The Central of Georgia Railroad built this depot circa 1898 when they extended their tracks beyond Covington to handle all the business generated by the mills in Porterdale. It’s a bit of an unusual form, and since it’s been restored in recent years, I don’t know if the extension originally featured a loading platform or if it’s part of a newer use for the structure.
Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Homerville is located midway between Waycross and Valdosta at the crossroads of two US Highways, 84 and 441. Some may be surprised to learn that it’s a nationally known hub of genealogical research. The Huxford Genealogical Society was established in 1972, long before the rise of internet-based search options, but quickly became a major resource. It initially focused on South Georgia and North Florida but as the years went by, it expanded its database. Its founder Folks Huxford (1893-1981) was a lawyer, judge, and Baptist preacher, who spent much of his life compiling the landmark multi-volume genealogical work, Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia. In 2009, the society merged with Elmer Spear’s Genealogy Library of Madison, Florida, and today is one of the largest privately-owned libraries in the United States, now known as the Huxford-Spear Genealogical Library.
As to Homerville proper, its small downtown is anchored by an historic railroad depot. Its namesake, Dr. John Homer Mattox (1827-1895), came to the frontier area in 1853. By 1859, a small settlement which would eventually bear his name had grown up around his property. After the Civil War, Dr. Mattox gave six acres to the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad, who built a depot known as Station No. 11. On 15 February 1869, it was officially named Homerville and chartered by the state legislature.
Homerville was long a center of the turpentine industry, appropriate for a town in the third largest county in Georgia with far more pine trees than people. Sawmills and lumber have also been important to the community for decades, and now, honey is a big business in the area, thanks to the abundance of native plants that thrive in the nearby Okefenokee Swamp.
This freight depot on Louisville Road, which sits just outside the boundaries of the National Historic Landmark District, is slated for partial demolition to make way for a new development for SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) in the near future. This was initially planned by private developers in 2016 and 2019 but intervening factors halted the process. In the interim, the city condemned the property after finding it to be unfit for human habitation, improperly secured, covered in graffiti, surrounded by litter and a harbor for vagrants and criminal activity. The office section, or “head house”, seen at the foreground of the photo below, will be preserved and six- and seven-story student housing and parking decks will be built around it.
Built to handle freight for the Seaboard Air Line Railway, a forerunner of CSX, it served that purpose until the 1950s or early 1960s and was repurposed for various uses in the 1960s and 1970s. Over time, its original floors were removed, along with light fixtures, and other architectural elements.
In my drive back to Coastal Georgia from Monroe County, a stop in James was at the top of my list. I immediately became enamored of the place, but it was when we took a walk with Aubrey Newby down this abandoned rail bed that I understood the appeal of the place. Sure, I was there to see the houses, but this charming path through the woods drew me in and made James seem like a wonderland to me. Aubrey Newby recalls: When I was a kid the train still ran through the the middle of “town” and I would run down the big side porch on the end of the Duffy-Newby house and wave to the conductor who would blow the engine whistle for me.
I’m not sure which railroad used the long-gone tracks, but I know that L. P. James was involved with the Georgia Railroad. Whatever corporations followed it would have used this route, into the late 1980s or early 1990s, I imagine.
This was a depot before becoming a store and filling station. Considering its approximate date of construction, it was likely built by the Macon & Birmingham Railroad or, perhaps, the Southern Railway. I have a couple of books on the Southern Railway, however, and can find no references to a depot at Culloden.
Culloden Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The people of Cave Springs answered the call for donations by the Cave Springs Historical Society to save this old Chesapeake & Ohio [C&O] caboose from where it languished at the old depot. I made this photo a few years ago so I imagine the caboose has been completely restored by now.
This easily overlooked landmark is actually a manufactured image, made for Hollywood, but nonetheless has become a symbol of the town for me.
As a work of art, it’s a grand interpretation of the folk art religious signs once found on fence posts and roadside messages once found throughout the American South.
The artist Joey Potter contacted me and said: I painted this mural on the train depot wall in the early 1980s when I was a scenic for cinema and stage…for the movies Stars and Bars and Home Fires Burning…
As the detail views attest, the mural is fading into oblivion.
The depot itself appears to be highly endangered, though the owner has placed a new roof on it, so there may be hope for its future. In The Courthouse and the Depot (Mercer University Press, Macon, 2002) Wilber W. Caldwell identifies it as a depot of the Georgia Railroad. The combination of the broad eaves, the gentle curve of the roof and the distinctive broken based pediment is unique to depots built on the Georgia Railroad in the 1880s and early 1890s.
The depot is posted so please do not attempt to trespass here.
Crawfordville Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Alapaha’s iconic Brunswick and Western Railroad Depot, built in 1890, has been an important community landmark since its construction, but like many small down depots, had fallen into disuse in recent years. Concerned citizens, led by Mayor Ben Davis, accomplished the beautiful restoration you see in these photographs in an amazingly short time. From 2021 until the dedication of the new facility in December 2022, volunteers and skilled carpenters alike came together to spruce up this symbol of early Alapaha.
Congratulations to Mayor Davis and the people of Alapaha for a job well done, and a lesson to all that historic buildings are worth saving and can be saved when a community comes together.
Two historic freight warehouses survive along the tracks in Cairo. As a shipping point for syrup, they were quite busy, especially during the 1930s, when the town gained attention as the nation’s leading cane syrup producer.
Cairo Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The old Atlantic Coast Line depot in the middle of downtown Cairo was a busy location in its early years, carrying produce, and the syrup that made the town famous, to buyers all over the country. As dependence on depots waned, the venerable building was repurposed in the 1970s as the Cairo Police Department. Recently, a demolition of the non-historic interior was completed and a master plan to restore it to its original condition was initiated by Lew Oliver, Inc., a renowned architectural firm responsible for numerous successful projects throughout the region. I’m a big fan of Mr. Oliver’s work and know that Cairo will be pleased with what he will do with this depot.
Cairo Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 