, dates to circa 1858.

Stephens moved to the property in 1834 to board with his stepmother’s sister and her husband in the predecessor to this house. They died in 1842 and the never-married Stephens purchased the property in 1845, naming it Bachelor’s Hall. It was later named Liberty Hall.

An extensive renovation was completed in the 1990s by Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites, painstakingly replacing period textiles, wallpapers and paints.

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum‘s imposing marble statue of the statesman, installed by contractor T. Markwalter of Augusta in 1893, keeps guard from the front lawn of the estate. Stephens is buried adjacent to the monument.

National Historic Landmark, National Register of Historic Places

 

Mural, Crawfordville

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A Dixie Welcome to Crawfordville, Ga.

Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places