{National Register of Historic Places} « Vanishing South Georgia Photographs by Brian Brown

Archive for {National Register of Historic Places}

Colquitt County Courthouse, 1902, Moultrie

Posted in --COLQUITT COUNTY GA--, Moultrie GA with tags --COLQUITT COUNTY GA--, Copyright Brian Brown, Moultrie GA, {National Register of Historic Places}, {South Georgia Architecture}, {South Georgia Courthouses}, {South Georgia Landmarks} on February 4, 2012 by Brian Brown

This Neoclassical Revival landmark was designed by the Andrew P. Bryan Company.

For a great glimpse of Moultrie’s past:

http://www.gpb.org/georgiastories/videos/walking_tour_of_moultrie

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Norman Hotel, Circa 1909, Moultrie

Posted in --COLQUITT COUNTY GA--, Moultrie GA with tags --COLQUITT COUNTY GA--, Copyright Brian Brown, Moultrie GA, {National Register of Historic Places}, {South Georgia Architecture}, {South Georgia Boarding Houses & Hotels} on February 4, 2012 by Brian Brown

The lot on which the Norman Hotel was built originally was occupied by the Central Hotel, a two-story wooden structure built in the 1890s. Soon after the turn of the century, the hotel was renamed the Southern Hotel.

Jeremiah B. Norman was a local businessman who had grown wealthy from timber and naval stores in the 1890s. He then moved to Moultrie from nearby Norman Park and began buying property and buildings in downtown Moultrie. In early 1908, Norman bought the Southern Hotel. Later that year, a fire broke out in the vicinity of the kitchen, and the entire hotel burned down. Norman then built a new three-story red-brick hotel, which he named the Norman Hotel. The new hotel was the second largest in Moultrie and featured steam heat and electric lights.

In terms of architectural style, the Norman Hotel was of simple design with little detailing except for a cornice at the top, small pediments over the two doors, and three ventilation dormers that project from the hotel’s sloping roof.

In 1915, Moultrie’s postmaster rented a section of the Norman Hotel’s first floor for use as a post office. The hotel continued to house Moultrie’s post office until a new Federal Building was completed in 1919. After the post office moved out, the front corner area of the hotel was remodeled to serve as a restaurant.

The Norman Hotel apparently did well. For one thing, it was the closest hotel to the passenger train depot, located five blocks away. At the time, most businessmen and salesmen traveled by rail, and by 1920 Moultrie was served by 14 passenger trains daily. So, the Norman Hotel’s proximity to the train depot was important. Evidence of hotels’ success can be seen that by 1920, it had a sample room on the first floor for traveling salesmen to display their wares. Also, a smaller building adjacent to the hotel that housed a barbershop now served as a hotel annex.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, the Norman Hotel suffered the fate of most small town hotels across America. The declining use of passenger trains and the rising popularity of motels forced the Norman Hotel to close in the 1960s. Since then, the ground floor of the building has been used for various purposes, including a coffee shop, boutique, and other stores. The original pediments above the doors no longer remain. Also, the brick exterior outside the first floor has been covered with light-colored masonry facing. Currently, the rooms on the second and third floor are vacant.

In 1994, the downtown Moultrie commercial historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The old Norman Hotel building was considered a contributing building in the historic district.

http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/colquittcounty/normanhotelbldg.htm

This information, as well as a nice old postcard view of the Norman in its heyday, can be seen at GeorgiaInfo, a wonderful repository of history and culture.

Many thanks to Joanna Cook for pointing me in the right direction!

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Mitchell House Hotel, 1886, Thomasville

Posted in --THOMAS COUNTY GA--, Thomasville GA with tags --THOMAS COUNTY GA--, Copyright Brian Brown, Thomasville GA, {National Register of Historic Places}, {South Georgia Architecture}, {South Georgia Boarding Houses & Hotels}, {South Georgia Landmarks} on February 4, 2012 by Brian Brown

While many towns and cities have lost their historic hotels, Thomasville is fortunate to retain the Mitchell House, a remnant of the 1880s tourist boom which helped make the city what it is today. A renovation was completed around 2009 which features street-level shops and restaurants, as well as luxury condominiums on the upper floors.

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Upchurch Building, 1917, Thomasville

Thanks, Tracy, for help with the identification! And it’s very likely that Joan Hawkins’ suggestion that it was later used as the Bank of Thomas County sounds plausible, as well.

