This has always been a favorite Tifton building of mine. R. L. Brown writes: This building was known as Tiff’s Garage. See photo in the Arcadia Publishing’s book on Tifton. The overhang has been removed.
I have an antique postcard of this structure and there are significant enough differences in the facade to require further investigation. A narrow green Ludowici Tile awning [for lack of a better word] wrapped around the top of the building and decorative medallions on the windows weren’t originally present. Also, the windows themselves appear wider on the postcard. This has to be one of the finest commercial garages, in an architectural sense, surviving in South Georgia, if its identity can be confirmed.
Tifton Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This beautiful house is best known today as the Bowen-Donaldson Home for Funerals. Their website notes: The Buck House, built in 1905, had an interesting history of its own. When the original owners were all killed in a series of tragic accidents, the property passed to the Mellon family. Eventually, the Buck House became a dilapidated apartment building. Bowen-Donaldson’s building improvement, however, made the quality of the house’s structure and surroundings better than ever.
It has been a bit of a tradition in many small Georgia towns for funeral businesses to move into and restore large historical homes. The Buck House in Tifton is a great example.
Tifton Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This was the first brick church built in Tifton, and served the congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for generations. When they moved to a larger facility in 1952, it served numerous congregations over the following years. The Tift County Development Authority purchased it in 1985, to protect it from vandals and deterioration. In 1997, the Tifton Council for the Arts saw an opportunity and renovated the church into a gallery space and cultural museum. It is now known as the Syd Blackmarr Arts Center.
Tifton Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Opened in 1914, this handsome Renaissance Revival structure first served as a post office but has been home for many years to the Tifton-Tift County Public Library. It was designed [or its design overseen by] Oscar Wenderoth, who served as the director of the Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Treasury Department from 1912-1915. It might be best known for its iconic gargoyle flagpole holders.
Tifton Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This was originally home to the Tifton Telephone Company. Later, it housed the Georgia Peanut Commission, before their move to a site beside Interstate 75 several years ago. The brickwork is some of the best in Tifton.
Tifton Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Shenita Hunt with her mother and Miller’s Soul Food matriarch, Nadine Miller Hunt
If you’re a fan of home-style Southern cooking you should put Miller’s Soul Food in Dublin at the top of your list to visit. They’ve been serving up food and a strong sense of community here for several generations, and you can feel the history and the love in every dish. It’s the oldest restaurant in Dublin and one of the community’s most successful Black-owned businesses.
Inside Miller’s Soul Food
Mrs. Nadine Miller Hunt’s mother established the restaurant in 1955 and Nadine has been running the place for over 30 years. When her husband, James L. Hunt (1934-2023), passed away recently, her daughter Shenita Hunt, who has lived in the Miami area for many years, came home to help with the restaurant’s operation. Mrs. Nadine isn’t slowing down and is the very definition of a gracious Southern lady. In 2022, Miller’s Soul Food was the only Georgia restaurant awarded a Backing Historic Small Restaurants grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
I had a fried leg quarter, a baked leg, turnips, and rutabagas. Both the fried and baked chicken were perfect. The photo, made on the fly, doesn’t do the food justice, so you’ll have to see for yourself.
In the pantheon of Southern restaurants, the meat-and-three is king, because everyone is looking for food like their mamma made. In my experience, the search rarely yields acceptable results. But sometimes you come across a place so good that you want to share it with the world. Miller’s Soul Food isn’t just any meat-and-three. Nothing is too salty, nothing too greasy, and nothing too sweet. Perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned. None of this dumped-out-of-a-can buffet stuff here. There are plenty of regular customers who will tell you it’s the best restaurant in Dublin and I believe them.
Miller’s Soul Food, Dublin’s Oldest Resturant
Of course they serve all the staples, like fried chicken, ribs, fried mullet, and sides like turnips and rutabagas. I’m more a mustard and collards fan, but on the advice of a regular customer, I got the turnips and they were cooked to perfection. For the more old-school customers, they serve up oxtails, pig’s feet and other soul food classics. Each meal comes with corn muffins and an old-fashioned hoe cake, also very good.
Longtime customers make a selection. It’s all so good, it’s not easy to choose.
When I first walked in the door, I was warmly welcomed by Shenita Hunt. In addition to being dedicated to the legacy of her family’s business, she’s an accomplished singer, has toured professionally, and is passionate about her work. She was happy to play some of her recordings and she’s very talented [my favorite was her cover of “At Last” by Etta James]. Her work is available for purchase at the restaurant and online. Her family also owned a nightclub, Miller’s Country Club, about ten miles outside town, and she learned many standards of American music from listening to their jukebox and watching the musicians who worked with her parents. That’s where she got the music bug. Her family strongly embraced and encouraged her artistic interests.
Miller’s Soul Food is only open Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, so you’ll have to plan. But really, you should pay them a visit.
Dublin Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
The Vienna School, as it was known upon construction, was the comprehensive education facility for the city’s white population. An early project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), it was built in the English Vernacular Revival style, to replace an earlier two-story wooden school on the site. Bert Gregory notes that his grandmother, Marywood Gregory, was up early nursing her son Alton on Christmas morning when she saw the old school on fire. She woke up the others in the house and they called the fire department to the scene.
As is evident on the cartouche, the school was first called the Vienna School, but was later renamed the Jenkins School in honor of the superintendent who was instrumental in getting it constructed.
Vienna Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
This school, which served Vienna’s African-American community before desegregation, was built in part with funds provided by the Rosenwald Fund and utilized it “Six Teacher Community School Plan”. It was built by Governor George Busbee’s father, who also built the nearby Lilly School. N. B. Lavender was the first principal.
The National Register of Historic Places listing for the school is a bit confusing, as it identifies this as the County Training School, noting the vocational focus of many schools for African-Americans at the time. However, the original cornerstone for the school identifies it as the Vienna Industrial & High School. An equalization school was built adjacent to the property in 1959, and the campus included all of the earlier Rosenwald structures.
A shop building for vocational activities was built near the schoolhouse, also in 1926. A second shop building (not pictured) was built in 1959 to the right of the schoolhouse.
A food processing/canning plant was attached to the old shop building at a later date..
Members of the Class of 1945 are remembered on the steps of the old shop building, including: R. Lilly; L. Chaney; R. Chaney; A. Graham; F. Smith; L. Smith; E. Bell; B. Godwin; H. Reece; G. Fudge; O. Barnes; G. Eunice; C. Wallace; and M. Edwards.
