According to the Pearson Farm website, the Lee Pope House came with the farm when the property was purchased by John and Rosa Lee Pearson. They raised their family here.
Lee Pope House, Circa 1910
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Tag Archives: Georgia Peaches
Commissary, 1910s, Lee Pope
Around 1910, the Pearson family purchased the tremendous Lee Pope Fruit Farm and its peach packing operation here. It included numerous tenant houses, this commissary, a “hotel” which housed seasonal workers (really a dormitory), a packing house (now gone), and numerous barns and sheds. At one time, the Pearson peaches were branded “Big 6”. The family’s long-term preservation of this property provides an important historic lesson of the importance of the peach industry in this section of Middle Georgia and she be commended.
Tenant Farmhouse, Crawford County
This was likely part of the Pearson peach farming operation located in Crawford and Peach counties.
Hudson Peach Orchard, Raleigh
Dickey Farms Peaches, 1936, Musella
The packinghouse at Dickey Farms is the oldest continuously operating facility of its kind in Georgia. Built in 1936 from lumbers hewn on land owned by “Mr. Bob” Dickey, it’s the most prominent structure in Musella and a real icon of Georgia’s most famous crop. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s the center of life in this friendly little Middle Georgia town. If you pass through here when peaches aren’t in season, you might think it’s a ghost town, but when they are in season, it’s like a small metropolis. Everything here revolves around peaches. The season runs from the middle of May through the second week of August and Dickey Farms is open seven days a week. When I walked onto the “porch” at the packinghouse I was greeted by baskets full of these beautiful June Princes, a variety of Semi-Freestone that gets plump and sweet around the 10th of June.
A bit of history from the Dickey Farms website*: Robert L. “Mr. Bob” Dickey was an early pioneer of “multi-tasking”, being a postmaster, undertaker, depot agent and general store manager. However, his heart was in the peach industry, and we are reaping the rewards today.
In the early days of Dickey Farms mules were used to plow the orchards and also for transportation of peaches to the packinghouse. At that time, most of the work was done manually. However, “Mr. Bob” was a forward-thinker, always wanting to introduce labor saving equipment. He installed Georgia’s very first brushing machine to remove the peach fuzz. He was also one of the first producers to include a hydro-cooling system that places peaches in 35-degree water to remove field dust and slow the ripening process, making them perfect when reaching the northern markets.
Today, his grandson, Robert L. Dickey, II and his great-grandson, Robert L. Dickey, III, work together to ensure that a Dickey Farms peach is the freshest, most succulent fruit available. While “Mr. Bob” shipped all his fruit by refrigerated railroad cars, peaches today are shipped by refrigerated trucks, which can reach some markets overnight. Although many changes in the industry have been made over the last 100 years, the Dickey family still continues the tradition of providing the highest quality peach.
* Though the packinghouse dates to 1936, Dickey Farms has been involved in local agriculture since 1897.
The “porch” is filled with old-fashioned rocking chairs and plenty of ceiling fans. Numerous products made with Dickey Farms’ Georgia peaches can be found throughout. I bought pickled peaches, peach preserves, peach gumballs for the kids, and my friend bought some peach bread and syrup. If you love peaches, Dickey Farms will not disappoint. Fresh local produce is also for sale when available.
The sweet corn looked really good.
And though the peaches are the main attraction here, the grading, sizing and sorting operation is a wonder in itself.
The Autoline Fruit Sizing System, renovated in 2010, begins by maneuvering the peaches into a single layer instead of piled atop each other, then lining them up in single rows so they can be sized. A computerized optical sizer sorts the peaches and distributes them for packing into awaiting boxes.
Even with mechanization, the peach industry is still quite labor intensive.
It’s amazing to see such a process. So many people only know food as something from the grocery store, but at this packinghouse, everyone gets a lesson of how much work goes into our food supply. I noticed this father and his daughters enjoying the view with some homemade peach ice cream, one of the most popular products at Dickey Farms.
Just don’t forget your peaches! The employees are all very friendly and courteous and can easily answer any questions you might have. This place is a real treasure.
Visit the website for specifics and directions to Musella, as well as information on specific varieties and ripe dates. And if you can’t make it to Musella, you can order directly from Dickey Farms online.
Peach Workers, Musella
Peach harvesting and processing remains a labor intensive form of agriculture and hundreds of Hispanic workers are employed by Dickey Farms, an iconic local producer of Georgia’s official state fruit.
Brown Farmhouse, Ben Hill County
For the Christmas season I thought I’d share this image, circa 1960, of the farmhouse where my father grew up in Ben Hill County. Bricks were added to the house later. The beautiful cedar on the right of the house is long gone, but I remember it. And the two saplings in the front yard are pecan trees, much larger now and still productive. I can still see my great-grandmother, active well into her late 90s, rocking on the front porch while we played in the front yard. I was amazed by how many people remembered buying peaches from my family in the 1960s.
Pearson Farm Tenant Houses, Peach County
Raymond Clark writes: These were the homes where people lived who picked peaches for the Mike Pearson family. I used to work for the Pearsons in the 1980s when I was a teen. African-Americans used to work in the peach field and peach package house before Mexicans took over.The houses were abandoned after Mike Pearson left the peach business and began working for Blue Bird. The Lane family took over peach business.
The chinaberry tree beside the house is also a vanishing sight in Georgia. The invasive trees could once be found on almost every farm.
W. C. Wright House, 1922, Fort Valley
This magnificent work of architecture is still in the Wright family, presently owned by the great-grandson of W. C. Wright, who was a pioneer of Georgia’s peach industry and a banker.
Everett Square Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Caroline Rumph House, 1894, Fort Valley
This home was built by Samuel Rumph for his mother, Caroline Elizabeth Plant Rumph (1829-1896) but she died a couple of years after it was completed. It is more commonly known as the Windham House today. Rumph was the father of the commercial peach industry in Georgia. His home in nearby Marshallville is a well-known landmark.
Everett Square Historic District, National Register of Historic Places