The old Patterson High School has been nicely restored and is great example of a community saving an important element of its past. It’s now known as Eagle Station and is home to city offices and public use spaces, as well. For a small town, this is a big win. My best guess is that it was built in the 1920s or 1930s. The Spanish Mission Revival influence in the architecture was commonly used in school architecture during that time.
The people of Cave Springs answered the call for donations by the Cave Springs Historical Society to save this old Chesapeake & Ohio [C&O] caboose from where it languished at the old depot. I made this photo a few years ago so I imagine the caboose has been completely restored by now.
When I heard in 2018 that the Adam Strain Building was slated for likely demolition, I felt anger, impending loss, and a sense of betrayal that a building with so many historical connections dating back at least 200 years could simply be allowed to go out like that. Despite being burned during the Civil War, it survived to become an unofficial symbol of Darien.
I was very aware of its endangered state, from photographs I made as early as 2009, a year after the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation brought attention to it by naming it a Place in Peril. And Darien friends who reached out over the years were cautiously optimistic, but mostly fearful, for what its future held.
I got an exciting message from one of those friends, Kit Stebbins Sutherland, in 2020. She was still cautiously optimistic, but said that the impossible had happened and the Adam Strain Building was going to be saved. Kit grew up in Darien with a mother who spent years creating an amazing photographic archive of its historic buildings and coastal landmarks, so her interest in her hometown is palpable. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Fast forward to the present and the restoration is in full swing. Milan and Marion Savic of Marietta are the new owners of the Adam Strain Building and the circa 1898 Bank of Darien [pink building to immediate left of Strain Building] and are doing everything right. They’ve emphasized the benefits of keeping everything as original as possible, especially protecting the tabby siding which is one of the distinct aspects of the Strain’s construction. It’s in the good hands of Ethos Preservation, Landmark Preservation, and Lominack Coleman Smith Architects. They’re doing the serious work of putting everything back into place and insuring the building is around for another 200 years. I hope to get more detailed photos in the near future, and will share them here.
West Darien Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
If you drive through Darien you won’t be able to miss this big old wooden boat sitting in the middle of town. It’s permanently “docked” beside the old McIntosh County Jail, which serves today as the arts center. After years away from Georgia, it was at the end of its service and was soon to be scrapped. Friends of the Kit Jones, in collaboration with local government and encouraged by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, wanted to save it and return it to Georgia, and that’s just what they did. The following history is abridged from their website which is really worth a read. The level of research they’ve done is impressive.
The Kit Jones was built to order for R. J. Reynolds, Jr., of pine and live oak milled on Sapelo Island, which Reynolds owned at the time. Blueprints for the vessel were drawn by prominent naval architects Sparkman & Stephens of New York and construction was overseen between 1938-1939 by Axel Sparre, a Danish shipwright who was living in nearby Brunswick. Gullah-Geechee residents of Sapelo provided much of the labor.
She is 60 feet long, 17 feet wide, 18 feet tall, and weighs 60,000 pounds. Her namesake is Katharine Talbott Jones (Kit), wife of Sea Island developer Alfred W. Jones. They traveled in the same circles as Reynolds and Jones had spent time on Sapelo with then-owner Howard Coffin the the 1920s.
The Kit Jones has served as a tugboat, a ferry for the people of Sapelo, a freight hauler, and, a fire boat during World War II.
She began an association as a research vessel with the University of Georgia marine sciences program in 1953 that ended with her acquisition by the University of Mississippi in 1985. She served for many more years and was capsized by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She came back for a few more years but was finally retired in 2013.
Restoration work was done from 2019-2023 and everything looks ship shape. Ultimately, this is an amazing “save” and my hats are off to this community and especially the Friends of the Kit Jones.
When the Atlanta & Florida Railway bypassed Knoxville in 1888, opting to build a depot about a mile away, the settlement of Roberta began. It was originally known as New Knoxville, after the county seat. When Hiram David McCrary (1847-1912) and James Mathews gave the right of way for the railroad, McCrary, who was also an active entrepreneur, was allowed to choose a name for it. He chose Roberta, in honor of his daughter*. *-Mattie Roberta McCrary Champion (1881-1977)
The old Bankston Store is a great example of restoration. It’s located adjacent to the bank/post office building.
The corner entrance was a popular commercial style in the early 20th century.
I made these photos a few years ago, so some of these business have been repainted. For a small town, Roberta does a good job of maintaining its historic commercial structures and still uses them all, as best I can see. I don’t encounter that in many places.
Roberta Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
I don’t have a lot of sources on Northwest Georgia but I’m confident this restoration may be one of the oldest houses in Summerville. The original section of the house probably dates to the 1870s or 1880s. I hope to learn more.
Note: This replaces a post originally published on 6 September 2014.
This is a fine Folk Victorian home, strongly influenced by the ornamental look of the Queen Anne style.
This is the third building in Macon to bear the name Douglass Theatre. All three were owned and operated by Charles Henry Douglass (1870-1940), a son of former slaves and the most prominent and wealthiest Black businessman in early-20th-century Macon.
The first Douglass Theatre opened circa 1912. It was replaced by a temporary location at 1223 Broadway in 1917, while plans for the present structure were being finalized. The New Douglass Theatre, adjacent to the Douglass Hotel, opened in 1921. Douglass operated it until his death in 1940 [though he leased it to Ben Stein from 1927-1929]. His widow and sons kept it open until 1973. The venue showed first-run movies and hosted live performances. Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Duke Ellington were among some of the better known early performers.
Restoration of the Douglass was completed circa 1997 and it continues to serve as an important events venue.
Macon Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Cherry Grove Baptist Church, like multitudes of historic African-American congregations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was as committed to the education of its children as it was to catering to the spiritual needs of its community. They built this little one-room schoolhouse circa 1910 for that purpose. In the Jim Crow era, there was little to no emphasis placed on the literacy of Black children by the state, so that responsibility was borne by churches. Philanthropic organizations such as the the Rosenwald Fund began building schools for these under-served communities in 1912, but Cherry Grove predates that time and is therefore an important link to a part of our history that is often overlooked.
Recent historical resource surveys have identified 15 of these church-supported schoolhouses in Georgia, and most can be considered highly endangered resources. They may have once numbered in the hundreds, so their loss is significant, not only to the Black community but to the historical record as well.
The Cherry Grove School, with one teacher overseeing grades 1-7, closed in 1956. This was an effect of widespread consolidation which saw the state building better Black schools, known as Equalization Schools, in an effort to delay the desegregation mandated by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The school deteriorated with the passage of time, and was as endangered as all the other Black schoolhouses in Georgia. Thanks to the work of Barrett Hanson and the Friends of Cherry Grove Schoolhouse, this special place has been given a new lease on life and will hopefully serve a new educational purpose to coming generations. Their efforts saw the school placed on the National Register of Historic Places and were recognized earlier this year with the prestigious Marguerite Williams Award, given by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation for the project that made the greatest impact on historic preservation in Georgia.
National Register of Historic Places
Artist Addison Niday has recently restored some Coca-Cola murals in Lincolnton, so this old Pepsi mural on the Anderson & Sons building, likely dating to the early 1960s, was a nice complement to his other work. I think restoring these old murals is a great idea, especially in small towns, where they bring bright color and memories of the past back to life in a big way.
Lincolnton Historic District, National Register of Historic Places