Tax records date the Alston School to 1900, but the architecture indicates it was built in the the 1920s or thereabouts. It was an elementary school. When it closed in 1961, it was the last rural school in Montgomery County. It was briefly used as a music hall in the early 2000s, but that endeavor was short-lived.
Empty school buildings can be found in communities all over Georgia, and though they were once sources of pride, are now considered liabilities by small governments unable to maintain and properly restore them for other uses. There are success stories, but more often than not, they suffer the fate of the Alston School.
This central hallway cottage, located on the edge of town in Alston, may have been a tenant property. There’s an historic farm nearby. The house probably dates to circa 1900-1910. Note the preacher’s room on the front porch. It has begun to pull away from the rest of the house.
The only indications I have regarding the history of St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church come from the cemetery, as is often the case with rural churches. The earliest decedent in the cemetery, that I can determine from Findagrave, is Willie T. Thomas, who died in 1854. There would have been no independent Black congregations at that time, but St. Mary may have originated as a brush arbor church on a plantation. There are a couple of other 19th century burials with legible memorials, indicating this was a Freedmen’s church, but those dates are exceptions, and most burials dates to 1940 or later.
This Folk Victorian cottage is the center of an amazing historic farmstead. A breezeway connects a kitchen behind the house. Tom Peterson writes: This house was built by William James Peterson in 1876…William James and his wife, Catherine Joanna Calhoun Peterson, had 12 children, all born in this house. It is currently owned by Hugh Peterson and has been the site of the annual Peterson Family reunion since 1922.
The property is one of the most intact I’ve stumbled upon, and its numerous outbuildings are perfectly maintained.
There are at least four log barns on the property.
While log barns and homes are still built today, it’s highly unusual to find this many older examples.
During the 1920s, this board-and-batten single-pen cottage was the childhood home of one of America’s most famous athletes. Born on 3 May 1921 to Walker Smith, Sr., a Dublin, Georgia, native, and Leila Hurst, from Johnson County, Walker Smith, Jr., came to be known as Sugar Ray Robinson and went on to worldwide fame and fortune. According to his autobiography, his father, who worked as a farm laborer, eventually moved the family to Detroit in search of better opportunity. The Smiths had two daughters, as well. The couple separated in the early 1930s, but may not have divorced. Walker Smith, Sr., was buried in Detroit and Leila Smith in Westchester County, New York. In Sugar Ray, Robinson’s posthumous autobiography published in 1994, he notes that the family moved to New York City around this time. [There is some conflict with dates and facts in the autobiography and Robinson’s official website, though they are trivial.]
Original Jan 30 1947 Sugar Ray Robinson Welterweight Champion Boxing Wire Photo, Acme Newsphotos. Public domain.
Smith dropped out of high school in ninth grade and though he initially wanted to be a doctor became fascinated by boxing. When he was turned away from entering his first match at age 14 because he was too young to be a member of the Amateur Athletic Union, he used the identification card of a friend at the gym, Ray Robinson, and that name stuck. He told Time magazine in a 1951 cover story (“Businessman Boxer”, 25 June 1951) that a woman attending a fight in Watertown, New York, said he was “sweet as sugar”, and the name Sugar Ray Robinson was born. He turned pro in 1940 and compiled a record of 129-1-2 with 85 knockouts. He held numerous titles and is widely regarded as the greatest boxer of all time, pound-for-pound.
His first marriage, to Marjorie Joseph in 1938, was short-lived and was annulled the same year. They had a son, Ronnie Smith. Robinson married Edna Mae Holly (1915-2002), who was a dancer at Harlem’s famous Cotton Club, in 1943 or 1944. They had one child, Ray Robinson, Jr. but the couple divorced in 1962. He later married Mildred “Millie” Wiggins Bruce, in 1965, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. He faced many health issues in his final years, suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes, and died on 12 April 1989.
A personal note: I’ve been trying to “find this house” for as long I’ve known of its existence, but wasn’t able to pinpoint the location for various reasons. After seeing it positively identified by friends at Ethos Preservation in Savannah, I realized I already had photographs and just didn’t know it was “the” house. I understand there are no plans for preservation at this time, and while the house is in relatively good condition, it should at least have an historic marker denoting its significance. I believe it would be of interest to tourists and boxing fans and perhaps in a perfect world would be a small museum honoring the career of this native son.
My preliminary inclination is to identify this as a shotgun house even though the facade has more of a storefront appearance. The photograph dates to 2013.
This structure is an interesting example of the complications I occasionally encounter with identifications. The sides of the building, unlike the plank front, are board-and-batten, and there’s no sign of a chimney, but I think the sides were updated.
The lack of a chimney initially led me to think this was a barn, but the door placement and original shake roof indicate this was a tenant house, or perhaps a kitchen. It has obviously been purposefully preserved as an important landmark of the historic farm on which it’s located.
