A local favorite and popular stop for travelers through Thomaston since 1950, Piggie Park is an old-school drive-in specializing in barbecue, scrambled hamburgers, cheeseburgers and hot dogs, and Brunswick stew. And some people love their greasy fries. They also have handmade milkshakes. It’s a no-frills old-school place where carhops still come out and take your order, and judging by comments throughout social media, they are very efficient and always have a smile on their faces.
The original location was on the south side of town and when most of the development moved to the north side, Piggie Park moved with it. The neon sign is one of Thomaston’s most identifiable logos.
When The Founder, the movie about Ray Kroc and McDonald’s, was made a few years ago, Piggie Park was transformed into two different 1950s restaurants and used as a set location for filming.
Driving into Yatesville, this headstone caught my attention, but I figured it would be like others I’ve found throughout the countryside: a small family plot long forgotten by the passage of time. And though that was true to some extent, what I learned about the man who was buried here was quite fascinating. It turns out that this was the cemetery of Bellwood Hall, a plantation owned by one of Georgia’s early country doctors, David Lane Kendall, Sr. (1790-1850).
Dr. Kendall was born in Washington County in 1790 and moved to Upson County in 1830 where he and his second wife, Louisa Rogers Steele Kendall (1804-1881), built Bellwood, a grand plantation house complete with formal gardens. The property was likely maintained by enslaved men and women. It was destroyed by fire sometime in the late 1800s, but thanks to the foresight of Dr. Kendall’s daughter, Louisa “Loula” Winifred Kendall Rogers (1838-1931) , much of its history survives in special collections at Emory University.
As the Upson County government website notes: Sprewell Bluff Park is one of Georgia’s best kept secrets and is known by locals as the hidden gem.
Historically, this natural feature of the Flint River was important to the Creek Indians. When they were forced to cede all their lands between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers to the United States in 1825, it was opened to settlement.
It was named for Jeptha Simeon Spruiell (1784-1873), a native of Abbeville County, South Carolina, who came to Georgia’s western frontier sometime before 1850, in what was then part of Talbot County. Spruiell was a successful farmer who understood the economic potential of the bluff area, which was a busy crossing on the Old Alabama Road.
Straddling the Fall Line and providing a mountain-like environment in west central Georgia, Sprewell Bluff is one of the most interesting natural areas in the Piedmont region. The Flint River here is quite different than at its southern extremes in Georgia, characterized by rocky shoals and sheer rock walls along its banks.
Located about 10 miles west of Thomaston [take Georgia Highway 74 to Old Alabama Road, then turn onto Sprewell Bluff Road], the site has been as popular a landmark in the modern era as it was to the indigenous people who lived here for centuries before White settlers arrived.
As Atlanta’s population exploded in the early 1970s, the Army Corps of Engineers sought to build a dam at Sprewell Bluff, but thanks to strong local opposition and the personal intervention of Governor Jimmy Carter, the proposal was officially tabled in 1974.
Georgia Power has owned the site for many years and in the early 1990s leased it to the state of Georgia as a day-use state park. This arrangement didn’t prove too popular as there were no employees on-site full time, and beginning in 2013, Upson County assumed responsibility for managing the property. A trading post is located on Sprewell Bluff Road, and is the check-in point for the park. An amazing overlook deck is located there. Sprewell Bluff Park is a truly magical place for fishermen [especiallywith its population of Shoal Bass], paddlers, swimmers, hikers, campers, or anyone wanting to take in the awesome landscape.
I made this photograph in 2017 and don’t recall exactly where it was located. I know it was either on Georgia Highway 36 or 74, on the east side of Thomaston. The Art Deco building might be the work of the WPA or another New Deal agency, which would date it to the late 1930s or early 1940s, but this is just a guess. This style of architecture, considered modern and low-maintenance, was often used with governmental buildings. It’s possible that it served another purpose, but the font of the signage looks pretty authentic to the Art Deco style. I believe the Upson County Public Works department is now located elsewhere.
