Ballard-Hudson Senior High School
lat:32.820069
lng:-83.657685
Ballard-Hudson Senior High School was built in 1949 as the only high school in Macon for African Americans in grades nine through twelve. The school represents the merger of two schools: Ballard High School, a private school with roots in Lewis High School, established in 1868 by the American Missionary Association, and Hudson High School, a public industrial high school. In 1970, the same year a federal court required the integration of all public schools in Georgia, Ballard-Hudson Senior High School was reorganized and renamed. Among noted Ballard-Hudson graduates are Georgia musicians Otis Redding and “Little Richard” Penniman.
Battle of the Blankets
lat:31.793847
lng:-83.961639
In 1702 a decisive battle took place along the nearby Flint River. Nine hundred Apalachees, in league with the Spanish, fought here against English traders and five hundred of their Creek allies. Forewarned of an impending attack, the Creeks arranged empty sleeping blankets by their campfires and hid in the surrounding woods. The Spanish Apalachees attacked at dawn, firing into the blankets, but before they could reload their muskets, were themselves attacked by the Creeks. The Battle of the Blankets diminished Spanish influence in North America and served as a prelude to Queen Anne’s War.
Brown-Stetson-Sanford House
lat:33.079676
lng:-83.235003
This Milledgeville Federal-style house was built c. 1825 on North Wilkinson Street for George T. Brown by English-born builder-architect John Marlor. It was operated as the U.S. Hotel and then the Beecher-Brown Hotel to serve visitors and legislators during thecity's years as capital of Georgia (1807-1868). In 1857 the house was purchased by merchant Daniel B. Stetson. His daughter Elizabeth married Judge Daniel B. Sanford, Clerk of the Secession Convention, in 1868. From 1951-1966 the house was renowned as The Sanford House Tea Room. The family then donated it to the Old Capital Historical Society who moved it here in 1966.
Central City College/Georgia Baptist College
lat:32.860278
lng:-83.614637
Founded in October 1899 by the Reverend E.K. Love under the auspices of the Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia, Central City College served as a co-educational institution of learning for African-American students at both the high school and college levels. The College represented a pioneering effort at African-American education during the Jim Crow era. Beset by financial woes, Central City College lost its property to foreclosure in 1937 to white businessman and philanthropist James H. Porter, who in turn placed the school's assets under the control of the Georgia Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention. By now called Georgia Baptist College, the institution continued fundraising efforts, including musical events with segregated seating, but failed to save the school, which finally closed in 1956
Eastman-Bishop-Bullock House
lat:32.200453
lng:-83.180128
This house, constructed in 1872, is the oldest house in Eastman. In 1868, William Pitt Eastman founded the 400,000 acre Georgia Land and Lumber Company. Learning in 1870 that Station No. 13 along the Macon and Brunswick Railroad had been named in his honor, Eastman created the town of Eastman and was instrumental in the formation of Dodge County. He established the Eastman Hotel Company and Woodlawn Cemetery and served as mayor in 1885. His daughter sold the house to Judge James Bishop, Sr. in 1896. James Bishop and Cary Bullock inherited it in 1926.
First Baptist Church of Christ
lat:32.837395
lng:-83.634066
The church was founded in 1826 as the city’s Baptist congregation. It was first located at the site of the present Bibb County Courthouse. The forth and final move, to this in site occurred in 1883, and the current building was dedicated in 1887. The church was instrumental in the formation of several local congregations including Mable White Memorial Baptist Church. In 1903 the congregation funded construction first Southern Baptist hospital in a foreign land. The Warren Memorial Hospital in Hwanghien, China. It was named for Dr. Ebenezer Warren, pastor here in 1860-71 and 1879-91.
Flint River Farms Resettlement Project
lat:32.291849
lng:-83.924732
The Flint River Farms Resettlement Project was established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Resettlement Administration in 1937. The Project was one of many similar community resettlement projects organized throughout the South during the New Deal, allowing African-American farmers to purchase land and learn successful farm practices. A community center opened in 1938 which included school buildings and a vocational agriculture shop. Young people received a first- through eleventh-grade education while adults studied vocational agriculture and home economics. In 2003, sixteen of the original 106 families still owned land purchased through the Flint River Farms Resettlement Project.
Governor John Houston
lat:32.457923
lng:-83.734288
Born near Waynesboro in 1744, Houston was the son of Sir Patrick Houston and Priscilla Dunbar. He was elected in 1775 to represent Georgia at the Continental Congress and served on Georgia's Council of Safety, which in January 1776 issued the arrest warrant for Royal Governor James Wright. Georgians elected Houston governor in January 1778. Following the Revolution, Houston was elected governor a second time in 1784 and in that year was appointed one of seven "Trustees for a College," making him one of the founders of the University of Georgia . Houston served as Savannah's first mayor in 1790, and in 1791 helped to host George Washington's Savannah visit. He died in 1796. Named in his honor, Houston County was created in 1821.
