This is located near the Riverbend community, and I’ve stopped many times over the years to photograph it. The “striped’ roof always catches my eye. With so many photographs, I don’t know why I’ve never published it, but I’m finding quite a few Irwin County images as I re-edit posts, and perhaps it got overlooked. I believe Diana Griffin identified it for me on social media years ago, but since I’m not on those spaces much anymore, I don’t have access to that information. It is a double-pen house, indicated by the two front doors, and in that respect a relatively rare form. Double-pen houses are most often associated with tenancy, but not always. A shed room at the rear of the house is also visible, which was a common amendment to these types of structures.
I wish the quality of these images were better, but this is a heavily shaded location and I had to settle for what I could get. These photographs date to 2012 so I’m not certain this house is still extant. But what a great house it is, a textbook example of the workhorse of the tenant farm era, the single-pen cottage. This one had a chimney that would have cost more than the house, undoubtedly. It served its purpose of shelter and warmth, but gave little comfort otherwise. Houses of this type were often built in rows, on a larger farm, reminiscent of the arrangement of slave dwellings on earlier plantations. Of course, a small farmer may have only had one or two such houses on his property. I know nothing about this one, except that I think it was worth documenting.
I photographed this little house numerous times over the years and it finally collapsed in 2018. There was a large shed room that ran across the back side and continued into a small wing, visible behind the tree at right, but it was essentially a classic example of the hall and parlor style often associated with tenant housing. I like to imagine it in its younger days, when someone took care of it and called it home.
I first photographed this house in 2001 and it was still standing in 2015. I haven’t driven past it in a few years and am not sure if it survives. Typical of many tenant houses, it was of board-and-batten construction and had a small shed room at the back. These small utilitarian spaces were often associated with farming and/or turpentining and supported large families in many cases. It’s hard to imagine what life must have been like in such a small space without any of the modern conveniences.
This is one of my favorite Irwinville Farms barns. I don’t think all of the barns and houses were originally painted white, but in images from the project in the Library of Congress, many were. This may be one of just a couple that are still painted. These tobacco barns were built so well that there are still a few around today, nearly 90 years later. That’s amazing considering they were built to be used and they were given a lot of wear and tear in the labor intensive culture of tobacco harvesting.
This storefront has been associated with Irwinville Peanut & Grain for many years, but it was built in 1938 as the retail store for the Irwinville Cooperative Association, an offshoot of the Irwinville Farms Project. It has been modified over time.
In her book Irwinville Farms Project: The Making of a Community (Yawn’s Publishing, Canton, Georgia, 2012), Joy Wilson McDaniel notes that the store cost $8,747 to build, and along with the Cooperative Office, “just about completed the construction work on the town of Irwinville...” [in regards to the Irwinville Farms Project].
This stock and hay barn stands on a property which still includes an Irwinville Farms house. These amazing utilitarian structures were built for about $200 during the Great Depression as part of an economic rescue program designed to bring farmers out of the devastating downturn which began in 1919 with the proliferation of the boll weevil and continued until the start of World War II. A few of these barns remain today, in varying states of repair, but all should be considered of historical importance.
I’ve discussed Irwinville Farms extensively in the past and will be updating some sites I’ve already visited, as well as adding other examples from my archive.
I have never been able to identify this early-20th-century structure, located in the extreme eastern section of Ben Hill County, near Macedonia Baptist Church. Obviously, it has been used as a barn for many years, but the architecture would suggest some other original purpose. My best guess is that it was a schoolhouse, but it could have also been a church or even a store. The photograph dates to circa 2012, and I’m not sure if the building is still standing.
This structure takes the concept of the curtain wall, a popular Mid-Century commercial building style, and prefabricates it into a smaller form. Numerous companies, including Fentron and PPG, made colorful panels for use in this type of architecture, but I imagine the company that created this curiosity was just doing ready-made kits. For most of my life, this was a beauty salon and it was located just a few blocks from my grandmother’s house. It always reminded me of the Partridge Family.
It has been here since at least the early 1970s, if not earlier, and looks much as it did 50 years ago, except for the intrusive addition of the roof. The original roof was flat, which gave the building a much more modern appearance. I suspect the roof was added to protect the building. It no longer serves a commercial purpose and is now used for storage, if I understand correctly.
I don’t know what kind of preservation can be done with places like this, but it’s certainly an eye-catching relic, reminiscent of a very progressive era of American architecture.
This Craftsman townhouse was home for nearly 50 years to Foster Goolsby (1922-2016) and Frances Taylor Goolsby (1920-2011) and their family, and I had many pleasurable visits on this porch, in the shade of the two big magnolia trees that dominate the front yard.
Foster Goolsby was a B-17 pilot in World War II who had a penchant for telling amazing stories, and he didn’t mind telling anyone how much he hated Fitzgerald’s wild chickens, for their habit of destroying his wife’s flower beds. A Talbot County native, he came to Fitzgerald while serving as headmaster of Irwin Academy, after being principal of at least seven schools prior to his move. He was also superintendent of the Valdosta City Schools for 10 years. In addition to this work, he served for over 40 years as chairman of the board of the Georgia Accrediting Commission.
Frances was born in Elberton and was a genteel Southern lady of another era. A consummate hostess and homemaker, she was well known for her award winning flower arrangements and her time with the Magnolia Garden Club.
I don’t have information on who built the house at the moment, but will update at some point. I’ve identified it as the Goolsby House for their long association with the property.
I made these photographs in 2016 at the invitation of Al Johnson and the house was staged for sale at the time. The beautiful interior design work was done by Lisa Davis Eldridge. The house now has new owners.
It was amazing to see the house restored. I know the Goolsbys would be proud to see what it has become.
It’s a great example of what can be done with historic properties. The Craftsman style endures as one of the most practical and adaptable forms of American architecure.
