Jackson is a small town almost midway between Macon and Atlanta and like any small town has some wonderful old historic homes near its courthouse square. Numerous examples of various architectural styles give a lot of character to the area but there is no National Register historic district. Considering the quality of the homes, such as this simple Queen Anne cottage, I’m a bit surprised that there hasn’t been a local effort to seek more recognition for this neighborhood.
I like to think this water tower, and its slogan “Welcome to Beautiful Butts County”, [with Beautiful Butts in a noticeably larger font], is a cheeky response to Don Earnhart’s doomed appeal to give the county a more forward-facing name. In 2003, Earnhart, owner of local radio station WJGA, used his daily call-in show to suggest what proved unthinkable to most.
At the time, he told the Associated Press: “We catch so much flak, and it’s holding us back. You hear the name Butts County, Ga., and it conjures up an image of a doublewide with a car up on blocks in the front yard. Let’s say I’m a manufacturer trying to get my shareholders to invest in a plant. And the plant’s in someplace called Podunk, Mississippi. You see what I’m saying?” The story got lots of national attention but ultimately, nothing happened, other than a renewed sense of pride in the name.
And though community sentiment was overwhelmingly against the change, it should be pointed out that the name wasn’t even used on the county’s courthouse, nor the high school, which is named for the county seat of Jackson. Not a single business in the county used Butts in its name, either.
As to the source of the name, it was Captain Samuel Butts, a Virginia native who died in the Battle of Calabee (Alabama) during the Creek Indian War of 1811-1815. It was created from Henry and Monroe County in 1825. Scores of locations were honoring “Indian Wars” heroes at this time, so that probably explains “Why Butts?”
Ultimately, Butts is Beautiful, and a bit of a rural refuge wedged between Macon and Atlanta. I’m glad they have fun with the name.
This fine Greek Revival townhouse is one of the architectural highlights of Greenville Street, in one of the oldest residential historic districts in Newnan. It was built by Dr. J. T. Reese, an early druggist in the community. Newnan was known as a hospital town during the Civil War, and this was one of the houses where injured soldiers were taken for care.
The house is also associated with the Umberger family and known as the Reese-Umberger House. The colonnade was likely added in the early 1900s when the Neoclassical movement was in full swing.
Greenville Street-LaGrange Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This is one of several large Neoclassical Revival mansions in the Greenville-LaGrange Street historic district. Considering the construction date of 1889, the columns were likely added a few years later. It was seriously damaged during the EF-4 tornado that struck downtown Newnan on 26 March 2021, with columns toppled, and is now being restored.
Greenville Street-LaGrange Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Ellis Gibbs Arnall (1907-1992) received his law degree from the University of Georgia in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. He married Mildred Delaney Slemons (1908-1980) and built this house in 1935, in the same neighborhood where his parents once lived. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1932-1938 and as attorney general from 1939-1943. He was elected governor in 1943 and served four years. His record still stands as one of the most progressive in the state’s modern history.
Platinum Point Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The McDonald-McMichael House was among the last to be built in the Platinum Point neighborhood, just north of downtown Newnan on US 29. Characterized by large lots with set-back houses, Platinum Point was one of the earliest residential expansions of Newnan, and represented several early-20th-century revival styles popular throughout the country at the time. This Colonial Revival example, completed in 1941, looks like something you’d see in Beverly Hills on a tour of star’s homes during Hollywood’s Golden Era.
Platinum Point Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The mugshot above is a haunting reminder of the failures and atrocities of the Jim Crow government that dominated Georgia well into the 1960s. Made at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville just ten days before Lena Baker became the only woman to be executed in Georgia’s electric chair, it instills a sense of fear and sadness. This was, ultimately, a legal lynching.
