Category Archives: Grange GA

Grange, Georgia

Johnny Jones Store, 1916

Grange was a large enough community at one time to have its own school but today it’s so forgotten that a Google search will send you straight to LaGrange, in West Georgia. The building above has been nicely restored and is dated 1916. Larry Sheppard writes: The old red brick store was owned by a man named Johnny Jones. I knew it as Johnny Jones Store. My family owns land nearby. Spent many a fall day hunting in the area and going to the store which still operated in the 60″s and I think till the 70″s. Johnny had a son and daughter I believe. I think the family still owns the store. His son, John Amos “Spike” Jones was a punter at UGA [who still holds the record for his 87-yard punt] and went on to play in pro football. Below is a country store that appears to be a bit later, perhaps mid-20th-century.

Wilcher’s Store, 1950s

Kenneth Huff recalls: Second store was owned by the Wilchers. I remember going into both stores as a child with my dad in the fifties. Mr Wilcher passed and the store was closed. Mrs. Lois operated a beauty shop for years near the store and taught Sunday school at Edgehill Church of God. Mrs Lois Wilcher was a sweet lady and loved all us kids. Her father and mother owned farm land west of Grange.

Amy Wilcher Howard confirms: My grandparents, Junior and Lois Wilcher, ran a country store in the 1950’s and early 1960’s in the front of the white building and lived in the back half. After my grandfather died, my grandmother’s brothers built her a beauty shop adjacent to the store and she cut hair there until she retired in the early 2000’s. She was a sweet lady, loved living in Grange and loved her clients!

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