The wonderful old Mount Airy School has been restored and now houses the offices of the Mount Airy Police Department and the Georgia Crime Information Center. An auditorium on the upper level served as the entertainment center for the area and hosted traveling shows, including many early stars of the Grand Ole Opry. The school closed in 1955.
Mount Airy Presbyterian Church was organized with ten members in 1906 and the chapel was completed in 1907. It never had a large membership, as most congregants were transient summer residents in the resort community and the grand Monterey Hotel. In 1979 Mount Airy merged with Cornelia Presbyterian but the historic chapel is still maintained and used for special events.
Alexander Robert Lawton built this as a summer home [christened ‘Seventh Heaven’] between 1884-1885 and his boosterism helped make Mt. Airy a popular resort area. Lawton was a Confederate general and attorney who later served as president of the Augusta & Savannah Railroad. Upon General Lawton’s death in 1898, the family’s holdings in Mt. Airy were sold and the house came into the possession of Caroline Thompson, who owned it until 1911.
Mrs. Gene Keen-Knight of Vicksburg, Mississippi, apparently didn’t live in the house but maintained it as a rental property. It was during her ownership that baseball legend Ty Cobb lived here. He was having a house built on a large piece of property nearby and called the Lawton place home for a few years, in the 1950s. After Mrs. Keen-Knight’s death the house was sold yet again and several owners have followed. Most recently, it served as an event space known as Lawton Place Manor.
National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 