Lena Baker was born near Cuthbert in 1900 to a family of sharecroppers and followed the typical employment pattern of black women of her time, working as a maid for little pay for middle class white families in order to support her three children. She was later forced into a sexual relationship with an elderly white employer, Ernest B. Knight. It was well-known and frowned upon throughout the county. When Knight realized that Ms. Baker was determined to end the relationship he locked her in his gristmill, as he had done many times before. When she tried to escape, they “tussled” over his pistol which fired and killed him. She immediately turned herself in and claimed the shooting was in self-defense. She also admitted that she drank alcohol with him, but also, not by choice. Not surprisingly, the all-male, all-white jury in the ensuing sham trial found Ms. Baker guilty of capital murder and sentenced her to death. This is likely due to the fact that the family of Ernest Knight was embarrassed by the breach of social order the case represented, even though Knight’s proclivities were already well known. It was a neat way, on the part of a white family, to put this sorry episode to rest at the expense of a woman’s life. She was executed at Reidsville on 5 March 1945 and buried at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church near Cuthbert. Her last words were: “What I done, I did in self-defense or I would have been killed myself. Where I was, I could not overcome it…I am ready to meet my God.”
That this was a tragic, if typical, miscarriage of justice was confirmed when she was granted a pardon by the state in 2005, thanks to the advocacy of Ms. Baker’s grand-nephew, Roosevelt Curry. Sadly, though, at least one member of the parole board, Garland Hunt, said the board didn’t see the pardon as striking a blow against racial injustice or righting a historical wrong. He just thought it was a good thing for the family.
Church members placed a headstone on her unmarked grave in 1998 and family members pay tribute every year on Mother’s Day.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. The older I’ve gotten, the more I understand that holidays aren’t about gifts but about the togetherness of family and memories of our traditions at this time. One of my traditions is riding around my hometown with my mother on Christmas Eve and looking at all the Christmas lights in the parks, in peoples’ yards, and listening to holiday music on the radio. This was my church when I was growing up, and it looked particularly nice last night as we made our annual drive. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Stay safe.
Kuanita Evette Murphy states in her book, The History of the Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church: From the Brush Arbor to the Sanctuary, that the congregation dates all the way back to 1834 and began as a brush arbor church. From the era of enslavement to the present day, Piney Grove has been a spiritual resource for its members and is among the oldest black congregations in present-day Randolph County.
There’s a large historic cemetery beside the church. The following memorials are presented randomly, for their vernacular importance.
The roots of this tree look like they’re going to topple this nice old vernacular headstone.
The next two two memorials, by renowned sculptor Eldren Bailey, were purchased through the Haugabrooks Funeral Home in Atlanta.
Elijah Sturgis (spelled Stergis on the memorial) was lynched simply for being related to a fugitive and being in the path of a rabid mob. I believe these stories must be told.
On 18 September 1916, Sturgis’s cousin Peter Hudson shot and killed Randolph County Sheriff William Samuel Taylor, who was serving a warrant for Hudson’s arrest. Hudson escaped the scene and went into hiding in the nearby woods and swamps. A lynch mob formed and while tracking Hudson, encountered Elijah Sturgis, apparently killing him for no reason. Hudson was located on 20 September 1916 and shot on the spot. His lifeless body was dragged around the town square in Cuthbert before being hoisted onto an improvised gallows. It was later taken down and burned on the outskirts of town.
It’s in a beautifully secluded location, far back in the woods down hilly roads of orange-red clay. This area of northwestern Randolph County is known locally as the Upper Corner. This historic congregation is still very active.
Virgil Chapel is one of the earliest African-American congregations in Randolph County. It was founded in a brush arbor in 1868. Rev. Green McCarthy of Benevolence Baptist Church appointed Rev. J. Simpson as the first full-time pastor. Deacons were: Jake Gilbert, Green Johnson, John Thomas and William Jones. The congregation met for many years in the brush arbor. It was circa 1880 before the first permanent church was built. As the years went on the membership continued to grow. The present church was constructed during the pastorate of Rev. C. C. Scott in 1934 to accommodate this expansion.
