According to what I can find, researchers at Middle Tennessee State University were told by community members that this building once served as a fraternal lodge, funeral home, and store for the Black community of La Grange, Tennessee. They later found purchase of land in 1912 by the National Mosaic Templars of America, a Black benevolent organization.
The Callaham-Hicks Funeral Home began as the John-Nina Hospital in 1913. Started by Nina Littlejohn, it was the first licensed hospital for Black residents in Spartanburg. It continued to serve the community until 1932, when the Spartanburg General Hospital opened up a wing in the hospital to provide care to Black patients during segregation.
M. S. Callaham purchased the hospital from the Littlejohns and opened a funeral home. At the time, Dean Street and the surrounding streets were the center of a Black middle-class neighborhood. Doctors, business leaders, and educators called the neighborhood home.
The John Woodward Funeral Home moved into the building that was once the Providence Hospital, one of the Black hospitals in Spartanburg, in 1945. The family business began in 1916 at the suggestion of J. F. Floyd of Floyd Mortuary to serve the Black families in the area. Their first location was on Wofford Street. It’s the oldest African American owned business in Spartanburg and one of the oldest businesses in town. It is still family-owned and operated.
Before it became the Hanley Funeral Home, the building initially served as the District Grand Lodge No. 1 of Georgia of Independent Benevolent Order. Built in 1915, the building became the Hanley Funeral Home in 1925. The location handled two of Atlanta’s largest funerals, boxer Tiger Flowers in 1927 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
This Greek Revival home was built in the 1840s for Dr. William Lockhart Cowan. William Cowan and his wife, Anna, had eight children. Five of them lived to adulthood. Their second eldest daughter, Laura, married a local doctor, Dr. Robert Fleming. Fleming moved into the Cowan home. Known as a sleepwalker, he awoke one night and fell off the balcony. Paralyzed by the fall, he and his wife moved to live with his relative to get care. Her mother and sister followed them.
The family sold the home to Jacob Ramser, a Swiss craftsman. Ramser was known for his carpentry skills. He built the first theater in town.
The Ramser family lived in the home until they sold it to the White family, who turned it into a funeral home. The Colonel White and Sons Funeral Home was in business until 2004. The building has been vacant since. It is listed as an Alabama Place of Peril. It’s sustained damage from storms, and the roof has been breached.
It was documented in 1934 as part of the Historic American Building Survey. It is one of the last remaining Greek Revival homes in the area.
Built in 1910, the Haistens Hospital replaced the town hospital and was demolished to build the Griffin City Hall. Designed by architect Haralson Bleckley, the hospital, which later served as a funeral home, was listed on The Georgia Trust’s Places in Peril. It was purchased through their revolving fund, but I am uncertain what work has been done since it was purchased a few years ago.
