The Backroads Traveler: Talbotton, Georgia

 Zion Episcopal Church, Talbotton, Georgia. (Canon 6D)

 Talbotton, in Talbot County, west central Georgia, is a very interesting little town with a good number of early and mid-19th century buildings. A good place to begin your visit is the Chamber of Commerce, across from the courthouse at the corner of South Washington and East Madison, where you can pick up a self-guided tour brochure. 

 Since it's right across the street you can't miss the Queen Anne-style Talbot County Courthouse, built in 1892 (truly a banner year for Georgia courthouses). Here are some other sites I liked.

(Canon 6D)

The Warner-Simpson-Jordan House, Talbotton. (Canon 6D)

 

The Warner-Simpson-Jordon House is at 126 Monroe Street, on the southwest corner of Monroe and Clay. A Plantation Plain house built in 1832 by Judge Hiram Warner, a Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, as his home and law office. During the Civil War the house was raided by Yankee soldiers. Warner, a prominent Rebel leader, resisted, and was sentenced to hang. The Yankees hung him from a tree in his own yard and left him for dead, but he was cut down by a family slave, revived, and lived 16 more years. 

Zion Episcopal Church, on Jackson Street between Clark and Polk Streets, is a Tudor-Gothic structure which would look right at home in an English village. Master craftsmen put it together with handmade iron nails and wooden pegs, making the altars, communion rails, and pulpit of native walnut, and hanging doors that open with a five-inch brass key. The rare Pilcher pipe organ, installed in 1850, is the oldest one still working in the United States.

 A $257,000 project to restore the exterior of the church was completed in 2020. Worship services are held quarterly.

The Straus-LeVert Memorial Hall, Talbotton. (Canon 6D)

Talbotton was an important center for Methodism in the pre-Civil War years, with two Methodist colleges in the town.

One of those colleges was LeVert College, founded in 1856 as one of the first schools for young women in Georgia. Its most prominent building was the Straus-LeVert Memorial Hall, on the northwest corner of Clark Street and College Avenue, also built in 1856. The school closed in 1907, but the building was renovated through the generosity of the Straus family.

Lazerus Straus, a German Jew, immigrated in 1853 and came to Talbotton in 1854, peddling goods from a wagon. He settled in the town, brought his family from Germany, and established a successful dry-goods business on the town square. He moved his family to New York in 1865, and by 1896 the Straus Family were the sole owners of Macy's Department Store.

The Pew-Hill-Dean House, Talbotton. (Olympus E-M5)

The Pew-Hill-Dean House, built in 1852, is a fine example of Greek Revival architecture. It is set back from the road, on the right, at Number 864 on US 80/GA 22/41 south of town. Unfortunately, you won't be able to see its most unusual feature: two-story columns at the rear of the house to match those in front!

The Towns-Persons-Page House, Talbotton. (Olympus E-M5)

 The Towns-Persons-Page House, several blocks out on West Monroe, is a bit hard to see because it is on a hill set well back from the right side of the road with no place to park. A classic Greek Revival design, it was built in 1830 by George Washington Towns, a cousin of the Creek Indian Chief William McIntosh, who built the McIntosh House at Indian Springs in Butts County in 1823.

Many of the original outbuildings were made of brick and are still standing, including a seven-seat brick outhouse!

There are quite a few other interesting and significant sites in Talbotton, so enjoy the tour. 

 (This post was adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)

 If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      digital photography   Canon 6D camera      travel photography     Olympus E-M5 camera    Talbotton, Georgia   antebellum houses     old courthouses     Talbot County, Georgia

My Tiny Buddy

In 2017 I began selling off the Canon EOS camera system I had been using for 26 years (both film and digital) and began buying Fujifilm X-series cameras and lenses. I was 80 that year, still actively doing wedding, commercial, and travel photography, and felt it was time to change to smaller and lighter cameras and lenses.

One of my first purchases was a Fuji X-T20 camera which I bought in used but like new condition through an on-line photography forum. When I received it, I was surprised to find it was actually too small. A nifty little black leather half-case with red stitching fixed that problem, and soon the X-T20 paired with a 16-50mm lens became my daily carry camera, going with me whenever I left the house.

It's 2026 now, and the X-T20 is still with me and still the camera that goes over my shoulder when I go out and about. The combination of small size, light weight, and photographic capability make it just right for most of my work. I've even used it to work weddings as a second shooter and the primary photographer, a Canon user, praised my X-T20 files as "pretty." 

