From what little information I can locate on Miller County’s historic places, I’ve preliminarily identified this as a commissary built circa 1910 by Joe Shingler to serve his timber and turpentine business. This building looks a little later than 1910, but it was possibly “modernized” at some time during its history and served as a general store. It likely originally featured lapboard siding similar to the adjacent barns, which date to the same time.
I can’t locate anything about Lela other than the fact it had a post office between 1904-1928. This was possibly a general store or commissary for the community, which was likely centered around a large working farm. It’s possible that it was a schoolhouse, but the architecture leads me to believe it was a store. It’s one of the most perfectly restored and maintained structures of this type that I’ve found in Georgia.
The Cyrene Commissary, built in 1904, served farm workers and railroad traffic in this rural community near Bainbridge, named for the ancient Greek city of Cyrenaica. It was located along the Atlantic Coast Line railroad. A post office at Cyrene was open from 1894-1938.
This commissary near the Lowery community was likely related to the turpentine industry and according to a Laurens County Historic Resources survey dates to circa 1910-1920.
I believe this to be Charlie Moore’s commissary, which served employees in his milling and coffin building operations. William H. Davidson notes two stores in Junction City in his history of Talbot County.
J. Leonard Morgan’s general store wasn’t open until 1929, and this construction looks earlier than 1929 to me. I think this is what he identified as Marvin J. Hester’s general store, “located in Charlie Moore’s old commissary building“.
That would likely place this structure’s date of construction to circa 1906. It was a condition of Moore’s purchase of the Perkins properties [present day Junction City vicinity] that all structures of that enterprise be removed by 1 September 1906, so Moore likely built this commissary when he established the town.
This massive Folk Victorian house sits at the end of a row of majestic cedars, which appear to be well over a century old.
Cedar lanes were once a popular landscaping choice but most of the old ones are long gone, lost to disease or storms over the years. These have somehow miraculously survived.
The house appears to date to the late 19th century.
An historic commissary stands at the front of the property, confirming that this was once a very busy plantation. It is still part of a large working farm. I walked up the lane to try to find someone to tell me about the place, to no avail. I imagine they were out in the fields busy with the cotton harvest.
This is one of the most pristine historic plantation properties I’ve ever seen and the owners have done a wonderful service in their efforts to preserve it. Thanks to Dale Reddick, and other members of the Screven County history group on Facebook, for the identification.
This structure is part of what appears to have once been a large working farm. It was likely a commissary and/or general store.
This impressive house is the center of a large historic farm property, still active today.
Though it has been modernized with new windows, porch, and wings, it still retains elements of its early appearance and likely dates to the late 1810s or early 1820s.
The bricks on the two original chimneys appear to be slave-made. The porch and unfinished timber posts are likely later additions. A circa 1920s commissary is also present.
Saw Dust, as its post office was known when it operated between 1852 and 1895, was the first settlement in the area that would later come to be known as Harlem. Its name came from the presence of three sawmills, which derived their power from Big Kiokee Creek. The town had a raucous reputation for its numerous bars and saloons and this prompted a name change from community leaders. This structure was likely a commissary or general/grocery store.
This property was originally settled by Joseph Shields and sons James and Patrick in 1802.
With two slaves, they cleared and cultivated the land.
When Joseph died in 1818, he willed the land to his son, James and by 1860, 20 enslaved people worked the land.
James died in 1863 and in 1865 his widow, Charity, signed a contract with three of her former slaves, providing them housing and food in exchange for their work on the farm.
When James and Charity’s son, Joseph Robert Shields, returned home from the Civil War in 1866, he built the main house and soon applied the sharecropping system to the entire farm, managing many of his former slaves alongside poor white farmers.
By 1890, the farm had grown to 1000 acres.
In 1897, Joseph Robert’s daughter Susan Ella returned to the farm with her husband Ira Washington Ethridge.
Joseph Robert Shields died in 1910 and Susan Ella and Ira inherited the house and surrounding property.
To hedge his bets against increasingly unstable cotton prices, Ira Ethridge built a self-sustaining sharecropper’s “village” near the main house.
In 1914, “Mr. Ira” transformed the main house from its historical Plantation Plain appearance to it present Neoclassical appearance by adding columns and raising the porch.
The structures seen today were built between 1900-1930. Most of the sharecropper housing is gone today, but a few scattered examples survive.
When Ira died in 1945, his son Lanis understood that the farm would soon be changed by mechanization.
He diversified and in the early 1950s began breeding cattle and slowly expanding pastureland on his acreage.
At his death in 1970, the sharecropper’s village was long abandoned.
His widow, Joyce Ethridge, began documenting the history of the farm.
In 1994 she and daughters Susan E. Chaisson and Ann E. Lacey gave 150 acres of the farm to the Shields-Ethridge Farm Foundation to preserve the site as an agricultural museum.
Joyce’s research also led to the listing of the property on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Shields-Ethridge Heritage Farm is the most intact collection of historic farm structures in their original location in Georgia.
It is truly awe-inspiring and worth a visit.
As someone who has spent years seeking out structures like these, I can’t tell you how important this place is.
You must see it for yourself.
National Register of Historic Places + Georgia Centennial Farm
Note- This replaces a post originally published on 11 July 2021, necessitated by formatting issues.