This historic general store on the corner of Lamar and Forrest Streets has been well-maintained and is a great example of commercial architecture in late-19th-century Georgia. It is virtually unchanged from its original appearance. The sign notes that the business traded in stoves and crockery. Selling hardware, groceries, and sundries, J. W. Harris & Co. would have been the equivalent of a big box store today.
Americus Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This appears to have been a general store. Located in rural Sumter County, not far from Andersonville, it’s a very plain structure, made of cinderblock. One can imagine that it was important to the people out here in the country, who probably didn’t go to town very often. General store, as opposed to the more quaint “country store”, is an important distinction, because these places usually sold a little bit of everything, and the owners knew what people needed. It’s possible that it was a commissary. There’s a sign at the roadside that indicates it was part of the Hoke Smith Farm.
I first published this photograph on 15 June 2010 under the title “Wisenbaker’s Grocery & Market”, but I’m replacing it with a new post to update what I’ve learned, and to share a little about Dasher, thanks to an excellent brief history of the community by Faye Cook Wisenbaker. I believe this sign came from another building and was saved for its local importance.
Faye writes that all of the area south of Valdosta in present-day Lowndes County has connections to the Dasher and Wisenbaker families, who had their Georgia origins with the Ebenezer Salzburgers of Effingham County. James Wisenbaker and Christian Herman Dasher are the earliest known members of their families to have arrived in this frontier area of the Wiregrass Region. Dasher is believed to have arrived circa 1832. James Wisenbaker was his son-in-law and they had left the Lutheran faith in 1819 and began having services in their homes.
The area around Dasher was first settled circa 1842. Richard Herman Wisenbaker was also living in the area around this time, as he established “a congregation of New Testament Christianity” which would eventually be known as the Corinth Church of Christ, and today, Corinth Baptist Church. Faye notes that sometime before 1861, Wisenbaker “constructed a home using slave labor”.
The town was formally established as a station of the Georgia Southern & Florida Railway in 1889 at the residence of Virgil Franklin Dasher. By 1916, thanks to the timber and turpentine business, and the presence of the railroad, Dasher was a thriving place. The Dasher Bible School was established during that year and met in the Church of Christ until building a larger campus in 1928.
This little building in the middle of Kite looks like some kind of store, perhaps a repair shop, or even an office. I just liked the wisteria and the exposed boards. It’s looked like this as long as I’ve been driving through Kite.
The UGA Football Barn Sign, as this old store or warehouse building is now known throughout Dawg Nation and beyond, has become a serious landmark, has its own social media presence, and has even been featured on t-shirts. It was already well-known when I first photographed it in 2010, and was a sign for many travelers on the road to Athens that they were getting just a bit closer to the nirvana of a weekend between the hedges. In some of UGA’s leaner years, the sign changed regularly to reflect on recent shortcomings and was a welcome beacon of tough love, when most observers weren’t willing to put it out there. It never disappoints, and the current message is the best. I just know if this old building were to fall down, there would probably still be a UGA Football Barn Sign.
Though you’d hardly notice it today, Pretoria was once a busy crossroad village, anchored by nearby plantations. It had a post office from 1900-1917 and was incorporated in 1907. It was named for the South African city. It was never much more than a crossroads, but there were at least two stores at one time. The old Pretoria Station, which was recently demolished, and this store, which I believe is still standing.
Here’s another photo that is a mystery to me. It dates to 2010 and was located on somewhere on or near Greenough Road. I may be wrong in my recollection, though. Someone identified it years ago, on Flickr or another photo sharing site, but I’ve lost access to that information. I do know, from that identification, that it was a general store. It looked like it was in its last days when I encountered it, so it is likely gone.
Update: Bill Blackburn writes that this was the Willy Hill Bozeman Store and that it closed in the early 1960s.
I’m still looking through older, unpublished photographs and discovered this one, made in 2017 in Mitchell County. It’s a typical central hallway form with board-and-batten siding. A front porch appears to have collapsed or been removed, which is also typical with abandoned properties. Jonathan West writes that this was actually a grocery and parts store all-in-one, owned by his parents.
This building, and another one separated by an empty lot, are the oldest remaining commercial storefronts in Climax. Other than the removal of a shed roof on the front of the building and the addition of a restroom in the rear, it’s virtually unchanged from its original appearance.
Ira Albert Allen (1869-1924) and Walter Samuel Allen (1873-1931) established the Allen Mercantile Company in 1903 and operated the business until they went bankrupt in 1916. Typical of merchants of the day, the Allen Mercantile Company sold groceries, hardware, dry goods, and farm supplies, probably even caskets. The store was also home to the Climax post office from 1905 until the 1930s .The store also housed the Climax post office from 1905 until the 1930s. John P. Herring bought the store from the bank after the Allen brothers went bankrupt. Ira’s daughter, Inez Allen, reopened the store in the 1930s and operated it until the 1960s.
Bernice Doyle writes: This store was known as Miss Inez’ s Mercantile Store. My mother worked for her for many years. It is sad to see it is falling in. Climax looks nothing like it did when I was growing up there. Jean Ouzts notes: I am the Climax news paper correspondent for the Bainbridge Post Searchlight…There were several other stores on Main Street before being torn down for the building of Parker Park. Grover’s store, which later became Gowan’s, and then B&B or Bishop and Betts.
National Register of Historic Places
Note: This replaces and updates a post originally published on 26 October 2009. It was my very first post from Decatur County.
Victory Tabernacle takes up pretty much all of the historic center of Flovilla and their adaptive re-use of the commercial block and adjacent storefronts probably saved these places. Storefront churches are often some of the only tenants in the abandoned downtowns I’ve been documenting for years. As with businesses, I don’t endorse churches, but that doesn’t limit me from being glad they’ve kept these old buildings alive.
One of the storefronts is one of my favorites in all of Georgia. A sign on the transom reads “Gospel Singing” and that’s flanked on either side by neon versions of the words Victory Jubilee. It’s a perfect scene. When I was making these photographs, mid-day on a Friday in October 2017, the church was meeting and I could hear gospel music coming from inside, just as the sign promised. It almost felt like a movie, surreal.
Update: Kimberly Rooker recently contacted me and shared a bit of the history of this property. She wrote, in part: “My family owned and operated the General Merchandise store on that property that you photographed in Flovilla. It is still standing as of today….but the Victory Tab[ernacle] has vacated it…sadly. My great great grandfather was JT Edwards from a pioneer family of the Jasper and Butts Co. areas. I showed my daughter the store last year…..just as my dad showed me the store front in 1989. There is a ton of history on the Edwards family in Flovilla/Indian Springs that was passed down to me orally when I was a child by my grandmother...”