The 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 XC (24-75mm equivalent) lens has a very useful range and is plenty sharp. (I have the pictures to prove it.) I mostly work at apertures of f5.6 to f11, and as Kirk Tuck says, all lenses are sharp in that range. After eight years of good service the lens has developed a mechanical problem and will have to be replaced -- probably with the Fuji 18-55mm XF lens.

The 24-megapixel sensor of the X-T20 is sufficient for my work. I have no difficulty making 24x36-inch prints from my files. I know there are later models in this series, but I've never felt the need to upgrade.

The X-T20 is not my only camera, of course. I currently have a Fuji X-Pro1 and an X-T3. In the past I've also owned an X-T1 and an X-H1, both good cameras. I like to use the X-T3 when working with flash or my 50-200mm zoom because I feel the heavier body balances better with those tools. But for casual, everyday out-and-about photography my tiny buddy, the X-T20, will probably be over my shoulder or in my hands.

Azalea and butterfly in my back yard. Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 16-50mm lens. a 24x36 inch print of this photo hangs in my living room each summer.

 

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      digital photography   Fuji X-T20 camera      Fujinon XC 16-50mm lens     Fuji X-T3 camera    Fuji X-T1 camera   Fuji X-Pro1 camera     Fuji X-H1 camera     Fujinon XF40-200mm lens

The Pentax 6x7 at Work

The Landmark Diner. Buckhead,Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1998 I received a commission from Fortune-Johnson Construction Company of Atlanta to photograph some of their projects, including a large condominium complex still under construction and one of their smaller projects, the Landmark Diner in Buckhead.

I used several different cameras for the project, including my Calumet-Cambo 4x5 view camera and a Hasselblad. My workhorse for architectural photography, however, was my Pentax 6x7, which, paired with the great 45mm Takumar wide-angle lens, was used for the above photo of the diner.

Big and heavy, the Pentax was nonetheless a great camera for travel and location work. I have always believed the 6x7 gave me the highest percentage of "keepers" of any camera I have ever owned. That doesn't seem important in this era of digital photography, when we often fire off a barrage at every subject because "it doesn't cost anything."

Actually, it does cost something. It costs the careful look, the study of your subject to determine the best, most expressive way to render the subject. When your camera only holds ten exposures, each one costing well more than a dollar for film and processing, one becomes very careful indeed before pressing the shutter button.

Of course, one can work carefully with a digital camera. But the temptation is always to "spray and pray." Digital photography has fulfilled George Bernard Shaw's dictum: "A photographer is like a codfish, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity."

 The clubhouse at the condo complex. Another Pentax 6x7/45mm lens shot. This scene was lit with three commercial-size flash units.

 If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      architectural photography   Pentax 6x7 camera      PentaxTakumar 45mmlens     film photography   Georgia     Atlanta    Buckhead     4x5 Calumet-Cambo view camera    Hasselblad camera

The Old Mill at Stone Mountain Park

Surely the most visited old mill in Georgia is the mill at Stone Mountain Park. It was built near Ellijay in Fannin County in 1869 and moved to its present location and carefully reconstructed in 1965. 

The overshot wheel is 13 feet, 8 inches in diameter and is an exact copy of the original. Water to power the wheel comes from a dam on a small creek on the hillside above the mill.The water is carried to the wheel by a wooden flume. Inside the mill building two large millstones do the grinding and can be adjusted to regulate the speed of the millstones and the texture of the meal. 

Stone Mountain Park is a beautiful place. In addition to the spectacular mountain itself, there are many varieties of plants and flowers and also an historic, 151-foot-long covered bridge on the property. Built by legendary covered bridge master Washington W. King over the Oconee River in Clarke County, it was purchased for one dollar and moved to Stone Mountain Park in 1965.

About the photo: Made on Kodachrome film in the early 1970s. I don't remember what camera I used, but I didn't have much money in those days, so all I had were a few small (and cheap) fixed-lens rangefinder cameras. 

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      travel photography   Stone Mountain Park      Old grist mills    Kodachrome film   Georgia     covered bridges                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

The Elisha Winn House

The Elisha Winn House, Gwinett County, Georgia

The Elisha Winn House at 908 Dacula Road, Dacula. Built circa 1812, it is the oldest surviving structure in Gwinnett County and very likely the oldest building in metro Atlanta. The first Gwinnett County elections were held at this house, and for a time in the early days it served as the county courthouse. An 1820s log jail and several outbuildings are also on the property. 

