Some of the best fresh-off-the-boat shrimp on the coast can be found at the Shrimp Shack on US17 near the Sapelo River in Eulonia.They sell the shrimp heads on. It’s not a restaurant, but this family-owned business is known for their high quality Wild Georgia Shrimp and they’ve been in business for over 20 years. They use a price sign similar to one you’d see at a gas station, and if the open sign is on, they’re open. When they run out of shrimp they close. Simple and perfect.
I drove down to Riceboro yesterday to see the wonderful work Jim Bacote (above, right) has done with Geechee Kunda and to check out his Gathering, an annual celebration of Geechee and Gullah folkways. Jim is passionate about preserving this history and it’s tangible. Geechee Kunda is the culmination of his lifelong fascination with this endangered way of life. I first met him a couple of years ago when he was still working on his museum and history center so I didn’t get to make any photographs. He invited me to come back and I’m so glad I finally got to see it yesterday.
The highlight for me was a performance by the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters (not to be confused with the McIntosh County Shouters, who organized about a decade before the Geechee Gullah). This group of dedicated men and women share the ring shout with the world and aim for authenticity. They’re historic interpreters of the highest order and preserve a tradition that was thought to be extinct as recently as 1980. Historians believe the ring shout is the oldest surviving African performance tradition in North America. While “shouting” in the vocal sense is a part of the performance, linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner, who spent a lifetime researching the Gullah language and culture, suggested that the term came from the Afro-Arabic word saut. This is a reference to the forward-moving shuffle, during which the feet are not to cross, associated with pilgrimages to the Kabaa at Mecca.
It’s hard not to come away from a performance by the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters with a better understanding of a culture that, especially as white Southerners, we have kept at a distance at best or dismissed altogether at worst.
One thing you’ll quickly notice when you’re around the Shouters is their charisma. They’re very passionate about what they’re doing and you can feel it. You not only learn but you’re uplifted, as well.
In 2011, the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters set the Guinness World Record for leading the largest recorded ring shout, during the “Word, Shout, Song” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, D. C.
Besides the world record ring shout, the group is also proud to have among their performers Mrs. Butler (above, right), who at 90 is the world’s oldest living ring shouter. She’s amazing.
At the end of the performance, a narrative of Emancipation is re-enacted and is quite powerful. If you couldn’t already tell, I was very moved by these living historians and would encourage anyone who has the opportunity to attend one of their events.
This has been remodeled and now serves as the Darien firehouse. Its Streamline Moderne architecture remains though the “tabby” walls have been replaced with stucco. O. C. Welch III notes that this was built in 1947 as Darien Motor Company. Melissa Stebbins Mundell writes: This building was built by my grandfather, Mose Edenfield, who served as the Mayor of Darien and as a Georgia State Senator. Sometime after his death in 1961, the dealership and building were purchased by my great-uncle, Clarence “Speed” Edenfield. It was next owned by O. C. Welch (a well-known car dealer in these parts). Dianne Parks notes that it was later Steve James Ford, Jack Nelson Ford, and Lilliston Ford. (These photographs were made in 2011).
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.
This house is a bit of a landmark on US 17, north of Brunswick. I notice it every time I drive past it, because it seems so out of place. Its condition is rapidly deteriorating. It appears to have been built in the American Foursquare style, with slight modifications. I’m sure it’s one of the oldest houses on US 17 in Glynn County.
Update: As of late 2019, this house has been demolished.
Grady White’s garage on US 17 in Midway stays busy, so I was glad to get a shot on a Sunday. I’ve been told it dates to the 1930s and wasn’t originally a Gulf station. There’s been one form or another of automotive service at this location for over 100 years. And for many years, the station was the place to obtain the key to historic Midway Congregational Church, located just across Old Sunbury Road from the station.
I can’t find a reference to the old station on the National Park Service’s nomination form for the Midway Historic District, but it probably wasn’t seen as an asset in 1973 when the form was compiled. Today, I believe it should be included in the historic district.
Founded in 1887 by the Reverend Joseph Williams, Ebenezer Presbyterian is an important African-American congregation. Reverend Williams’s headstone, which faces the church from across US 17, reads: In Memory of Rev. Joseph Williams – Founder of Presbyterianism among the colored people of Georgia – Born in Providence Island West Indies A. D. 1805 – Died at Riceboro Ga U.S.A. Nov. 22, 1899.
A Chronicle of Black History in Liberty County, Georgia, by Lillie Walthour Gillard, gives insight into the work of the Reverend Mr. Williams, as he was widely known. She writes: The Reverend Joseph Williams, a native of the West Indies, came to Liberty County from Macon, Georgia, in the year 1867. On April 12, 1868, he organized a Presbyterian church in the building of “Old Midway” church with 300 members and worshipped there for eighteen years. This congregation became part of Knox Presbytery and of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., and was known as the Midway Presbyterian Church. Following a period of controversy over the rights of occupancy of Old Midway-Congregational or Presbyterian-the Reverend Mr. Williams organized a group of forty-six persons formerly members of a church pastored by Dr. C. C. Jones. In 1880 the church moved to Riceboro where a new building was constructed with the assistance of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.
Originally built as a boarding house, this fine old home on US 17 now serves as a bed and breakfast known as McIntosh Manor.
At 7779 feet, the Sidney Lanier Bridge has the longest span of any bridge in Georgia. Reaching a height of 480 feet, it’s a replacement for the 1956 vertical-lift bridge of the same name. On 7 November 1972 the African Neptune struck the earlier bridge, resulting in ten deaths. On 3 May 1987 that bridge was again struck, this time by the Polish freighter Ziemia Bialostocka. Like Savannah’s Talmadge Bridge, the new bridge’s cable-stayed construction is more stable and allows the necessary greater height for the booming container ship traffic of the Georgia coast.
Common on all of America’s major highways from the 1930s to the 1960s, “tourist cabins” like these were the forerunners of motels and have largely disappeared from the American landscape today.
These are quite well-preserved and likely among the best examples remaining on the coast.
