This mural by Chris Johnson honors Eastman’s most famous business, Stuckey’s, which in its heyday had 115 roadside locations, employed around a thousand people, and sold $5 million worth of candy every year. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the founder’s granddaughter, Stephanie Stuckey, this legendary family business is still going strong.
It’s located across from the historic Southern Railway depot.
This exquisite Georgian Cottage, heavily influenced by the Greek Revival, is, architecturally, one of the finest houses in Lee County. According to the History of Lee County, Georgia (1983), it has traditionally been known as the Byne Plantation. It’s still at the center of a large working farm in the historic Oakland community.
Gilbert M. Byne (1825-1910) was the first member of the Byne family to live in Lee County, establishing a large plantation near this site upon his arrival. He married Georgia Virginia McKnight (1854-1924) of Coweta County in 1883 and continued to expand his land holdings throughout his life. He also served as a Lee County commissioner. Gilbert’s grandfather, the Rev. Edmund Byne (1730-1814), migrated from King and Queen County, Virginia, to Burke County, Georgia, in 1781, and founded two churches there.
I first thought the house to be of antebellum construction but after consulting the Lee County history, believe it was built in the early 1880s, soon after Gilbert was married. The history notes that he had a new road cut through the area to accommodate such a place. The Bynes’s only child to live to adulthood, Marilu Byne (1890-1979), married Alvah Wallace Barrett, Sr. (1889-1956), and they continued to maintain the plantation until the waning days of the Great Depression, when they lost the property through a mortgage to the Haley family.
The Georgian Cottage type, two bays deep divided by a central hallway and therefore symmetrical in layout, is inherently Greek Revival in spirit, and this house certainly exemplifies that. It’s a well-maintained beauty.
For well over a century a pecan tree planted on this property in 1848 was memorialized as “The Mother of Georgia’s Pecan Industry”.
A house built for Judge William Taylor in 1842 originally stood on this lot. The seed nut for the historic pecan tree was brought from Texas by Mrs. Taylor’s mother. It was given to Judge John T. Clarke in 1863 and burned sometime between 1882-1884. It was rebuilt as one-story cottage by Judge Clarke, who sold it to George McDonald (1855-1923), a former mayor of Cuthbert, in 1889. McDonald added a second floor. One of his descendants, Annette McDonald Suarez, transferred it to Andrew College in 1974 for use as the college president’s home.
Cuthbert Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
According to website of the City of Baconton, the town was named for Major Robert James Bacon, who settled in the area in 1858. A planter and entrepreneur, Bacon gave the Savannah, Florida & Western Railroad the right-of-way through his plantation, ensuring an economic presence for the community, which was named in his honor in 1869. Baconton is best-known today as the birthplace of the paper-shell pecan industry in Georgia. This variety was generally more desirable than others and brought a better profit to its growers, hence the emergence of nearby Albany as the center of the paper-shell market by the 1920s, as land speculators planted thousands of acres of pecans in the area.
According to Maria Clark, the paper-shell variety was invented [grafted] by an enslaved man named Antoine who worked at Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana circa 1846. The first commercially-viable variety of note was known as the Centennial Pecan, as it had been submitted as a representative product of Louisiana at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. In Georgia, for much of the 20th century, the Schley was the go-to paper-shell variety, and in my family’s orchards they have always been a favorite. New varieties are being developed all the time.
These historic postcards illustrate how proud Baconton was of its burgeoning paper-shell pecan industry in the early 1900s.
I made this photo in 2017 but I believe the house may still be standing. Though located near town, I believe it was the center of small farm; a pecan orchard is adjacent to the dwelling.
This roadside landmark on U.S. Highway 341 is a remnant of a time when pecan stands, inspired by Stuckey’s, were popular stops for travelers. This sign identified Rigdon’s Pecan Station. A 1950s postcard for the business noted that they sold candies, novelties, and souvenirs, and of course, fresh pecans. At the time, a five-pound box of Schleys (papershells) was $3, five pounds of Stuarts and Success were $2.75, and five pounds of the largest papershell variety at the time, Mahans, would cost you a whopping $3.50. Coming from a “pecan family” myself, it’s one of my favorite signs in Georgia.
As Americana and roadside landmarks go, Swint’s Pecans & Candies fits the bill as nicely as any place in Georgia. I may be just a bit biased, having grown up in my own grandfather’s pecan orchards, but I digress. In the days before interstate highways, pecan stands were among the biggest draws for tourists traveling Georgia’s newly paved roads. Stuckey’s became the most famous, but there was also B. Lloyd’s, and scores of other smaller businesses. Georgia may be known as the Peach State, but it seems there have always been more pecans than peaches.
For me, the appeal of Swint’s lies in the fact that it’s in its original location and they’re still in business. After three generations in the Swint family, the business was sold to the Watsons in 2013. When Ida Mae Woodall Swint started the business in 1925, the family was also selling gasoline and perhaps sundries from this location, but her pecan candies quickly became the star of the show. According to the present owners, the old building is still used as a retail area. This place should be on the National Register of Historic Places.
I haven’t been fortunate enough to try their candies, but I hope to soon.
Widespread pecan cultivation began in southwestern Georgia in the 1880s and by the 1920s, with the spread of the boll weevil, supplanted cotton for a time as the leading crop of the region. Albany served as the de facto center of this agricultural shift, and by 1913 the Albany District Pecan Growers Exchange was formed as a cooperative to promote and distribute the crop, especially the desirable Schley paper-shells. The Exchange thrived until the 1940s, when disease slowed the progress of the industry. The headquarters/office building of the Exchange is the only remaining structure of the complex, which included two other warehouse and grading buildings.
National Register of Historic Places
This structure, located on the site of Williamson S. Stuckey, Sr.’s (1909-1977) original roadside stand, has the familiar teal blue roof that was a beacon to tourists throughout America from the 1940s until the 1970s. I’m not sure as to the date of this structure, but it’s probably from the 1940s or 1950s. The Stuckey’s Candy Factory, built in 1948, is located on the property, as well.
In 1937, Mr. Stuckey had a bumper crop of pecans and opened a roadside stand to sell them to the many tourists who passed through town on busy US 23. His wife, Ethel Mullis Stuckey (1909-1991), concocted a rolled pecan confection which quickly became Stuckey’s most iconic treat, the Pecan Log Roll [some love them, some not so much, but their impact on the business can’t be understated]. While pecans and pecan-based treats were always the focus, Mr. Stuckey realized that travelers wanted more, and soon added other confections, a restaurant, souvenirs, and gasoline service.
By the late 1960s, there were over 350 Stuckey’s franchises throughout the United States, and their teal blue roofs were as iconic then as McDonald’s golden arches are today. The family sold the business to Pet Milk in 1967, but the focus became more corporate and less personal and changing travel patterns saw the rise of other roadside businesses that were quite competitive. From 1967-1977, Williamson (Billy) Stuckey, Jr., served five terms in the U. S. Congress. In 1985, determined to see his family name return to national prominence, Mr. Stuckey and a group of investors bought back the family business from Pet Milk. Though the familiar Stuckey’s locations of yesterday are no longer in operation, the brand remains strong and store-within-store locations are once again found throughout the eastern United States. In 2019, Stephanie Stuckey took over as CEO with plans of expanding even more, insuring the Stuckey’s name will be known well into the 21st century.