Koinonia Farm
lat:31.978034
lng:-84.301739
With a background in theology and agriculture, Georgia native Clarence Jordan (1912-1969), along with his wife, Florence , and Martin and Mabel England, founded Koinonia Farm in 1942. During the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, this agriculture-based religious community gained a reputation for pacifism, equality, and interracial cooperation as Jordan traveled throughout the U.S. preaching and speaking out against racism. Repeatedly members of Koinonia Farm endured violence, boycotting, and ostracism from the local community. Koinonia inspired several grassroots organizations including Habitat for Humanity International. Jordan's "Cotton Patch" translation of the New Testament was adapted in 1981 into the successful off-Broadway musical, The Cotton Patch Gospel.
Major John Hatcher
lat:32.877425
lng:-83.124104
Near this site is the plantation and grave site of John Hatcher, Georgia patriot, Revolutionary War soldier and statesman. From 1780 to 1800 he served in Candler’s Refugee Regiment of Richmond County, the Georgia Militia, Carr’s Rangers of Burke County, the South Carolina Militia, and the Lower Battalion of Warren County. Hatcher served in both the Georgia House of Representatives and Senate, as Justice of the Peace, as a Commissioner of both Warren County Academy and Wilkinson County Academy, as a Presidential Elector in 1820 and 1828, and as a Commissioner in the 1832 Georgia Land Lotteries.
Orphans Cemetery
lat:32.207899
lng:-83.216093
Albert G. Williamson, a Dodge County entrepreneur, donated land for a burial place in Orphans community following the death of a neighbor's child, George P.A. Barnes, in 1887. The community was named in honor of the six orphaned Williamson brothers who moved here in 1873-74 from North Carolina. The earliest burials were children of the Thomas, Weldy, and Lashley families. Other common names in the original acre are Hardy, Manley, Steele, Stuckey, and Williamson. The statuary above their mausoleum depicts A.G. and Martha Buchan Williamson and their nephew, Jay Gould.
State Teachers and Agricultural College/Hubbard Training School
lat:33.024039
lng:-83.954634
Founded in 1902 by William M. Hubbard, STAC was one of the state's official schools for the instruction of black teachers between 1931 and 1938. Originally named the Forsyth Normal and Industrial School, STAC was one of three black public colleges added to the university System of Georgia in 1932. Teachers from rural county school systems came to STAC to earn their teaching certificates. After closing in 1939, the school re-opened later that year as the Hubbard Training School, Monroe County's first black high school. New construction on the campus, begun in 1955, housed the Hubbard Elementary and High School and, in 1970, the Hubbard Elementary School.
St. Joseph's Catholic Church
lat:32.837491
lng:-83.633641
The history of Roman Catholicism in Macon dates to a visit in 1829 by Bishop John England of the Diocese of Charleston and the subsequent migration of Irish Catholic families in the 1830s. In 1841, Macon's Catholics received their first pastor, Father James Graham. A succession of buildings and sites was purchased and used by Macon's Catholics during the nineteenth century, until the construction of St. Joseph's Catholic Church at this location from 1889-1903. This Gothic Revival structure, designed by Brother Cornelius Otten, features a domed cupola, flying buttresses, stained-glass windows from Bavaria , and a high altar of Carrara marble.
St. Luke's Episcopal Church
lat:32.541484
lng:-83.895928
This parish had its origins in the Episcopal Church's support of Fort Valley High and Industrial School in 1913, which it operated from 1919 until 1939 in partnership with the American Church Institute for Negroes in New York, the Diocese of Atlanta, and the Diocese of Georgia. In 1939 the school became Fort Valley State College and part of the University System of Georgia. Fort Valley College Center became St. Luke's Episcopal Church in 1958. Through a gift from New York philanthropist Ethel Mary Cheney Thorne, the current building was designed by Stanislaw Makielski and constructed in 1939-1940.
The Milledgeville Hotel and Oliver Hardy
lat:33.07984
lng:-83.226675
On this corner stood the Milledgeville Hotel built in 1858 while Milledgeville served as Georgia’s capital. In 1903 Emily Norvell Hardy took over management of the hotel. She moved into the hotel with her two youngest children, including eleven-year-old Norvell who would later become known to the world as comedian Oliver Hardy. After his mother left Milledgeville in 1910, Oliver Hardy remained to take a job as a projectionist at the city’s first movie theater, the Palace, located across the street from the Milledgeville Hotel. It was at the Palace that Oliver Hardy resolved to become an actor in motion pictures.