For several years I suspected this church to be antebellum due to the second-floor windows, which often indicate a slave’s gallery, but thanks to Pastor Greg McAlister, I now know that isn’t the case. McAlister is the pastor of Solid Rock Baptist Church, the congregation presently calling this beautiful old building home and he notes that it was established as the Meldrim Christian Church in 1896.
This plaque was placed in memory of the 23 victims of the 28 June 1959 Seaboard Air Line railroad disaster on the Ogeechee River trestle near Meldrim. A fuel car derailed into the river and the ensuing explosion took the lives of many who had gathered on a nearby sandbar. Those who perished were: Jimmy Anderson, Elizabeth Dixon Barnes, Ted Barnes, Julian Beasley, Linda Jean Beasley, Reba Lamb Beasley, Michael Bland, Charles Carpenter, Billy Dent, Joan Dent, Edna Dixon, Frank Dixon, Barbara Hales, Claudia Johnson, L. B. Lamb, Terry Lane, Elbie Lane, Florence Lane, Leslie Lee, James Smith, Margie Hales Smith, Timothy Smith, Wayne Smith.
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 