I’ve had this photograph for a few years and don’t recall exactly where in Telfair County it was made. This excellent vernacular building is sided with what we used to call red tile, or brick tile, which was sometimes used for tobacco barns. The doors have been replaced, but everything else looks original. The two windows on the front are an indication it was a store or commissary, perhaps a farm office. I tend to think it was a store. If anyone recognizes it, please get in touch.
This textbook example of the Neoclassical Revival is one of the highlights of the McRae residential historic district, which is located just south of downtown. Houses of this type were built mostly between the 1890s-1920s, and can be found in nearly any good-sized town in Georgia. Before the collapse of many banks and the arrival of the boll weevil, such grand residences were emblems of wealth and prosperity. Many were built by bankers and planters.
I find it unfortunate that McRae doesn’t have an officially designated historic district, as there are many nice homes of varying architectural styles here. The district is definitely worthy of National Register status. There is a walking tour map, but every time I’ve tried to access it online, my antivirus program marks it as dangerous.
Malcolm Smith identifies it as the Alexander and Sylvia Smith residence and notes that the family owned the home until 2024.
So far, I’ve been unable to locate any information on this school, but the International Style architecture suggests it likely dates to the 1950s. It may have been used until the 1970s-1990s.
This bell near the front entrance to the school is probably a relic of an earlier school, perhaps the Lumber City High School. It’s not identified as such, though one would presume it to be related.
The marker beneath the bell was placed in 1921, perhaps at a slightly different location originally, by the Oconee Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. It reads: This street was the old River Road blazed by Gen. David Blackshear, 1812. Six miles beyond in the forks of Oconee and Ocmulgee River was the second fort built in Telfair County by Gen. David Blackshear for defense in War [of] 1812.
The school has two wings radiating from the front entrance, which housed classrooms, I presume.
As seen here, Hurricane Helene left her calling card on the campus, A separate building, to the left, may have also housed classrooms.
The International Style is characterized by minimalism and is focused on functional and utilitarian design. The lack of design may be its most notable feature, and its simple form was very popular with Georgia schools from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. The most interesting element to the Lumber City Elementary school is the covered breezeway at the front entrance.
As with most of these mid-century Georgia schools, there is very little interest or hope for their preservation. While these structures appear to be in salvageable condition, it’s unlikely they will ever be reused. I believe the Lumber City Elementary school was used for adult education courses as late as the early 2010s, but has been abandoned since then.
This fine Queen Anne cottage has been used as an insurance office for many years but retains its beautiful fretwork and overall appearance. Some would call it a “gingerbread” house. It’s one of the nicest surviving Victorian houses in Lumber City. It was possibly designed or built by the Scottish immigrant John Renwick, who was actively building in Lumber City at the time of its construction.
This was originally a saddlebag house, as the two front doors and remnant central chimney would suggest, but at some point a wing, or ell, was added.
Lumber City has had two advantages in its history that have kept it “on the map”. This small town (pop. 967) had easy access to the Ocmulgee River, and that fact drove its growth in the early years. Long before 1889, when it was incorporated and officially named Lumber City to recognize a busy sawmill’s impact on the community, the area saw the constant traffic of timber rafts running down to the coastal town of Darien, as well as cotton and grocery boats. Author Brainard Cheney (1900-1990), who was born in Fitzgerald and moved with his family to Lumber City in 1906, may be the town’s most famous citizen, though he’s largely forgotten today. An author who was associated with the Southern Agrarians, he wrote several books set on the Ocmulgee River, where he had been a raft hand as a young man in 1917, including River Rogue and Lightwood. Lumber City was the town nearest the confluence of the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers, where the great Altamaha is formed and flows uninterrupted to the coast. Of course the railroad was a presence whose impact can’t be understated and it was inextricably linked to the sawmill.
In the modern era, Lumber City is located along one of Southeast Georgia’s busiest highways, US 341, and milling and timber-related industries continue to operate here. In the days before interstate highways, hotels and restaurants like the Ivy Lodge and the Red River Tea Room were popular with locals and travelers alike.
