Built as a residence by a Mr. Allen, this house was located along the railroad tracks when this section of Southwest Georgia was experiencing its first major agribusiness and timber boom. It was sold to Mary Lizzie Harrell [Mrs. T. J.Harrell] in the 1920s and would have been the de facto hotel in Climax. Women, who were limited in employment opportunities at the time, often operated such establishments, as was the case with this property.
It was also identified as the Harrell House and the Wingback Hotel. Mrs. Harrell was known for her home-cooked meals, much appreciated by the railroaders passing through Climax. Most of the structure is original, but the front porch is a replacement.
So far, I’ve been unable to locate any history for this building, which is used as a quadraplex apartment house today. It may have originated as a boarding house, or even a private residence. It has likely been expanded and therefore overlooked by historic surveys.
This imposing structure at the crossroads of US Highway 41 and Main Street in downtown Hahira was built circa 1940-1941 to replace an earlier hotel lost to fire circa 1939. Dr. E. J. Smith was an early owner, and many of the rooms were initially rented to local teachers. Dr. Smith’s daughter, Dorothy Salter, later operated this hotel, and another property known as the Wal-Dot, which may have been a motel, with her husband. The old hotel was converted to apartments in the 1990s.
In its secluded setting, the Bowers House is difficult to capture, but that’s the point. It’s been put into service as a literary and creative retreat, in an effort by the family to keep the house while providing writers, artist, and musicians a quiet creative space. The family are descendants of Job Bowers II (31 August 1803-25 June 1888), an abolitionist, religious pacifist, and publisher who brought the Universalist Church to Georgia and laid out the town of Canon in what had originally been known as West Bowersville. Job’s grandfather, Revolutionary War soldier Job Bowers (1755-1779), was one of the earliest settlers of Franklin County. The family were also founders of the nearby town of Bowersville.
It was built as the Canon Hotel during what could be called the town’s boom time, when the railroad kept the mills running and cotton was king. Traders and salesmen were regulars but the property failed in the Great Depression in a region already ravaged by the deleterious effects of the boll weevil. The hotel was converted it into a private home thereafter.
Canon Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Note: This updates and replaces a post originally published on 22 July 2019.
This was the general store and boarding house of Peter Joseph, a leader of the historic Black community of South End on St. Simons Island. Built circa 1900, per the Glynn County Historic Resources Report [2009], it was razed circa 2016. The only Peter Joseph I can locate on St. Simons was born in 1903 and died in 1966; if this is the same Peter Joseph, it would mean the store was built by someone else, perhaps a member of his family. I will attempt to update this if I can find out anything more.
These photographs were made in February 2015.
As the images confirm, the structure had long been abandoned when I photographed it. It was an important resource for a long lost community, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to document it.
This house was built on the eve of the Civil War for Bolling Anthony Stovall (19 August 1827-24 August 1887), a prominent Piedmont merchant and engineer born in Hancock County to a well-to-do family who had come to Georgia from Virginia. Upon moving to Augusta, he began work as a cotton factor while attending Richmond Academy before entering Franklin College (University of Georgia). He studied civil engineering and worked in Alabama and Mississippi for a few years before returning to Georgia. He was also a surveyor for improvements to the Georgia State Road and worked with Major John G. Greene in the survey of the Atlanta & West Point Railroad. Because employment in engineering was sporadic at the time, he joined his father in his wholesale grocery business at Stovall & McLaughlin in Augusta. At the outset of the war, he entered the Confederate service as a sergeant with Company A, Richmond Hussars, Cobb’s Legion. He was transferred to the engineering corps as a lieutenant under General John Bankhead Magruder during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, before finishing out the war as a captain in the subsistence department under the command of fellow Augustan General Isaac Munroe St. John. He married Mattie Wilson after the war and worked for many years as a traveling agent with the Georgia Chemical Works of Augusta.
Stovall’s son, Pleasant Alexander Stovall (7 July 1857-14 May 1935), lived in the house until his parents left Augusta for Athens, in 1873. He became a prominent journalist and eventual owner of a Savannah newspaper. His childhood friend, President Woodrow Wilson, appointed him Ambassador to Switzerland in 1913, where he served until 1919.
Congressman George T. Barnes purchased the home in 1873 and in the 20th century it was used as a residential hotel/boarding house.
Greene Street Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
I’ve had trouble locating much information about the structures in Talking Rock, but read that this was built in 1883. In its early days it is said to have served as a railroad hotel and boarding house, In 1924 it was purchased by the Hobson family and became a general store, open until around 1980.
The iconic “Shingle House”, so named for its shingle siding, is the last remaining structure related to the Franklin-Creighton Gold Mine near Ball Ground. The mine had its origins circa 1832, when Mary G. Franklin obtained 40 acres along the Etowah River in the Gold Lottery of 1832. It became the Franklin, or Franklin-Creighton Mine circa 1883 and was said to be one of the most productive in the area, until1907, long after other area mines were long exhausted. The structure has reportedly served as a commissary, post office, and boarding house.
The community that grew up around the mine was known as Creighton, and the post office was operational from 1887-1918. The property is part of Gold & Grass Farms today.
The Globe Hotel originally stood a half block away on the courthouse square and was moved in 1938 to its present location. It is the oldest commercial structure in McDonough. The original section [the right side in the photos] dates to 1827 and the gabled wing [leftside] was added circa 1882.
The St. Nicolas Hotel was the third major hotel in Albany. Designed by the Atlanta firm of Bruce & Everett to be a railroad hotel, it played host to travelers of many occupations, including carnival performers. One carnival couple, performing in the Haag Circus, gave birth to a son here in 1916. His name was Harry James and he was one of the most successful band leaders of the 1930s and 1940s. The property suffered major damage in the tornado of 10 February 1940 and was rebuilt from the remaining structure. It was known as the Lee Hotel upon re-opening.
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown 