Georgia Small Towns: Eatonton

 

The Eagle Tavern, also known as the Bronson House, was built in 1816.

Eatonton is another east-central Georgia small town with many interesting things to see in the city and in the area. There's also some unusual cultural history in the form of a pair of museums.

Founded in 1807 to be the seat of the newly-formed Putnam County, Eatonton has an historic courthouse and many fine old buildings. I especially liked the Bronson House at 114 North Madison, which began life in 1816 as the Eagle Tavern. In 1852, the columns were added and other changes made to convert the house into a Greek Revival mansion. It is now the headquarters of the Eatonton-Putnam County Historical Society. 

The population of Eatonton in 2020 was about 6,300 people.

The First United Methodist Church was built in 1857.

The First United Methodist Church was partially destroyed by fire in 1979, but was restored and reopened in 1981. It is directly across the street from the Plaza Arts Center and Tourist Information Office, where you can pick up a brochure for the self-guided tour of Eatonton’s more than one hundred historic buildings. 

 

The Brer Rabbit statue in front of the Putnam County Courthouse.

 

Chief among those historic buildings is the impressive Neoclassical Revival Putnam County Courthouse, built in 1824. It's the third oldest courthouse in Georgia and the oldest still in use as a courthouse. It occupies what is said to be the largest public square in Georgia. On the front lawn is a statue of the ubiquitous (in Eatonton, anyway) Joel Chandler Harris character Brer Rabbit.

 

As the birthplace of Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus--Brer Rabbit stories, and Alice Walker, whose best-known novel is The Color Purple, Eatonton is a natural home for the Georgia Writers Museum. Located at 109 South Jefferson Street, the museum hosts frequent lectures and workshops by well-known writers. 

 

The Uncle Remus museum is built of logs from two old slave cabins.
 

Another, and perhaps better-known museum in Eatonton is the Uncle Remus museum. A log cabin made from two old slave cabins from Putnam County, the museum is similar to the cabin lived in by Uncle Remus, the character made famous by author Joel Chandler Harris. Scenes and mementos depict antebellum plantation life. Turner Park, where the museum is located, was part of the original home place of Joseph Sidney Turner, the "Little Boy" in the Uncle Remus stories. 

 

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

 

About the photos: The Eagle Tavern and the Methodist Church were photographed with an Olympus E-M5 and the Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 12-32mm lens. The Uncle Remus Museum was photographed with the same camera, but with a Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 14-140mm lens. The courthouse was photographed with a Fuji X-H1 camera and the Fujicron XC16-50mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 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    Georgia    Eatonton     digital photography   Olympus E-M5 camera     Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 12-32mm lens    Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 14-140mm lens  Fuji X-H1 camera     Fujicron X-H1 camera     Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens     Brer Rabbit     Uncle Remus     Joel Chandler Harris

Ramblin' 'round northeast Georgia

Abandoned tractor in soybean field, Georgia Highway 75 ALT, White County.

As I've said before, even though I lived in the northwest corner of Georgia, I usually found more interesting things to photograph in northeast Georgia. 

This tractor was parked in a field beside Georgia 75 ALT in White County. It's obviously really old. Growing up on a farm in the 1940s and '50s as I did, I can say it's older than anything I saw in our area. On the other hand, it has rubber tires, so it's not as old as the tractors with metal lug wheels. I'm guessing it's from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s. There's no way to tell how long it's been sitting in that field, but it's been long enough for the front tires to have rotted away.

       Ford 8N tractor in shed, U.S. Hwy. 19, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

The Ford 8N is one of the most popular tractors every made. Manufactured from 1947 to 1952, 530,000 of the distinctive grey and red machines were sold around the world. In the U.S., many thousands of them are still in use, probably most of them performing light duty on small farms. A full range of parts is still available to keep them running.

Cudzu, the plant that ate the South. U.S. Hwy. 19, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

 

Cudzu, also spelled Kudzu, was imported from Japan in the late 19th century for erosion control and as a cattle feed. My Dad, always a visionary, planted some on our property in southern Indiana for that purpose around 1950. It didn't work out. Years later, two of my brothers, who bought the property from our Dad, leased some acreage to a farmer who finally managed to root out the pesty vine. In the South, as any traveler knows, the evil weed still covers large areas. 

Skeenah Creek Mill, Georgia Highway 60, Fannin County.

