First opened at a nearby location in 1940, and once known as the Shrimp Boat Restaurant, Archie’s was a longtime Darien landmark and a favorite stop for travelers along the busy Coastal Highway (US 17).
As traffic moved off 17 and onto nearby I-95, business slowed and the restaurant was closed by 2006. The structure seen here opened circa 1975 and was demolished in 2015.
Though I don’t believe it was built for the purpose, this house served for many years as the vicarage of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Fitzgerald.
Update: The vicarage was razed in 2018.
Although the sign identifies this business as D & D Grocery, Chloe Evans Holloway writes: It was Pollock Store in the 1960’s Then it was called Bruner’s Store because Bryon Bruner bought it and he ran it for a lot of years until he died. He lived in a small house with his second wife ,Nancy. Then Debra Robinson Love purchased it. She ran it for a short time before it went out of business! Now there is nothing there at all.
Though sided with asbestos today, the exterior of this church would have originally looked just like the interior, as seen below. The congregation dates to 28 September 1887, though I’m not sure when the church was built.
It’s set on fieldstone pillars.
Update: Chloe Evans Holloway notes, as of February 2023: It has been torn down and nothing is there but a sign and the graveyard. I have 3 or 4 generations of my family in the graveyard. My grandfather built the wooden caskets for many of the families who are buried there.
George W. Jenkins, Sr., built Jenkins General Store with hand-cut rock to replace its wood frame predecessor. Jenkins was a successful merchant, drawing shoppers from all over the area to Harris City. The business thrived until the early 1920s, when the boll weevil signaled a collapse of the cotton-based agricultural economy. George, Sr, moved to Atlanta and established a small grocery store, less susceptible to the ups-and-downs of the agricultural economy. In the meantime, his son, George, Jr., graduated from Greenville High School and moved to Florida in 1925 to seek his fortune in real estate. He took a job with Piggly Wiggly, however, and after just a couple of months as a clerk he was promoted to manager. In 1930 he left Piggly Wiggly and opened the first Publix store in Winter Haven. Today, Publix is one of the largest grocery store chains in the nation. I like to think that lessons Mr. Jenkins learned here in Harris City, at his father’s side, helped make him into the successful entrepreneur that he became.
This was best known as Ludowici’s’ community house and library but in recent years it was a clubhouse for the Wingmen Motorcycle Club. Sadly, it was lost to fire in 2015.
This was originally a boarding house, with a four-over-four configuration. It has been greatly modified over time. Mike McCall, whose grandfather, A. B. (Braz) Stafford, owned the house for many years, recalls that some of the doors still had room numbers on them when he was young. It is thought to have been one of the earliest hotels in Ludowici and may have originally been known as the Horne House.
Update: As of 2023, this house has been torn down.
This sign was located on US 41 near ABAC. I’m not sure if it’s still standing, but it was erected in the late 1940s or early 1950s for the Danny Ross Motor Court.
The Powell farmhouse is located just north of Lakeland. It’s an interesting vernacular form which immediately caught my eye as I was driving toward Pearson. It’s part of an historic farmstead that is presently listed for sale. The house appears to date to the late 19th century, perhaps the 1870s.
Two pack houses or seed barns are located on the property.
A nice tobacco barn also survives.
Update: Sadly, as of 2019, the farm has been demolished, with not a building left as I understand it.
These images were made in 2016. I last photographed this farm in 2010. In my younger days, riding all the dirt roads of Irwin County, it was a favorite landmark. Returning recently, I was amazed how much the property has deteriorated.
Above is fuller view of the house, made in 2010.
The wonderful old hay and stock barn remains, but it will soon be gone, like the sheds which stood adjacent.
The sheds were already beginning to collapse when I made this photograph in 2010.
Other barns, in varying states of ruin, are scattered around the property.
The syrup shed I photographed in 2010 is also gone.
The barn below was likely a tractor barn.
The storage barn or packhouse is holding up better than most of the other structures.
The tobacco barn is nearly gone, too.
It was a sad sight, driving away from the main yard.
And at last, the old tenant house is still intact.
Note: This updates and replaces a post made on 25 February 2010.