This shotgun style building originally served as a store, if I recall correctly, but has been the Mystic post office for many years. My father and I have bought stamps and sent mail from here on several occasions and it’s an experience in itself. It still has a tiny wood-paneled lobby with the old-fashioned mail boxes. And it’s only open for a couple of hours each day. Call me delusional, but I think it’s important for small communities to have services like this. Irwinville lost its post office a few years back and it’s still sorely missed.
On 17 December 2019 around 11:45 AM, an EF-2 tornado touched down near Mystic, with sustained winds up to 125 mph. It traveled northeast from Mystic into Ben Hill County, doing significant damage on Old Whitley Road, Vo-Tech Drive, Lake Beatrice and Pine Level Church Road.
The damage in Mystic was concentrated around the campus of the old Mystic High School (later known as Irwin Academy and Grace Christian Academy), which has recently been serving as a church.
The main building is still standing but sustained serious damage, especially to the roof. Hopefully, it can be saved.
Other structures on the property didn’t fare as well and will likely have to be razed.
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Most of the focus now is on cleanup and an amazing amount of work has been done in the week since the tornado.
G. Morgan Copland was the first Principal. Members of the Board of Trustees were: J. B. Morgan, Chairman; John M. Willis, Secretary-Treasurer; M. G. Hogan; Warren Fletcher; and W. A. York. It has since served as the home of Irwin Academy and Grace Christian Academy. Mr. Foster Goolsby served for many years as headmaster of Irwin Academy.
The cornerstone identifies the architects as Grier & Biggers. I believe “Grier” was actually Valdosta architect Lloyd Greer, who designed many schoolhouses. Biggers was presumably Columbus architect J. J. W. Biggers.
Bussell Pond is a well-known local natural landmark and even though I’m related to the Bussell family, I’ve never known much about it. It was once a busy millpond, and the remains of the old mill are still on the property, though inaccessible. Evelyn Stripling Walker noted that the pond was a baptismal site for Mystic Baptist Church and that she was baptized here in 1929.
Today marks the five-year anniversary of Vanishing South Georgia!
What began as a personal project has grown into something much greater than I would have ever imagined. In traveling thousands of miles through 82 counties and hundreds of towns of varying sizes, I believe I have been privileged to see a Georgia that few people get to experience in such depth. As I branched out from Ben Hill & Irwin Counties, I did search after search for little places with interesting names I’d found on the map. I knew most would be hard to track down, but one after another seemed lost and forgotten. Part of my mission, and one that remains central to this work, was to create a permanent record of these places for researchers and people nostalgic for a glimpse of their roots. As a historian, I was very aware of the need to document them, but what made my work take wings, so to speak, was the early support and feedback from the people I began connecting with as a result of my photographs.
And I’m not the only one out here, doing work like this. When I began posting my images to the internet I found a small but determined community of people doing the same thing as me, albeit it on a different scale and usually with far more credentials as artists. Too countless to name are all the other Georgians, whether serious or just taking snapshots for the benefit of their own memories, who record history with their cameras. As Mark McDonald of the Georgia Trust for Historic recently said in an interview with GPB regarding the scope of the work, “…in historic preservation, if you can’t save a historic building, the last step is to document it.” Tobacco barns, country stores, and farmhouses truly are vanishing every day and with them the way of life they represented and the stories of the lives built around them. Just this week I’ve heard from several subscribers of the demolition of places I’ve photographed. And I know these are important because people are always so sad to report this kind of news. I’m glad they do, though. As long as the need exists and I’m able, I’ll be out in the country with my camera.
My work on Vanishing South Georgia saved me, in a way. It came at a time when my own life was in flux and when I seemed to be looking for something as yet unknown. It’s renewed my love for place and for the people whose lives define all the places I visit and photograph. I hope that it brings a little happiness to everyone who sees it. That, as much as the documentary aspect, is worth it.
This is located between Ocilla and Mystic. I visited Jonnie Willis McCranie (1923-2003) here and saw the inside of her beautiful home around 1998 with Hank Rowe.
Billy Vickers writes: Jonnie McCranie lived with her widowed mother Mrs. John M. Willis as this was the Old Willis Homeplace. Kathy Wilson and her husband Mike now own the home. Kathy writes, in part: I do know the attached room on the far side of the porch is where a Mr. Phillips lived, during Ms. Jonnie’s childhood. She told me they moved him here to help them learn about planting and growing cotton. Later, that room was rented out, to others, by Ms. Jonnie. Ms. Jonnie was born in and passed away in the house; if I’m not mistaken, I believe her son told us she passed away in the very same room she was born in. As Billy Vickers said above, her ashes were scattered in the field, by airplane, right in front of the house.
I’ve photographed this old farmhouse many times over the years and it’s one of my favorites. As of 2016, it doesn’t look like it will be around much longer.
Noting the deplorable physical condition of African-American schools in the late 1940s and early 1950s, many school boards throughout the South began building facilities such as this one. This was done in anticipation of or in response to Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka but ultimately only delayed desegregation.