The drive from Dahlonega to Blue Ridge via Georgia 60 is only 31 miles, but the twisting, winding highway makes it seem much further. Around the half way point is the Skeenah Creek Mill, located at the rear of the Skeenah Creek Campground. The mill is still operational, but not currently in use. If you're a mill buff, it makes the trip worthwhile.

Johnson Mill, Cooley Woods Road, Cleveland, Georgia.

Dating from the early 1800s, Johnson Mill, on the edge of Cleveland, is well-preserved and fully operational. The owners have taken a great deal of care with the landscaping, making this one of the loveliest settings I have seen for a mill. The mill property also includes a very nicely restored log cabin with rocking chairs on the porch. Across the street is a log double-pen barn and a covered bridge spanning the mill creek. This is altogether an idyllic place and well worth a visit.

About the photos: The Abandoned Tractor, Ford Tractor in Shed, and Cudzu were photographed with a Canon EOS 5D camera with an EF 24-85mm lens. The Skeenah Creek Mill and Johnson Mill were photographed with a Canon EOS 6D camera with an EF 28-105mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 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    Georgia    digital photography   Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 6 D camera    Canon EF 24-85mm lens   Canon EF 28-105mm lens

Commonplace

Abandoned one-room school (or possibly a church) near Cleveland, Georgia.

In 1974, noted photographer David Plowden published Commonplace, his eighth book of photographs. It was described as "a careful and affectionate look at small-town and back-road America in the 1960s and '70s." Just commonplace things and scenes. The book is still available at Amazon if you're interested.

Like the photographs in Plowden's book, very few of my photographs are outstanding or spectacular. Mostly, they depict the ordinary, everyday things or scenes we pass by with little or no notice. My hope is to impart some significance to commonplace things by seeing and photographing them in a fresh way.  

Monument. (Oglethorpe County, Georgia.)

 

Abandoned hayrake. Southwest Georgia.

 

Cogdell Store. South Georgia.

 Brown-eyed Susans. U.S. Highway 41 near Valdosta, Georgia.

I apologize for the imprecise location data for some of these pictures. Several years ago I lost my travel notebook covering the time span during which they were taken. If you're serious about photography, keep a notebook of when and where you make your pictures. You will never regret it.

Main Street, Pavo, Georgia.

About the photos: The picture of the abandoned school was made with a Fuji X-H1 camera fitted with the Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens. "Monument" was photographed with a Canon EOS 20D and the Canon EF 24-85mm lens. All the other photos were made with a Canon EOS 5D Classic, also with the 24-85mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 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    Georgia    digital photography   Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 20D camera    Fuji X-H1 camera   Fujicron XC16-50mm lens

Ramblin' 'round Georgia

South Georgia dirt road.

My favorite place to ramble was northeast, Georgia. But in the process of working on books and just general ramblin' 'round, I've managed to cover much of the state at one time or another and have seen many things that were of interest to me. I hope you will find them interesting also. These are more of what I call my "second tier" pictures.

As I've written before, the things that catch my eye are the old, the abandoned, the beautiful. The strange, the unusual. The off-beat, the quirky. I am a visual historian of mid-twentieth-century America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life.

City Hall, Hahira, Georgia.

 

Green doors on abandoned store, west central Georgia.

 

 Thunderbird for sale, southwest Georgia.

 

 Chattooga Trading Post, Chattooga County, Georgia.

Log shed and wagon, southeast Georgia.

 

Outhouse, south Georgia.

 

Georgian cottage, Barnesville, Georgia.

 

 

Yellow house, Sunbury, Georgia.

 

About the photos: These pictures were mostly made with a Canon EOS 5D Classic. One or two were made with a Canon EOS 20D, and one, the Chattooga Trading Post, was made on Fujichrome 100 film with a Canon EOS A2.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 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    film photography    digital photography   Georgia    Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 20D camera    Canon EOS A2 camera   McLemore Cove    Fujichrome film

Why I Blog

 Cloudfall over brow of Lookout Mountain, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

 

There are several reasons I blog. I like to share my life and experiences, I like to write about the art of photography, the tools we use, and about techniques that will help us make better pictures.  

Another reason I blog is to give my pictures life. You see, I feel that in order to have life, a picture needs to be seen. Not all my photographs have been published, so there are many that are not quite the right fit for publication, or they may be good, but not as good as another for a particular use.