The house was built in what was then Jackson County. Six years later, when Gwinett County was formed, much of the planning took place in the Winn house.

Elisha Winn was an interesting man. He and his wife Ivy had 13 children, so he obviously needed a large house. He was a leader in the early years of Gwinnett County, a Justice of the Peace, an Inferior Court judge, and later, a State Representative and State Senator.

Although larger than most of its kind, the Winn House is an outstanding example of the "Plantation Plain" style, with two rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. Constructed of heart pine, the house has a gable roof and a chimney at each end. A kitchen attached to the rear was removed in 1860.

The Elisha Winn House is managed by the Gwinnett County Historical Society, and is open for tours from March to September on the third Saturday of the month from noon to 4:00 p.m. The Elisha Winn Fair is held on the first weekend of October, with the house and all the out-buildings open. 

    The Benjamin Gachet House, built in 1828 near Barnesville, is another beautiful example  of Plantation Plain design.

This post was adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia. A Canon EOS 6D with the EF 28-105mm lens was used for both photos.

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      travel photography   Canon EOS 6D camera      Canon EF 28-105mm lens    digital photography   Georgia    Dacula, Georgia    Gwinett County, Georgia    Elisha Winn    Elisha Winn House    Plantation Plain houses    Benjamin Gachet house

Wagner's Store

Walter Wagner's Store. Silverville, Lawrence County, Southern Indiana.

When I left southern Indiana for college in Chattanooga in 1955, Walter Wagner's General store in the tiny crossroads village of Silverville was still very much a going concern.  In 2005 when I made this photograph, not so much.

I grew up on a farm about two miles away, and my brothers and sister and I made the trip many times -- on foot, on bicycles, and on a horse-drawn sled. In those days you could buy just about anything you needed at Walter's store -- a pair of shoes, a pair of overalls, a Coke, or a Popsicle. And groceries, of course. You could even buy a slice of ham or baloney, with which he would give you slices of bread and set out the mustard pot for an impromptu lunch.

Walter and his wife Ivy attended the little Baptist church about a half-mile away, where we also attended. (My parents and some of my siblings are buried in the cemetery behind the church.) Walter's wife was my Sunday School teacher and one of his daughters was my music teacher in high school.

Notice the long, rectangular block of concrete in the lower left of the picture? That's where the two gasoline pumps stood: regular and high-test. If you wanted to buy gas, you used the manual handle on the side of the pump. At the top of the pump was a glass container marked with lines and numbers to indicate the number of gallons you wanted. After you pumped your gas up to the desired level, you inserted the hose nozzle into your tank and dispensed the gas. 

Walter and Ivy are gone, as is most of Silverville. The old store was still standing as of 2005, but I imagine it's also gone by now. As are so many of the old things and old ways.

The photo was made with a Canon EOS 20D and the Canon EF 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 lens.

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      travel photography   Canon EOS 20D camera      Canon EF 24-85mm lens    digital photography    southern Indiana     Silvervillee, Indiana

Life Gets in the Way

 The Maid of the Mist tour boat at Niagara Falls (Canadian side, 2019.) Fuji X-T20, 16-50mm Fujinon XC lens.

My regular readers (all five of them) will probably have noticed that my posts have been a bit sporadic of late. As I write at the foot of every post: "I post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way." Well, life has been getting in the way.

I began blogging in August, 2011, wrote six posts in a row, and quickly realized I couldn't keep up that pace because of my lack of personal discipline and the realization that it took more time than I was willing to commit to. So I shelved the whole thing for eight years.

In December, 2019 I restarted the blog and made a commitment to post three times a week. I've mostly kept that promise, with more  than 775 original posts over a span of six years.

But now, however, life is indeed getting in the way more intrusively in three ways:

First, I'm not making new photographs. I don't find Knoxville to be a very fertile place to make the kinds of pictures I want to make. And it takes time and miles of driving to get out where the pictures are.

Second, Louise and I are both getting older. Her back is an ongoing problem, so many times when I might have been able to go out rambling with my camera I needed to stay close to help her.

Third, my own lack of mobility. Since I had the bad fall at Potter's Falls in August, 2024, walking is not enjoyable. It's hard to make my kind of photos without doing at least some walking, including up and down hills and on uneven ground.

So in short, I'm not creating new content and that makes it difficult to keep the blog going at the level I've established. 

I don't want to quit blogging, so for now I will commit to at least one post per week. I might post more often if I have something especially interesting to share.

