This classic Miller Meteor Hearse served Albritten’s Funeral Service in Dawson for many years. Robert L. Albritten opened Albritten’s Funeral Service, with Bobby E. Glover, at 527 Lemon Street in 1966, and they are still in business.
The Miller-Meteor line of Cadillac hearses was made famous in the movie Ghostbusters, and as a result is one of the most recognized funeral cars ever produced. In that movie, the Ecto-1 was a 1959 custom; this hearse was likely made in the early 1970s.
This Greek Revival cottage is thought to have been built for John Spencer Roberts, the founder of Georgia Webbing & Tape, an early Columbus industrial concern, though further information on Mr. Roberts or his company has not been easy to locate. By 1896, it was home to Joseph Hecht (1844-1917) and Adele Kober Hecht (1859-1920). The Hechts were Austrian Jews who came to Columbus in the 1860s and later established Hecht’s Candy Company, a successful wholesaler.
It’s been home to Charles E. Huff’s International Funeral Home for many years.
National Register of Historic Places
An architectural survey notes that this building was “constructed by Alex Tole as Tole’s Undertaking. The business was founded in 1892 and Alex Tole was one of the few who could afford to buy a stained glass picture of himself in his church, the First African Baptist Church. It is uncertain if he ever saw the finished window prior to his death in 1915. Mr. Henry Tole (Alex Tole’s brother) took over the business after his brother’s death. The “837 Club” would meet on the second floor of the building and consisted of men who would get together and play cards, etc. They rented the space from the Funeral Home.”
The corner of 9th Street and 5th Avenue was the commercial and cultural center of Black Columbus throughout much of the 20th century in an area known as the Liberty District. John Leonard Sconiers, Sr., (1884-1959) was one of its biggest boosters. His Sconiers Funeral Home, originally located in the small house to the left of the Sconiers Building, was established here circa 1916 and is the oldest Black-owned business in Columbus.
The corner space on the ground floor of the Sconiers Building was once occupied by the Laborers Savings and Loan Company, of which Mr. Sconiers served as president. Other commercial businesses occupied the two remaining ground spaces. More business and professional offices, including the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, occupied the second floor, and the third floor served as Sconiers Hall, an auditorium used for entertainment, conventions, assemblies, and lodge meetings. Later businesses included the Afro-American Life Insurance Company, Guaranty Life Insurance Company, barber Charles Johnson, and beautician Eula Jones. These businesses were central to the development of a Black middle class in Columbus and this building is an important link to that history.
Charles Cargile “C. C.” Hall was born in Madison, Georgia in 1925. He was drafted in 1943 and enlisted with the Marines at Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville, North Carolina, among the first African-Americans to serve in the Corps. His World War II service included stints at Guam and Hawaii and he was honorably discharged in 1946. After the war, he received a degree from Savannah State and went on to receive a Masters Degree from Columbia University in New York.
He came to Fitzgerald to teach at Monitor High School after completing his education, and he never left. Working a side job at Riggs Funeral Home to supplement his teaching salary, he eventually became a partner. When Mr. Riggs died in 1959, Hall became the sole owner and renamed it Hall’s Funeral Home. The business remains successful today, though at 99 years old Mr. Hall isn’t involved in day to day operations. Throughout the years, he has also been actively involved in civil rights issues.
In 2012 Mr. Hall and other surviving Montford Point Marines received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Obama. He has been a respected businessman in Fitzgerald for over 65 years and has received numerous honors for his service. Part of Monitor Drive was even renamed C. C. Hall Honorary Drive in tribute.
Thanks to my father for getting this photograph.
This typical early-20th-century commercial block originally housed offices for the textile mills that dominated life in Porterdale. The executives and paymaster had offices upstairs while the mayor’s office was located downstairs. Circa 1925, according to the National Register of Historic Places, Porterdale mills were among the largest spinning mills in the nation, with over 75,000 spindles.
Since the closure of the mills, it has been home to myriad businesses, including a barber, shoe shop, doctor, dentist, drug store, funeral home, restaurant, and even the Porterdale post office. After later remodeling and an altered roofline, it has been returned to its more traditional appearance.
Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This store was built by Amanda Toomer and later included a pharmacy, the first such Black-owned business in Perry. The Toomer family ran the store and lived upstairs. Mrs. Toomer was also a stockholder in the Georgia Southern Railroad and a landowner. She was the sister-in-law of Amanda America Dickson Toomer, the wealthiest African-American woman in the United States after the Civil War.
In 1915, it was converted to the Toomer Brothers Mortuary and, according to local Black History sources, the bodies of the deceased were tastefully displayed in the windows of the first floor. Years later, it became an apartment building and has been home to some of Mrs. Toomer’s descendants.
This beautiful house is best known today as the Bowen-Donaldson Home for Funerals. Their website notes: The Buck House, built in 1905, had an interesting history of its own. When the original owners were all killed in a series of tragic accidents, the property passed to the Mellon family. Eventually, the Buck House became a dilapidated apartment building. Bowen-Donaldson’s building improvement, however, made the quality of the house’s structure and surroundings better than ever.
It has been a bit of a tradition in many small Georgia towns for funeral businesses to move into and restore large historical homes. The Buck House in Tifton is a great example.
Tifton Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
I’ve admired this structure for many years, thinking that it must have originally been an automobile dealership, but in the process of documenting some historic properties of the Dudley family, I discovered it is actually a well-established funeral home, celebrating its centennial this year. It is one of the best-known landmarks of Dublin’s African-American community and features some of the finest commercial brickwork I’ve seen in rural Georgia.
The brickwork is what first caught my eye and is obviously the work of a very skilled mason. Dudley Funeral Home notes that the building originated as a general merchandise store circa 1900, one of the first Black-owned businesses in Dublin. In 1922, the funeral home was established in the store building, typical of the era. Other business originated here, as well, including a barber shop, casket showroom, and realty and investment business. During the early 1940s, the funeral home and casket business had grown to a point that they occupied the entire building; the other businesses were relocated. The present brick facade was added at this time.
This Second Empire house was built for Jacob Phinizy (9 August 1857-30 May 1924) circa 1882. Phinizy was the great-nephew of John Phinizy, owner of the iconic house next door, and a cotton factor with his family’s firm, F. Phinizy and Company. He also served as a president of the Georgia Railroad Bank. His father’s family was from Oglethorpe County.
Beginning in 1946, the house served for many years as the Poteet Funeral Home. It was modernized at that time by the local architectural firm of Scroggs & Ewing.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places