But I love my pictures and enjoy them. That doesn't mean I think they are great, or that I'm a great photographer, but I think they deserve to be seen, to have life. So I publish them in books and magazines, and I blog. 

This is a group of what I would call second-tier photographs. They aren't my best ones, but they also deserve to be seen and enjoyed. I hope you will enjoy them too.

 

VW Karmann Ghia, west central Georgia.

 

Karma Newland, my all-time best assistant.

 

Confederate reenactor, Point Park, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

 

Man with hat, Dayton, Tennessee.

 

Little girl at playground, Greenville, South Carolina.

 

Red chair, Chickamauga Battlefield, Walker County, Georgia.

 

Lulu and Dancer, Deer Run Farm, McLemore Cove, Georgia.

Peekaboo! Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

 Photos: The photos were made at many different times in many different places with many different cameras. However, all were photographed on film except for the Karmann Ghia.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 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     film photography     Georgia    Tennessee     South Carolina    North Carolina   McLemore Cove    Volkswagen Karmann Ghia     Lookout Mountain

24 Hours in Mayalan (Repost)

The Mighty Cessna at the Mayalan Airstrip

 

(Reposted from March, 2020)

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s I had a relationship with the World Missions Department of the Church of God that took me to 26 countries on four continents and resulted in the production of more than 60 audio-visual programs to promote and raise funds for the Church's mission efforts.

In March, 1989, I met American missionary Frank Tyson and Guatemalan doctor Jaime Gomez at a small airfield high in the mountains of northern Guatemala. We loaded ourselves and some boxes of supplies into a small, single-engine Cessna, with Frank and Jaime sitting on the boxes because the back seats had been removed for hauling cargo and set off over some 8,000-feet-plus mountains to the highland village of Mayalan.

Our pilot, a Guatemalan "air cowboy," a spiritual kinsman of Alaskan bush pilots, was not one to waste fuel on higher altitudes. He skimmed the mountain tops so closely that I could have picked blossoms from the jacaranda trees. Nonetheless, he deposited us safely on the soccer field-cum-landing strip at Mayalan, fortunately catching it between games.

A warm welcome from the Mayalan villagers

includes water for washing hands.

 

After receiving a warm welcome from the villagers, we each went to our work. 
Jaime set up a clinic in the village church and Frank met with the village elders. I wandered around with my camera observing village life.

 

Dr. Jaime Gomez gives a mother diet

supplements for her undernourished infant.

 

Weaving in the traditional way.

 

Butchering a wild pig.

 

When evening came, there was a service in the church with Frank preaching. I put a Vivitar 283 flash on my camera and another on a lightweight stand and photographed the village believers at worship.   

 

A worship service at the Mayalan Church.

 

 After the service, it was bedtime. The church's "pews" were split logs mounted on short pegs. My bed was two of them placed side-by-side. Frank and Jaime had sleeping bags, but I, having not been forewarned, put on the warmest clothes I had, covered myself with my bathrobe, and settled in for the coldest, most miserable night of my life. (It gets very cold at night in the Guatemalan highlands!)

 

Sunrise at Mayalan

 

There was a silver lining, though. As the pre-dawn light began to filter into the church, I had absolutely no incentive to stay in bed! I was up and out with my camera as the sun rose, documenting the village as it came to life. I photographed the women cooking breakfast, the men going off to their fields, and the children beginning their school day.

 

The women at Mayalan cook breakfast on an open firepit.

 

 

 

The school at Mayalan provides nourishment for bright

young minds formerly doomed to illiteracy.

 

Kids and puppies are the same everywhere.

 

All too soon the air cowboy returned in his Cessna and it was time to leave. We had been in Mayalan for 24 hours and I had everything I needed to make one of my all-time favorite audio-visual programs.

But there was one final surprise: as we neared the end of the airstrip the engine faltered and we appeared about to drop into the very deep ravine at the end of the strip. But the little Cessna regained power and we were off. I hardly even noticed -- I was busy snapping aerial photos of the village.

Photographers are like that.

 

You can view the Mayalan A-V program here.

(Photographs made with Olympus OM cameras and lenses and a Vivitar 75-205 f3.8 zoom. Fujichrome 100D film.) 

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 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    Guatemala      Fujichrome 100 film    Mayalan     Olympus OM camera     Vivitar lens    Missions