The Jones Mercantile Company was founded by Robert Tyre Jones (golfer Bobby Jones’s grandfather). The store opened in 1879 and was expanded in 1914 and 1921. The store was so successful that more mercantiles were opened in north Georgia.
The DeSoto Theatre, which opened on August 5, 1929, was the first Southern theater built for “talkies.” Designed by O.C. Lam and modeled after the Roxy Theatre in New York, it featured modern amenities at a cost of over $100,000. After closing as a cinema in 1982, Rome Little Theatre transformed the space into a performance venue by adding a stage, orchestra pit, and new seating. In 2008, the Historic DeSoto Theatre Foundation was established, and the theater was deeded to the Foundation to preserve and maintain the historic building.
The GEM Theatre, established in downtown Calhoun in 1927, expanded to its current size in 1939. It was the town’s only venue for movies and performing arts for many years until it closed in the late 1970s.
After standing vacant for nearly 20 years, the GEM building was purchased in 2001 by the King family. The family hoped to restore it. While the main theater space had primarily remained intact, water damage had destroyed the stage and most of the interior. After ten years of fundraising and restoration, the theater reopened in 2011. For its restoration, it received the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Rehabilitation Award.
It is now an active theater with concerts and free movie showings.
Built in the 1870s, the home was recently sold. Images from the listing can be seen on Old House Dreams.
Stranger Things fans will recognize this as The Creel House, but its real name is The Claremont House. Located in Rome, Georgia, the Claremont House was built in 1882. The Second Empire home with Gothic Revival elements was constructed for Hamilton Yancey, a prominent local attorney and businessman, and his wife, Florence.
For more photos, visit The Old House Life’s post on the home.
Albany, Georgia, is home to the state’s largest remaining Lustrons. There are eight homes, all in the M02 style. According to The Macon Telegraph, Tom Malone and Deming Whiting erected the first Lustron in Albany, Georgia, in May 1949. The home was shipped from the Columbus, Georgia Lustron Corporation.
The Albany homes are within a mile or so of each other. All but one are lived in or used as a business. Some have been modified, but the hallmark tripartite windows can be seen in all homes.
By using the Albany phone directory, I determined who the original owners were of each home. Their names are under each image with the original color.
