I’m not a “lister” but I do enjoy a quick review of the year’s most popular posts. These favorites helped add another million views this year. Thank you for traveling along with me. I wish you all a wonderful 2024!
I’d guess this unusual house dates to the late 19th or early 20th century, and likely once featured Folk Victorian elements. The left and right gables are of a different style, essentially independent of the front gable. It appears a large front porch has been lost over time, further altering the look of the house. There are very few survivors of the early days of Box Springs, and this is a nice example.
At the extreme southwestern corner of Talbot County is the historic village of Box Springs. According to Ken Krakow: The community was named for a local spring that was boxed in and used as a watering stop for the railroad. Pipes were run from the “boxed-spring” to a water tower adjacent to the tracks. The name Boxed Spring was later changed to Box Springs, as it was easier to pronounce. A post office was established in 1853 though the area was likely settled earlier. The town was incorporated in 1913 and dissolved by 1931. Little of that era remains here today.
This old store, built in the early 1900s, sits in a thicket of privet and has always intrigued me; I may even have a family connection to Mr. Browning but need to research further. As the place succumbs to nature, I can only imagine it in its heyday, when the train stopped at the nearby tracks and people came through here enroute to and from Columbus.
Like all examples of utilitarian architecture, the double-pen house can be found in varying forms, but it’s essentially a two-room house separated by a central wall with a door opening between the two rooms. This example has a shed room at the rear, which is a very common expansion. The form, once somewhat common, has become quite rare today.
I believe this to be Charlie Moore’s commissary, which served employees in his milling and coffin building operations. William H. Davidson notes two stores in Junction City in his history of Talbot County.
J. Leonard Morgan’s general store wasn’t open until 1929, and this construction looks earlier than 1929 to me. I think this is what he identified as Marvin J. Hester’s general store, “located in Charlie Moore’s old commissary building“.
That would likely place this structure’s date of construction to circa 1906. It was a condition of Moore’s purchase of the Perkins properties [present day Junction City vicinity] that all structures of that enterprise be removed by 1 September 1906, so Moore likely built this commissary when he established the town.
This Neoclassical Cottage, christened “Joy in My Heart” by Reverend Dr. R. H. Harris on 14 December 1919, was built by Charles Warren “Charlie” Moore. In A Rockaway in Talbot: Travels in an Old Georgia County, Vol. II, William H. Davidson notes that Mr. Moore was the principal developer of Junction City.
Davidson further notes, of Moore’s involvement in the settlement of the town: Two railroads crossed and a third had its terminus at a place in Talbot County incorporated as Junction City in 1906. The railroads were Atlantic, Birmingham & Coast, the Central of Georgia, and a local short line, Talbotton Railroad. The latter terminated with the Central at nearby Paschal. Perkins Company [which operated a large timber and sawmill operation in the area]…made an indenture…May 17, 1906, conveying to Charlie Moore…the heart of what became Junction City. It was hoped that the place would become a promising railroad town.
Moore established a bank, timber and milling operations, a coffin factory, and the mining operations that continue today at Brownsand. The leading citizen of Junction City, Charlie Moore, died on 10 October 1944 in a car crash near Upatoi while enroute to take his grandchildren to the Chattahoochee Valley Fair in Columbus. His wife died from her injuries four days later.
James Leonard Morgan purchased the Moore House in 1948. During restoration, two of the original four columns on the front portico were damaged and not replaced. Sidelights at the front doors were also damaged and not replaced. The house, though slightly changed over the years, is an important connection to Junction City’s origins.
Update: Lisa Addison notes, as of December 2023: ...the front portico collapsed and has since been removed. The front is covered in plastic and windows boarded up. The property was also sold in a recent tax auction. It’s really a shame what this house is left to go through.
This structure, which now serves as the city hall for Junction City, was built circa 1907 as the Farmers & Merchants Bank. It is a brick structure which at some point was sided with stucco. Junction City was incorporated in 1906.
Rising above the pristine countryside of Talbot County, this house first caught my attention a couple of years ago. At the time, work was at an earlier phase and it didn’t look as grand as it does today. I made a mental note to check on it when I could but was still not prepared for the awesome presence of the house, viewed from the incline of the clay and gravel driveway.
I recently learned that my family’s longtime friend Mike Buckner owned the house and was restoring it. I was in the area and dropped by to purchase some books and get some of his wonderful stone-ground grits and he offered to take me on a tour. Though he wouldn’t say so, Mike is an all-around Renaissance man and serious guardian of Talbot County’s history and architecture. He has personally saved and salvaged numerous endangered structures over the years.
Mike moved this 1840s Greek Revival Cottage, which once stood near Zion Episcopal Church in Talbotton, to his property and decided to transform it into a raised cottage. The brick piers supporting the cottage were salvaged from the old Talbotton depot, proof that Mike doesn’t believe in wasting anything. The Doric columns were made to order.
The lower floor will be somewhat modern, while keeping with the style of the house, and the original section of the cottage will be sensitively restored. Historic mantels will be put back in place and the floors will be spiffed up. Plaster walls will be replaced. A widow’s walk has already been placed on top of the structure. I will definitely be visiting when all the work is done.
On the back side of the house Mike is building a porch, which will afford some of the most beautiful views from one of the highest elevations in this part of Talbot County.
It’s an amazing sight and the entire project is a testament to the value of the renewal of historic resources.
This exceptional Greek Revival cottage was built circa 1838 by Hiram Knowlton (c.1805-1875). Knowlton was a master carpenter and millwright who came to Talbot County from New York in 1836; he purchased the property on which the home is located from Chestley Pearson in 1838. The distinctive diamond panes in the transom and sidelights, as well as the diminutive dormers, are notable decorative features of the one-and-a-half story dwelling. A hand-carved molded stairway with delicate banisters dominates the main hall. William H. Davidson, in A Rockaway in Talbot: Travels in an Old Georgia County Vol. II notes that it is “..a triumph of carpentry…it is a much more sophisticated stair than usually found in Talbot County early houses…”. A second narrow stairway in the rear of the house leads to the upper floor, which may have originally housed servants. *[Due to ongoing work in the house, I was unable to get many interior shots, butI’ll be sharing more views in a future update].
After Knowlton’s death, the property passed to Luke A. Crawford, of Upson County, a son-in-law of Hiram Knowlton’s second wife. It was sold to Henry Butler in 1905. It remained in the Butler family for well over a century and was known to many as the Butler Plantation.
Original mantel in the upper floor
I am grateful to the present owners, Jim & Deborah Bruce, for welcoming me into their home, and to Mike Buckner for taking me for a visit. Jim’s extensive collection of vernacular African-American art is a wonderful complement to the interior.
If the resource I’ve used is correct, this structure was known as the Johnson cabin and expanded circa 1855 into the present Greek Revival form for use as the headmaster’s home. It is the last surviving significant structure of the Rose Hill Seminary, established by Zion Episcopal Church founder Reverend Richard Johnson, who came to Talbotton in 1846. The expansion of the house may have taken place at the direction of Reverend Wesley Gahagan, who came to Talbotton in 1852 to manage the school. Reverend Gahagan died in 1857 and the school closed soon thereafter. [Thanks to Jim Bruce for further confirming some of this history].
Trae Ingram notes that the house suffered serious damage during a tornado a few years ago.
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 