An interesting historical anecdote concerns John Renwick, namesake of Renwick Street in Lumber City. One of his descendants, Rosemary Morrison, has written to inform me of this connection: “John Renwick, from Peebles, Scotland, lived in Lumber City between 1890 and 1914, and his sister, Janet (Jenny) lived with him from 1902 until his death, afterwards returning alone to live in Lumber City until the late 1920s. A cousin, Robert Murray, came with him to Lumber City, and also lived there. He (or his brother) was a trainee architect.” She also notes that a Miss Knox from Lumber City sent her late Aunt Jenny a scrapbook in the 1950s, containing numerous photographs from the Renwicks’ time in Lumber City, focused primarily on structures around the town. Some of the houses designed and built by “Mr. Jock”, as Renwick was known locally, included those of the McGregor, McLeod, Martin, Murray, Knox, Vaughan, Thormhalen, Walter T. McArthur, and Capt. E. K. Willcox families.
In 2024, Lumber City was devastated, as was the entire region, by Hurricane Helene. Much cleanup has been done, but it will take a long time for everything to be normal again.
I just discovered this photograph, made in 2009, of an unidentified structure in Jacksonville. Because of its proximity to the Thomas Hardy Jackson house, visible in the background, I’m identifying it as a dependency of that property until I learn otherwise. Sadly, both structures are long gone, replaced by a Dollar General. It’s common to find barns and sheds alongside old houses, as space was at a premium, and these dependencies are usually easy to identify. I’m a bit stumped by this one, however. It’s very small and, unusually, has a window. Barns don’t generally have windows. I wonder if it could have been unrelated to the house and perhaps served some other purpose. It has a similar appearance to precinct houses I’ve documented in the past, but this example seems a bit small for that. If anyone from Jacksonville knows, please share.
This Folk Victorian cottage was built in a T-form, with a projecting wing at the front. It’s an excellent example of this “dressed-up” house style, likely built between 1890-1910. The last time I checked, it was still standing. Hopefully, someone cares about it and it will be restored. It’s certainly worthy of being someone’s home again.
Milan is located in Dodge and Telfair Counties, one of many Georgia towns with such a distinction. It was settled in the 1880s due to the arrival of the railroad in the area. It was named for Milan, Italy, and of course, has a Georgia pronunciation. It’s “My-lun”, not “Muh-lan”. Many people have asked me over the years why Georgia has such unusual place names, and it’s not just Georgia. The reason is because common names, especially surnames, were already in use and the post office department wouldn’t allow towns with the same, or even similar, names.
Milan became the focus of unwelcome national attention during the summer of 1919, known as Red Summer. The story is graphic, but as Black history is being officially censored in Georgia and many other states, it should be told. And to be certain, Milan was not alone in regards to such atrocities.
On 24 May 1919, two white men, John Baptiste Dowdy, Sr. (1894-1919) and Levi Evans, attempted to break into the home of a Black woman, Emma McCollers, with the intent of raping her two young daughters. Dowdy’s father, Rev. William Dowdy, was the mayor of Milan. When the family refused to allow them in the house, Dowdy fired his gun.
The girls fled to the nearby home of Emma Tishler and were followed by Dowdy and Evans. During the chaos, Ms. Tishler hid in a well. Berry Washington, a 72-year-old Black sharecropper, heard the commotion and attempted to defend the girls. Dowdy fired at Washington, and after a struggle, Washington killed Dowdy. Washington turned himself soon after the shooting and was transferred to the jail in McRae.
The next day, Deputy Sheriff Dave McRanie handed Washington over to a lynch mob who removed him from the jail and in the early hours of 26 May 1919, hanged him from a post at the site of the shooting and riddled his body with gunshot. His mutilated corpse was left in public view for at least a day, no doubt as an ominous warning to the local Black community.
As more evidence of the power of this storm, these images were made in one neighborhood of Lumber City.
Trees of all sizes were downed throughout the region. This structure appears to have been spared.
One can only hope the people in these homes were safe. As I said in the previous post, it was truly heartbreaking to see the damage.
In addition to the modular homes, quite a few historic homes I’ve photographed in the past were damaged. These two double-pen cottages (above and below) are an endangered house type.
This fallen cedar provided shade for this house for the better part of a century.
This saddlebag cottage appears to have escaped serious damage.
Church Street, pictured above, was passable, but wires were down and cars were trapped in driveways.