A lot of people go to Juliette to visit the Whistle Stop Cafe [of Fried Green Tomatoes fame], and that’s a fun day, but my favorite landmark in this historic community is the old Juliette Milling Company. It may appear abandoned but it is private property.
From 1927 until its closure in 1957, it was the leading industry in the area. At its peak in the 1930s, it was the largest stone-ground meal facility in the world, buying upwards of a million bushels of corn per year. J. M. Birch was the president of the company, famous for its Juliette Grits brand. The four-story concrete mill, encompassing nearly 20,000 square feet, was advantageously located between the Ocmulgee River and the adjacent Southern Railway line.
This was the home of Dr. William Fisher Boddie (1884-1940) and his wife, Dr. Luetta T. Sams Boddie (1885-1965), an African-American couple who practiced medicine together in Forsyth from 1907-1922, counting both black and white citizens among their patients. The home was purchased from Atilla T. W. Lytle, a white Republican at a time when such affiliation was very unpopular, even dangerous, in the South.
Dr. W. F. Boddie left the practice in 1922 and joined the Citizens Trust Company of Atlanta as Executive Vice-Cashier. He also served on the boards of Morris Brown University and numerous charities. One of his brothers was a doctor in Milledgeville and another a dentist in Kentucky. Dr. Luetta Boddie continued the practice until 1943. These pioneering black physicians raised two sons who also became physicians. Dr. Arthur W. Boddie was a doctor in Detroit and Dr. Lewis F. Boddie was an obstetrician-gynecologist in Los Angeles.
It’s my understanding that the Presbyterians first organized in Forsyth in the late 1830s. The present church was moved to this location in 1900. According a 1990s Georgia historic survey, there are Carpenter Gothic elements to the architecture now hidden by siding. I’m guessing this was in the steeples. It’s a great old church, nonetheless.
This historic housing type is increasingly rare today, though there’s no shortage of new builds that reflect the aesthetic as part of the tiny house movement. This is a nice example of the form, more elaborate than one that might be found in the countryside.
The campus of the old Hubbard Elementary and High School, with modern structures built during the era of Equalization Schools, is now a public facility and park known as the W. M. Hubbard Complex. After desegregation, the school became Hubbard Middle School, but like most mid-century school buildings, mold, asbestos, and related issues likely led to its eventual abandonment.
Some buildings have been razed and those remaining, including the gymnasium, have been restored and are now used by groups such as the Boys and Girls Clubs.
While serving as President of the State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes, W. M. Hubbard built this Colonial Revival residence for his family. [It’s often referred to simply as the W. M. Hubbard House]. It is still owned by his descendants but at their discretion is not included in the National Register of Historic Places.
Back side of the Women’s Dormitory. This is the side that faces Georgia Highway 83/Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive.
The State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes (STAC) was established by William Merida Hubbard (1865-1941) in 1902 as the Forsyth Normal and Industrial School, and was one of three Black colleges added to the University System of Georgia in 1932. The Women’s Dormitory and the Teacher’s Cottage are the only two public buildings associated with the school still extant and have been restored. Besides being home to Monroe County Cooperative Extension offices, the dormitory is also home to the Hubbard Museum and Cultural Center.
W. M. Hubbard was born in Wilkinson County to Edinborough and Betsy Hubbard, who had been enslaved in Virginia until Emancipation. He is likely one of the most important figures in Georgia’s African-American history that you’ve never heard of and I hope more people learn his story. He worked his way through the Ballard Normal School in Macon and then attended Fiske University and Cornell University. While getting his education, he taught in Irwinton, Monroe County, and Jacksonville, Florida. After graduation from Cornell, he spent four years in Cuthbert before finally settling in Forsyth around the turn of the century. Since there was no accredited local Black school at the time, Hubbard worked for a few years as a professional photographer. According to the Hubbard Alumni Association: In 1900 William Merida Hubbard opened a school with seven students in the Kynette Methodist Church in the city of Forsyth. Like many schools in the Jim Crow South, churches presented the only option for educating black children. He opened this school at a time when there was little interest and minimal financial support for African American public education in Georgia. Undaunted by this challenge, William Hubbard cultivated partnerships with the white community in Forsyth. In 1902, Hubbard and five white men from Forsyth successfully petitioned the Superior Court of Monroe County to incorporate the Forsyth Normal and Industrial School with one small building on ten acres of land.
The Normal School added 10th and 11th grades in 1917, receiving full accreditation, and was the first Black vocational school in Georgia. It became a junior college in 1927 but sadly, several buildings were lost to fire soon thereafter. Undaunted, Hubbard oversaw the building of newer facilities, including the dormitory and teacher’s cottage. It became the STAC in 1931. The school merged with Fort Valley State College in 1938 and Mr. Hubbard finished his career there. The following year, the campus became Forsyth’s first Black high school, known as the Hubbard Training Center. William’s son, Samuel Hubbard, oversaw its evolution into the Hubbard Elementary and High School and served as its principal until desegregation in 1970.
It speaks volumes of Hubbard’s legacy that Governor Eugene Talmadge, an avowed racist, praised the man and his accomplishment at his memorial service in 1941.
This house was built for teachers at the State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes between 1929-1930. It’s one of two contributing properties of the school that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is an important resource. It still serves an educational purpose, as the Monroe County Workforce Development Center.