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

 

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      blogging   Fuji X-T20 camera     Fuji XC 16-50mm lens   

Passing through Gettysburg

 

Dead Confederate sniper at Gettysburg Battlefield. One of the best-known pictures from the Civil War.

Louise's grandparents immigrated from Ireland, settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and raised a large family. When her father was grown he immigrated to Maine, where he met and married Louise's mother. They moved to New York, then, when Louise was six, to Miami, where she grew up. Over the years Mr. Devlin gradually lost touch with his birth family. Around 2018 one of Louise's sisters was able to find and make contact with some Devlin relatives still in the Halifax area. So 2019 we hitched our Starcraft travel trailer to our valiant 2006 Chevy truck and set out for Halifax, Nova Scotia to visit relatives we had never met. 

Coming home, we took our time and worked our way down the Maine coast, camping at various places and revisiting places we had first visited in the 1980s. We then went west to Niagara Falls, and from there south through Pennsylvania to Gettysburg, where we met with one of our nieces who lived in the area and her son. They gave us a tour of the battlefield.

Sniper's Den, Gettysburg National Battlefield Park

 I especially wanted to see if I could find the location of the picture at the top of this post. One of the best-known photographs from the Civil War, it was made by Timothy O'Sullivan and Alexander Gardner after the battle. (They exercised a bit of "creative license" by moving a body 40 yards into position.) Nonetheless, it is a remarkably poignant photograph. The photo immediately above shows the sniper's hideout looking very much as it did in 1863. Rocks don't change much.

 Our mighty Chevy truck and Starcraft camper at Gettysburg.

The next day we toured the old town of Gettysburg and ate in a very old restaurant. Then it was back to the road home.

My photos were made with a Fuji X-T20 camera and the Fujinon XC 16-50mm lens. I have no information about the camera used by O'Sullivan and Gardner, but it was undoubtedly very large and made negatives on glass plates.

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      Civil War photography   photographic equipment    Fuji X-T20 camera     Fuji XC 116-50mm lens    Gettysburg   Gettysburg Battlefield National Park     Alexander Gardner, photographer     Timothy O'Sullivan, photographer

Minimum Equipment, Maximum Photography

 

The Bridal Vail

Leica M3, 50mm f2 Summicron

An amazing number of the world’s greatest photographers have been Leica rangefinder shooters. The question is, were they Leica shooters because they were great, or were they great because they were Leica shooters? (And with Leicas, I include similar interchangeable lens rangefinder cameras.)

Neither proposition is entirely correct, yet I suspect it may be closer to the truth to say they were great because they were Leica shooters.

The average well-equipped photographer who sallies forth laden with a pair of DSLRs and a battery of zoom lenses covering a range of 12 to 300mm or more is ready for anything. The problem is that the photographer who is ready for anything is actually ready for nothing. In contemplating any subject, he must decide whether he should use a wide angle to encompass the entire scene or move in close for dramatic impact. Should he back off with a telephoto for flattened perspective and/or shallow depth of field, or should he zoom in to concentrate on a specific detail? The options are overwhelming and invite a terminal case of paralysis by analysis.

I once read an article about the travel photographer Gerald Brimacombe, who at that time was working with a pair of digital cameras that most professionals and advanced amateurs would consider too limited for serious work. Yet, he chose to work within the limitations of those cameras and concentrate on what they could do, rather than what they couldn’t do.And produced pictures that sold over and over.

Although he happened not to be using Leicas, that concentration is nonetheless the essence of the Leica approach to photography. As Picasso said“Forcing yourself to use restricted means is the sort of restraint that liberates invention. It obliges you to make a kind of progress that you can’t even imagine in advance.”

 

Poverty in Rural Tennessee

Leica M3, 35mm f2.8 Summaron

I think it is something like this that made so many Leica shooters great: since using a Leica and one or two or three lenses doesn’t make for a lot of options, they learned to photograph the things that could be photographed with their limited equipment and let the rest of the world go by.

Obviously, you don't have to shoot with Leicas (I don't) to practice the principal of limited means. The standard advice for budding photographers used to be to shoot with only one camera, one lens, and one film for a solid year before adding anything else to the kit.

Of course, all this makes me a voice crying in the wilderness of this gearhead world where some people actually list their photographic arsenals as part of their signatures on internet forums. To them, I would say, "Your cameras are great. Now could I please see your pictures?"

