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Bethel Grove Baptist Church, Heardmont

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Bethel Grove Baptist is an historic African-American congregation located in the Heardmont community in eastern Elbert County. Organized by freedmen and their descendants on 20 May 1885, its early members were likely connected in some way to people formerly enslaved on the nearby Heard plantation. The present building may date to circa 1900. A small building barely visible to the right of the church has been identified as a schoolhouse related to the church, and an historic resource survey also dates it to circa 1900. Typically, rural Black congregations were often the only source of education for their communities, and surviving examples of such schools are very endangered.

Mill Housing, Porterdale

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Ivy Street

Porterdale is one of the most intact mill towns in Georgia and that may be most evident in the housing constructed by the mills for their employees. Typically utilitarian, most of the homes are quite uniform in appearance but in Porterdale, there is some variation, since there were three major mills. This row, on Ivy Street, features bungalow-style cottages. One thing you’ll notice in Porterdale is the proximity of the houses; they’re built very close to one another and there is little yard space, but the houses themselves are nearly all still around and have been modernized for the present generation of owners.

Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places