Danny Burks notes that this once served as a prison work camp.
This location near the Crawford-Upson County line was once a settlement known as Hickory Grove, undoubtedly one of several with that name in Georgia. Charlie Reeves purchased a house here in 1947 and transformed it into a combination store and residence, and part of it was located in Crawford, and part in Upson. Billy Powell, writing in Knoxville’s Georgia Post, called it the Plum-Nearly Store, for the fact that part of it was “plum nearly” in one county and the other part “plum nearly” in the other. When US-80 was widened, it was torn down and replaced by this structure, circa 1960. This one is located entirely in Upson County.
Though the store is no longer open, Mr. Reeves’s family still maintains it.
This Greek Revival cottage was built on North Church Street in 1833 by John E. Pettigrew. In 1840, Benjamin B. White purchased the house and added an additional bedroom, dining room, kitchen and verandah across the rear of the structure. The Stamps family bought the house at some point in the 1880s and remained until 1968. During that year, the house was moved to its present location by the Upson Historical Society to save it from demolition. It is the second oldest house in Thomaston.
It is now a museum, open by appointment with the Upson Historical Society.
Freedmen established this historic congregation in 1867. James McGill writes in his fascinating book, The First One Hundred Years of Upson County Negro History (2017): By the summer of 1870, Reverend William Harris was sent to St. Mary AME Church in Thomaston, Georgia. Rev. Harris, the third pastor in the history of St. Mary, was born free in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1845 but was kidnapped in 1858 and sold into slavery in Georgia. He escaped to the North two years later and eventually enlisted in the Union Army.
William Harris met Rev. M. Turner, a Presiding Elder of the AME Church, on the corner of Peachtree and Whitehall Streets in Atlanta in 1866…At the Atlanta Georgia District Conference of the AME Church, Rev. Turner licensed [Harris] as an exhorter, and then presented him a preacher’s license at the Wilmington Annual Conference in Wilmington, North Carolina. Rev. Harris received some schooling at what would later become Clarke College. Rev. Harris served Atlanta’s Western Mission for two years before being presented a deacon’s license in 1870 and appointed to St. Mary in Thomaston.
It is safe to assume that Rev. Harris taught school at St. Mary AME Church. St. Mary had a new church building completed that year [1870] which provided ample room for scholars. The school operated in St. Mary at least as late as 1876. Upson County did not open a public school in Thomaston for Negro students until August 1883; St. Mary can confidently claim credit for housing the first successful church school organized for the Negroes in Upson County.
The current church building was constructed in 1905 during the pastorate of Rev. J. H. Adams. Trustees were: H. R. Rogers; Ed Hix; A. G. Cary; George Bell; William Brown; James Brown; James W. Bell; M. Drake, Sr.; and A. Holsey. The church retains its historic appearance, though stucco has been applied to the original brick.
This gristmill was built on Ten Mile Creek in 1859 by Dr. J. W. Herring (1823-1911), who named it Rose Hill Mill. Dr. Herring was a physician by trade, but was also a well-known amateur engineer, having built several covered bridges in Upson County and vicinity, including the Auchumpkee Creek Covered Bridge. Notably, Rose Hill Mill was turbine operated, as opposed to the more common water-wheel system.
The mill was purchased in 1887 by Dr. George Whitfield Telford Hannah (1841-1906), a Confederate veteran and leading Thomaston physician. Since then it has been known as Hannah’s Mill. The surrounding community, now absorbed by Thomaston, is also known as Hannah’s Mill.
D. P. Harrell was the next owner, presumably following Dr. Hannah’s death. Since 1932, it has been owned by the Joseph W. McDonald family. The mill closed in the 1970s.
The architecture of this rural schoolhouse, between The Rock and Thomaston, led me to think it was a Rosenwald, but it just has similar features. It has been identified by Cynthia Jennings as the Ben Hill School. It is very endangered. It was likely built between 1910-1930 to serve African-American children in the community.
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 