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Lapham-Patterson House, 1885, Thomasville

Posted in --THOMAS COUNTY GA--, Thomasville GA with tags --THOMAS COUNTY GA--, Copyright Brian Brown, Thomasville GA, {National Register of Historic Places}, {South Georgia Architecture}, {South Georgia Houses}, {South Georgia Landmarks}, {South Georgia Victorians} on February 4, 2012 by Brian Brown

For a history and more views of this Thomasville icon, see:

http://vanishingsouthgeorgia.com/2010/02/09/lapham-patterson-house-thomasville/

http://vanishingsouthgeorgia.com/2010/02/09/lapham-patterson-house-thomasville-2/

http://vanishingsouthgeorgia.com/2010/02/09/lapham-patterson-house-1884-85-thomasville/

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Fairview Victorian, Valdosta

Posted in --LOWNDES COUNTY GA--, Valdosta GA with tags --LOWNDES COUNTY GA--, Copyright Brian Brown, Valdosta GA, {National Register of Historic Places}, {South Georgia Architecture}, {South Georgia Houses}, {South Georgia Landmarks} on February 3, 2012 by Brian Brown

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Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah

Originally the site of John Mullryne’s Bonaventure Plantation, Bonaventure Cemetery has a history linked inextricably to that of Savannah and Georgia. Governor Josiah Tattnall was an early owner, and upon his death, his son, also named Josiah, came to own the land. In 1846, 70 acres of the plantation were sold to Peter Wiltberger for use as a cemetery. He operated it as a for-profit burial ground known as Evergreen Cemetery from 1868 until 1907, when the city of Savannah purchased much of the property and changed the name to Bonaventure Cemetery, in honor of its original incarnation.

It has long inspired locals and tourists alike, and a poignant description comes from Sierra Club founder and iconic American naturalist, John Muir. In his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, Muir wrote a chapter entitled “Camping in the Tombs” to detail his week-long visit to Bonaventure in 1867:

“Part of the grounds was cultivated and planted with live-oak, about a hundred years ago, by a wealthy gentleman who had his country residence here But much the greater part is undisturbed. Even those spots which are disordered by art, Nature is ever at work to reclaim, and to make them look as if the foot of man had never known them. Only a small plot of ground is occupied with graves and the old mansion is in ruins. The most conspicuous glory of Bonaventure is its noble avenue of live-oaks. They are the most magnificent planted trees I have ever seen, about fifty feet high and perhaps three or four feet in diameter, with broad spreading leafy heads. The main branches reach out horizontally until they come together over the driveway, embowering it throughout its entire length, while each branch is adorned like a garden with ferns, flowers, grasses, and dwarf palmettos. But of all the plants of these curious tree-gardens the most striking and characteristic is the so-called Long Moss. It drapes all the branches from top to bottom, hanging in long silvery-gray skeins, reaching a length of not less than eight or ten feet, and when slowly waving in the wind they produce a solemn funereal effect singularly impressive. There are also thousands of smaller trees and clustered bushes, covered almost from sight in the glorious brightness of their own light. The place is half surrounded by the salt marshes and islands of the river, their reeds and sedges making a delightful fringe. Many bald eagles roost among the trees along the side of the marsh. Their screams are heard every morning, joined with the noise of crows and the songs of countless warblers, hidden deep in their dwellings of leafy bowers. Large flocks of butterflies, flies, all kinds of happy insects, seem to be in a perfect fever of joy and sportive gladness. The whole place seems like a center of life. The dead do not reign there alone. Bonaventure to me is one of the most impressive assemblages of animal and plant creatures I ever met. I was fresh from the Western prairies, the garden-like openings of Wisconsin, the beech and maple and oak woods of Indiana and Kentucky, the dark mysterious Savannah cypress forests; but never since I was allowed to walk the woods have I found so impressive a company of trees as the tillandsia-draped oaks of Bonaventure. I gazed awe-stricken as one new-arrived from another world. Bonaventure is called a graveyard, a town of the dead, but the few graves are powerless in such a depth of life. The rippling of living waters, the song of birds, the joyous confidence of flowers, the calm, undisturbable grandeur of the oaks, mark this place of graves as one of the Lord’s most favored abodes of life and light.”

–Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916.

http://www.bonaventurehistorical.org/

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