The old main post office for Columbus is still used as the downtown branch. It has also housed the federal court house and numerous government offices. The classically influenced Renaissance Revival landmark was designed by local architect E. Oren Smith under government contract. The style is commonly found among public buildings constructed circa 1900-1930.
National Register of Historic Places
This shotgun style building originally served as a store, if I recall correctly, but has been the Mystic post office for many years. My father and I have bought stamps and sent mail from here on several occasions and it’s an experience in itself. It still has a tiny wood-paneled lobby with the old-fashioned mail boxes. And it’s only open for a couple of hours each day. Call me delusional, but I think it’s important for small communities to have services like this. Irwinville lost its post office a few years back and it’s still sorely missed.
This Colonial Revival post office was always one of my favorite buildings when I was growing up. It was built in 1918 to replace the old granitoid post office that stood a block east on the corner of Central Avenue and Main Street. It was based on plans of James A. Wetmore, Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department. There were variations of Wetmore’s plans, and hundreds of similar or identical structures were built throughout the country. There’s a “twin” to the Fitzgerald post office in Barnesville, and there are likely others in Georgia. When a new post office was built on Main Street in the 1960s, this structure became known as the Federal Building and still houses federal and county offices.
An aside: Alvin G. Brown (1876-1955) was the face of the post office for many years, an ambassador if you will, serving as a mail carrier from 1909-1941 and known in earlier years for using a horse and canopied mail wagon. His father was an original Fitzgerald colonist from Iowa. Brown also served a brief term as Fitzgerald mayor, if I recall correctly. I know he ran for mayor because somewhere I have a card from the campaign, showing him on his mail wagon.
Swan Postmasters, 1888-1895: Benjamin Drew, 1888-1891; William O. McKeithen, 1891-1892; Missouri A. Ford,1892; Kate Drew, 1892-1893; and David Drew, 1893-1895.
Fitzgerald Postmasters 1895-1978: David Drew, 1895-1897; David E. Peiper, 1897-1900; James William Huggins, 1900-1901; William H. Marston, 1901-1911; Eleanor M. Marston, (Acting Postmaster), 1911; George E. Ricker, 1911-1915; William A. Adams, 1915-1940; James Jarratt Pryor, 1940-1964; Clifford A. Pickens, 1964-1973; Baney R. Adams, 1973-1978; Idaleen C. Callis, 1978; John J. Wiggins, 1978-
Fitzgerald Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The two-story building at right originally served as the Woodmen of the World Lodge, identified by a marble cartouche above the middle window on the second floor, but it is best known as the old post office. Typically, fraternal lodges in commercial settings served a dual purpose, housing a lodge upstairs and various retail tenants downstairs. Woodmen of the World as an organization has always been focused on insurance and financial assistance for its members and in its early years maintained thousands of local chapters.
The altered building adjacent to the Woodmen of the World Lodge was a grocery store at one time, indicated by the fading words “Gro. Dry Goods Hardware” at the top.
This building was one of the anchors of the commercial row of Bronwood that was demolished in 2016. Richard Stott wrote of the above building: “When I lived there, the far end of this building was the post office, and next to it was Floyd Herrington’s barber shop.” It was a substantial commercial block, perhaps originally a bank or office space.
This photograph was made in 2010.
This typical early-20th-century commercial block originally housed offices for the textile mills that dominated life in Porterdale. The executives and paymaster had offices upstairs while the mayor’s office was located downstairs. Circa 1925, according to the National Register of Historic Places, Porterdale mills were among the largest spinning mills in the nation, with over 75,000 spindles.
Since the closure of the mills, it has been home to myriad businesses, including a barber, shoe shop, doctor, dentist, drug store, funeral home, restaurant, and even the Porterdale post office. After later remodeling and an altered roofline, it has been returned to its more traditional appearance.
Porterdale Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This historic commercial block, locally known as the “Rock Store”, was constructed of local stone and was originally a combination general store and post office. More recently, it has been known as the McGiboney Building. Today it houses a private residence upstairs and retail/office space on the lower floor. As best I can tell, it’s the only surviving commercial structure from 19th-century Oxford.
Oxford Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
When built as the Waycross Post Office in 1911, this structure was originally one story with a basement. It is credited to James Knox Taylor, Supervising Architect of the Department of the Treasury, but Taylor himself was not always directly involved in individual designs due to the number of projects the department was involved with at any given time.
A second floor and wings were added to the post office in 1936, under the supervision of G. W. Stone. This expansion was made to accommodate the inclusion of the federal courthouse of the Southern District of Georgia. It was also an officially designated fallout shelter during the Cold War. The facility closed in 1975 when the post office and courthouse, respectively, moved into larger more modern facilities elsewhere in town. It sat empty for a time but has been home to an antiques gallery and other businesses in recent years.
National Register of Historic Places
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.
The old store that once anchored James still stands, a sentinel of a different time. It was built in the 1890s, when the trains were still steaming through on a regular basis, and was Kingman’s Store back then. Robert H. Kingman (1876-1957) went on to become a prominent grocer in Macon. As Balkcom’s, it was open until the early mid-1980s. James Cicero Balkcom was an unusual character in small-town Georgia. He once owned a theatre in Gray and allowed African-Americans access. Apparently, not even their resignation to the balcony was acceptable, but Balkcom was unmoved. When he continued the practice, a group of young men drove by and shot into the side of his store, which was also the James post office, as a cowardly act of intimidation,. This was a federal offense, but Aubrey Newby says that no local effort to track down the perpetrators was made, or if so, it wasn’t successful. Just an interesting aside and a profile in courage of Mr. Balkcom, for sure. The post office remained open until 1969.
As to local color, Aubrey Newby writes: …There were two old spinster sisters Miss Alice and Miss Hattie James who lived in the Wood-Robinson house, Miss Alice drove a model T ford and you had better just get out of the way if you saw her coming. People moved away, the store closed and eventually the train stopped running. All that was left were scattered old houses, pieces of a train track and memories of what had once been a bustling town. My children still call it the railroad, we still talk about the store and I believe as long as we do, those people and those stories live. Davis and Dolly, Alice and Hattie, Libbie and T, most of them I barely knew if ever at all and yet I recall them as if they just left yesterday...