This storefront is located on Main Street. Scott was a chain of 5 and 10 (five and dime) department stores located from coast to coast, though I haven’t been able to find much information about the company online, other than a few specific locations that were open from the 1930s until the early 1980s. Many used Art Deco design in their architecture. Hopefully, the entry and transom signs will be preserved.
Many empty buildings in downtown Dawson are being slowly renovated. There has been a serious effort by the Downtown Development Authority to bring the area back to life. Commercial blocks typical of the early 20th century make up the core of Dawson. It’s always a challenge to attract people to small towns, and an even bigger challenge to attract businesses, but Dawson is off to a good start.
Dawson Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
According to the National Register of Historic Places, the period from 1900-1920 was “the absolute height of prosperity in Dawson” and many of the commercial buildings that still define the town were built during this time. This three-story brick storefront is most associated with the Dawson Furniture Company, but may have had an earlier use. It’s located on East Lee Street across from the Terrell County Courthouse.
Dawson Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The introduction of the automobile was a phenomenon of the early 1900s that transformed Georgia, from its small rural towns to its biggest cities. This trend came early to Dawson with the construction of the Dawson Motor Company on Main Street in 1914. I generally associate the Art Deco/Streamline Moderne style with automobile dealerships, so the Colonial Revival appearance of the Dawson Motor Company is unusual. The building has been restored and has most recently been home to a ceramics studio.
Dawson Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Mr. G’s has been abandoned for a long time. The first time I was in Bronwood, in 2009, it looked about the same as it does today. Much has been written about the importance of convenience stores as restaurant choices for people in small towns. I’m sure Mr. G’s served that purpose as long as it could.
This typical turn-of-the-century storefront is located on Muckaloochee Street, near the train tracks. I consulted a history of the community but was unable to identify the structure.
Leslie was established by J. W. Bailey in 1884. Bailey was a timber operator with financial interests in the area. The post office opened in 1889 and the town was incorporated by the Georgia General Assembly in 1892. According to Ken Krakow, “Bailey first named the town Jeb, the initials of his father, J. E. Bailey, but the post office was erroneously given the name of JOB. Bailey disliked the name “Job” so he circulated a petition to rename the town Leslie for his younger daughter, Leslie Vestell Bailey.”
Leslie is also the home of the Georgia Rural Telephone Museum, which boasts one of the world’s largest collection of antique telephones. It is presently closed to the public, however.
Note: This post replaces “Commerce Street, Leslie”, which was published, with slightly different photographs, on 15 June 2010.
This building was one of the anchors of the commercial row of Bronwood that was demolished in 2016. Richard Stott wrote of the above building: “When I lived there, the far end of this building was the post office, and next to it was Floyd Herrington’s barber shop.” It was a substantial commercial block, perhaps originally a bank or office space.
This photograph was made in 2010.
Ambrose is located west of Douglas, not far from the Irwin County line, and has always been an agriculturally focused community. When the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad reached the area, in 1899, Dennis Vickers and J. J. Phillips gave the land for the town site. I’m not sure as to the origin of the name. Some of the first businesses were H. L. Vickers’s general store and Dr. Moorman’s pharmacy. Dennis Vickers built a gin to service the many cotton farmers in the area. A school was built in the late 1920s and the town was first electrified by Georgia Power in 1930.
You don’t see many of these old Rexall drug store signs anymore, but the one at Malcolm’s Drugs is a Peterson Avenue landmark and is still in business. There was still an old Rexall sign in Fitzgerald when I was very young, in the early 1970s, but it’s long gone, as it the business it advertised.
This isn’t an advertisement, but rather an appreciation for the fact that this slice of Americana is still visible and serving its original purpose. I’m not sure when Malcolm’s opened, but my father remembers it from his days at South Georgia College, circa 1960-1962.
Downtown Douglas Historic District, National Register of Historic Places