On 3 January 2018, Southeast Georgia, was transformed into a winter wonderland. According to the National Weather Service: “Beginning in the early morning hours of January 3rd, 2018, a rare winter storm affected southeast Georgia and northeast Florida. The storm produced a variety of wintry precipitation, including snow, sleet and freezing rain. Snowfall spread across much of southeast Georgia with snowfall amounts ranging from a trace to 3.5 inches...”
As snow goes, it may not seem like much, but many locales received their first measurable snowfall in nearly 30 years.
Snow plows and sand trucks are rarely seen in these parts.
The snow was nicest in the woods.
Because of the novelty of this kind of weather in our part of the world, people were out enjoying it throughout the day.
These views were made in mid-February 2013, after some of the heaviest flooding to be seen on the Ohoopee in several years.
This road leads to a small residential area along the Ohoopee. The photograph below shows the road into the Tattnall County Landing, completely submerged.
In preparation for an upcoming documentary, I’ve been reviewing my archive of over 2,000 photographs made on various film cameras before I made the switch to digital in 2007. I’m sharing some of them here and hope they are of interest. Amazingly, most of these structures are gone now and remind me why I do what I do. The image above, of a wintry landscape adorned with a crude pioneer cabin with a fieldstone chimney, was among my first favorites. I had 8x10s printed and looked at them with a sense of awe at the loss that was accelerating around me. As with many of the places I shoot, I’ve wished many times that I’d returned to this quaint little cabin for more photographs. I’m not quite sure when it was demolished but it was gone before 2010. Such stories of loss motivate me to photograph nearly everything I can that I believe to be of cultural or historical value and I hope my work inspires others to pick up their cameras and do the same in their neck of the woods.
Hunter’s was a local favorite and welcome stop for travelers along Highway 32 for years. They even had parking for semi-trucks. Their goat sandwich, with chips & Coca-Cola was my favorite. Though Hunter’s closed not too long after this photo was made, it’s legendary barbeque sauce has been resurrected by the Hutto family, who now operate the location as Hutto’s Barbeque. It’s just as good!
I can’t count how many times I passed this store traveling between Fitzgerald and Tifton over the years, though I honestly don’t remember it ever being open. It was razed in early 2012. (I’m not sure of the spelling of the owner’s name, but thanks to Dale Bledsoe for the information.)
This Folk Victorian, long a landmark in the area, was demolished before 2007. Thanks to a recent (2016) message from Daphne Griffin, I now know a bit more about the place: My father grew up in that house beginning around 1941. His name is Charlie Jesse Griffin, known as C.J. He grew up there with his mother, Osteen Roberts Griffin, his grandfather, Charlie Roberts, and his three brothers, Denzil, Herman, and Therman Griffin. My grandmother Osteen lived there until around 1960. The house was owned by Otto Griner at the time they lived there.