(Reposted from January, 2020)

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography      Leica photography   photographic equipment    minimum equipment    Pablo Picasso   Gerald Brimacombe

St. Simon's Island: Part II

The interior of Christ Episcopal Church.

The present sanctuary was erected in 1884, built in the shape of a cross, with beautiful stained-glass windows throughout, including one by Tiffany, and another depicting John Wesley preaching to the settlers. The woodwork is also unusually fine.

 

Stained-glass window in Christ Episcopal Church depicting John and Charles Wesley preaching to the settlers on St. Simon's Island.
 

 

 

 

 

  

Best-selling author Eugenia Price, who made Christ Church nationally known through her historical novels, is buried among the live oaks in the church's cemetery.

 

 

 

St. Simon's Island Lighthouse and Museum on Beachview Drive.

Dating from 1872, the St. Simon's light replaced one built in 1810 that was destroyed by the Confederates during the Civil War to make navigation more difficult for Yankee ships.The original light was 75 feet high and made of tabby taken from the ruins of Fort Frederica, in case you were wondering why so little is left of that fort. Some of it probably went into other building projects on the island as well. The use of  tabby was the idea of James Gould, who, after building the lighthouse, became its keeper for 27 years. Eugenia Price wrote about Gould in her historical novel, Lighthouse, the first book in her St. Simon's trilogy.

Congress authorized building a new lighthouse in 1867, but the project was delayed because of unhealthy living conditions. Stagnant ponds near the site bred mosquitoes, and two contractors died of fever before the lighthouse and Victorian-style keeper's residence were completed in 1872.

Now owned and managed by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, the lighthouse and keeper's residence, currently a museum, are open for tours, including climbing the 129 steps to the top of the 104-foot tower.

 If you're hungry after climbing the lighthouse and would like to do a bit more exploration of a very interesting place, go left  on Beachview for a few blocks to a shopping area with some very good restaurants. My wife and I have eaten seafood several times at The Half Shell SSI, 504 Beachview Drive and always found it excellent. (Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)

Both photos were made with an Olympus E-M5 digital camera with a Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 12-32mm lens.

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    digital photography   travel photography    St. Simon's Island, Georgia    Georgia coast    Panasonic Lumix 12-32mm Vario-G lens   Olympus E-M5 camera    Christ Episcopal Church    Eugenia Price

The Backroads Traveler: St. Simon's Island

 The remains of Fort Frederica, St.Simon's Island, Georgia.

 In 1736, only three years after founding Savannah, James Oglethorpe led a group of 44 men and 72 women and children to build a fort and a town at a strategic location on St. Simon's Island on Georgia's southern coast. He named it Frederica, after Crown Prince Frederick, son of George II.

It was only an earthworks at first, but under Oglethorpe's leadership and inspiration, a substantial fort of tabby was built within a few years, and inland, behind the fort, a village with walls and a moat, laid out in 84 plots, most of them 60 by 90 feet, with broad streets lined with orange trees and substantial homes of brick, wood, and tabby, housing a population of as many as 500.

After being routed by the British in the Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simon's in 1742, the Spanish were no longer a serious threat to Georgia, and the garrison at Frederica was disbanded in 1749. Without the economic input of several hundred soldiers, the town withered and died, becoming effectively a ghost town by 1755.

Today, Fort Frederica is a national monument, although all that remains is a small piece of the fort and the many house foundations excavated by archaeologists that line the streets.

To get to Frederica, take the causeway from Brunswick to the island and go north on Frederica Road. On the way, you will pass Christ Episcopal Church, a church with an interesting history. We'll come back to that later.

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Simon's Island.

From the fort, take Frederica Road back to Christ Episcopal Church at #6329. Founded in 1808 on a site where both John and Charles Wesley had preached to the settlers at Frederica in the 1730s, Christ Church did not have a permanent building until 1820. That first structure was severely damaged during the Civil War by Union troops. (To be continued. Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia. )

Both photos were made with an Olympus E-M5 digital camera with Panasonic Lumix Vario-G lenses -- the 14-140mm for Fort Frederica and the 12-32mm for Christ Church.

Click on the link at left for information about ordering original signed prints from the Rock City Barns book.

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Photography and text copyright 2026 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography    digital photography   travel photography    St. Simon's Island, Georgia   Fort Frederica National Monumeent    Georgia coast    Panasonic Lumix 12-32mm Vario-G lens   Olympus E-M5 camera    Panasonic 14-140mm Vario G lens     Christ Episcopal Church