Mountain Creek AME Church is located in Sunter County. The main church building was constructed in 1890. The fellowship hall was added in 1990.
This building was on the property. The abandoned piano makes me wonder if it was the old Sunday school. It could have been an old school. I don’t believe it is an old church because tar paper isn’t typically used on churches.
The Old Saint Teresa Catholic Church is the oldest church in Albany, Georgia. Built by enslaved craftspeople, construction began in 1859 but was halted during the Civil War. It was completed in 1882. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The Georgia Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie, Georgia, was founded by Tommy C. Smith in 1995. Located in a converted cotton warehouse, it is believed to house one of the largest collections of telephones and related memorabilia.
In Americus, Georgia, there is one extant Lustron House. There are less than 20 remaining in the state. Lustrons are prefabricated metal houses designed by Carl Strandlund. In 1946, the federal government provided $15 million in emergency loans to help build new homes for returning GIs from World War II. Strandlund purchased a factory in Columbus, OH, and later secured an additional $25 million in loans. Despite producing around 3,000 Lustrons, the federal government repossessed the company in February 1950, and Strandlund was forced to declare bankruptcy later that year.
Located just off downtown Plains is the home Rosalynn Smith Carter’s (1927-2023) childhood home. She lived here with her parents, Wilburn and Allie Smith, her brothers, Jerry and Murray, and her sister, Allethea. Her family moved into the home when she was a toddler.
The modest Queen Anne home, built in 1910, contributes to the historic district.
Below are photos of the home from the Library of Congress’s Historic American Buildings survey.
(side note: I just happen to be driving through Plains about an hour before it was announced that President Carter had passed away.)
Billy Carter (1937-1988) purchased the gas station in 1972. It became the town gathering place during Jimmy Carter’s campaigns. At its busiest, the service station sold more than 40,000 gallons of gas. Billy owned it for more than a decade. In 2008, the station was restored and reopened as The Billy Carter Museum.
