This Macon Lustron is the remaining one in town. Lustron houses were prefabricated, enameled steel homes built for a short time between 1948 and 1950 to address housing shortages caused by World War II. They were designed with built-in cabinets and radiant heating, a method to deliver heat via the floor or walls.
Charles and Myrtle Constantine were the first homeowners of the MO23 model in desert tan. Cecil and Hazel Brickle purchased the home in 1960 for $8,750.
The Baptist Female College Dormitory was built in 1852 in Cuthbert, Georgia, after the Baptist leadership voted in November 1851 to start a women’s college. The school closed in 1863. While attempts to restart the school after the Civil War were unsuccessful, it closed for good in 1875. Afterwards, it was sold off to become private property. Owned by several families over the years, it is also known as the Muse-Dews-Gay-Martin-Blaskow House. The Greek Revival home contributes to the Cuthbert Historic District.
Thank you for joining me in my travels around the South. It’s been a great year of wandering backroads and a few main ones. If I learned anything, it is that people love abandoned houses, buildings with unexpected histories, and (in)famous graves.
Asa “Buddie” Candler Jr. (1880-1953) was the son of Asa Griggs Candler (1851-1929), a politician and businessman wbo purchased the Coca-Cola recipe from John Pemberton in 1888. Buddie Candler helped build the Coca-Cola empire as helped in the development of bottling locations across the United States.
Known as a bit of an iconoclast, Buddie Candler did things his way (I highly recommend Sara Butler’s book and website for a deep dive into Buddie’s life story). In 1910, Candler moved from the elite neighborhood, Inman Park, to Briarcliff Farm. By 1916, the farmhouse life was no longer for him, and he wanted to build a palatial estate on the property.
Architect Charles Frazier designed the home, which was completed in 1922. The Georgian Revival home was expanded several times over the years. It featured a music room, a commercial-sized kitchen, seven bedrooms, and a solarium, among other things. The estate featured a zoo, servants’ quarters, tennis courts, stables, greenhouses, and a community pool. The zoo featured a collection of animals that were eventually given to start the Grant Park Zoo.
The home was sold in 1948 as a veterans hospital, but that never happened. It became the Georgian Clinic, later the Dekalb County Addiction Center. It later became part of the Georgia Mental Health Institute.
The building is now owned by Emory University, and plans are underway to restore it and turn it into a nursing home.
Located on the southeast corner of Edgewood Avenue and Courtland Street in downtown Atlanta, Coca-Cola’s oldest remaining bottling plant is located. Originally created by John Pemberton in 1886 as a temperance drink from his original drink, Pemberton’s French Wine Cocanerve tonic, Coca-Cola began as a drink that could only be purchased at a soda fountain.
Built in 1892, the eclectic Victorian building began as a series of businesses on the first floor and a proprietor’s residence on the second floor. In the initial years, the building was a photographer’s studio, storage facility, and a brick business. In April 1900, it became the home of the second Coca-Cola bottling location (the first being in Chattanooga) after Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead convinced Asa Griggs Candler that the drink needed to be bottled. The company quickly outgrew the location and left in 1901 for a larger location.
The building is now the location for Georgia State University’s Baptist Student Union. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark.
The Beth Salem Presbyterian Congregation was founded in 1785 in Oglethorpe County, a mile outside Lexington, making it the oldest Presbyterian Church in the area. In 1822, the congregation had a church built in Lexington. In 1893, the second building on this site was constructed. Until recently, it was the oldest Presbyterian congregation in the state, but membership dwindled over the years. In 2017, the town of Lexington purchased the church and now uses the Gothic Revival building for events.
