Tag Archives: Georgia Modern Architecture

Maryland Fried Chicken, 1968, Albany

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I’m featuring this location primarily for its quirky modernist architecture and sign, and also, since it’s been open for nearly 60 years, it’s a true landmark.

Charlie and Vera King moved from Macon to Albany in 1968 and opened this Maryland Fried Chicken franchise on North Slappey Boulevard. According to the Albany Herald, Charlie had spent 20 years as an accountant for Sears and was ready to make a change. The owners’ grandsons now run the business, so it’s been in the same family throughout its history.

Maryland Fried Chicken was a chain of fried chicken restaurants founded by Al Constantine in Orlando in 1961. It had no association with Maryland other than the fact that a large number of Marylanders had recently moved to Orlando to work at the Glenn L. Martin Company aircraft plant and Constantine felt it would be good for business at his eponymous restaurant. The chain eventually had locations in 20 states and the Bahamas but went bankrupt in the late 1970s. Many of the franchise locations were successful and kept the name, as was the case in Albany, and a few are still open throughout the Southeast.

Elberton-Elbert County Health Center, 1950

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The Elbert County Health Center is an excellent example of Mid-Century Modern architecture, which was uncommon in rural Georgia. It was designed by local architect James M. Hunt. Particularly interesting is the roof, which is known as an inverted or butterfly roof. Modern architecture was a common choice for public health facilities, as well as doctor’s offices and banks, in the 1950s and 1960s, and was meant to convey a sense of progress and innovation. The style was never overly popular with the public, however, and as a result many examples have been demolished. This facility has been abandoned for quite a few years and should be considered endangered. It wasn’t included as a contributing resource in the Elbert Commercial Historic District, but should be re-evaluated.

McNeill House, 1937, Thomson

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The McNeill House is an amazing International Style house based on plans by famed architect Edward Durrell Stone in 1937. The home would have been radically modern for a town the size of Thomson during the 1930s and still has a futuristic feel.

The builder of the home, David Armstrong McNeill, Sr. (1873-1953), was the founder, with his brother, Frank J. McNeill, of the Armstrong Box Company of Chicago, a manufacturer of wooden boxes. After a fire they moved South, first to Johnson City , Tennessee, in 1920, and to Thomson, circa 1931. In addition to his work with the box company, McNeill was a successful entrepreneur in other businesses, as well. He was also a personal friend of the famed Olympian and Tarzan actor, Johnny Weismuller.

The house remained in the family for at least three generations and may still be in their ownership. It was fully restored circa 1990 and remains one of the most iconic examples of International Style domestic architecture in Georgia.

National Register of Historic Places

West Berrien Elementary School, 1954

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This schoolhouse looks to have been built in the 1950s or 1960s and has been abandoned for a long time. GHSBP confirms, and elaborates: …The school opened in 1954 as West Berrien Elementary, a consolidation of Jordan and New River elementary schools, and part of Berrien’s vast building program under the Minimum Foundation Program. West Berrien was renamed in 1988 to Northwest Elementary after taking in Enigma’s students. No gym was ever built on campus, so basketball teams continued to play home games in Enigma.

Northwest closed its doors in 1994, the year after a new middle school built to be a consolidated middle school opened in Nashville. One wing of Northwest was uprooted and moved to Nashville to be additional room at Berrien Primary School.

(Minimum Foundation helped fund schools throughout the state in the 1950s. Despite being built by different contracting firms, they all have a pretty similar look.)

Georgia Welcome Center, 1961, Screven County

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The oldest active welcome center in the nation was commissioned in 1960, built in 1961, and opened in 1962. The Space Age architecture was meant to be Georgia’s way of announcing to travelers that it was embracing the modern world.

Governor S. Ernest Vandiver was convinced that tourism was destined to become one of Georgia’s biggest industries and hired Statesboro architect Edwin C. Eckles to create something a bit out of the ordinary. Located just across the Savannah River from the South Carolina state line on busy U. S. Highway 301, the Welcome Center was well-positioned to carry out this mission in the era before interstate highways. Women were hired as “hostesses” to welcome weary travelers and to suggest they visit landmarks throughout the state.

Changing travel patterns mean fewer people come through these days, but hopefully, this relic of the space age will be around for a long time to come.

National Register of Historic Places

Workmore School, Telfair County

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This school was probably built in the 1950s.

Waycross Journal-Herald Building

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The Waycross Journal-Herald Building  is a wonderful example of Modernist architecture.

Downtown Waycross Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Willow Hill Elementary School, 1954, Bulloch County

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Willow Hill Elementary School, under a clear blue sky with scattered clouds, featuring multiple windows and a paved area in front.

A historic marker placed on 30 August 2014 reads: Willow Hill School was established in 1874 during Reconstruction as one of the first schools for African Americans in Bulloch County.  It was privately supported until being sold to the local Board of Education in 1920. In 1954 the county built a new “equalization” school as part of a statewide strategy to resist federally mandated integration.  These schools addressed blatant geographic and racial disparities in education with new, modern – but still segregated – facilities and improved curricula. Willow Hill was one of five such African-American schools in Bulloch County and consolidated several older rural schools: Bennett Grove, Scarboro Grove, Rehovia, Gays Grove, Free Chapel, and Johnson Grove.  The school closed in 1969 as part of the county’s desegregation plan, and the students and faculty sent elsewhere.  It reopened as an integrated intermediate school in 1971 with new faculty.

 

Post Office, Stapleton

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I believe this post office dates to the early 1960s. The black tile is a neat element.

Fitzgerald Recreation Center

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Stewart Carswell was the longtime owner of the Fitzgerald Recreation Center. This old-fashioned gathering place served the best hamburgers in town. And to locals, it was known simply as “the Pool Room”. Butch Whittle managed the place for many years after he was injured working on the railroad.

As the walk-up window would imply, the Pool Room was better known for food than for pool. But there were regulars at the tables, too.

As far as the building goes, its pink Vitrolite facade is an interesting architectural feature, representative of Mid-Century design.

 

And the Dr. Pepper sign is as much a Fitzgerald landmark as the Pool Room itself.