Once operated by Stoney Hays, grandson of the town’s founder, Hay’s Store survived economic struggles, the boll weevil, fire, tornadoes, and the closure of the Central of Georgia Railway.
Before the railroad passed it by in the 1880s, High Falls was an industrial town. It had stores, a grist mill, a shoe factory, and more. The waterfall on the Towaliga River is the highest in middle Georgia.
Established on the former plantation of William Hogan, Hogansville became the area’s largest cotton market and a mill town after the arrival of the railroad.
A water tower, built to supply steam locomotives on long-distance routes, survives along the former Atlantic & West Point Railroad in downtown Hogansville.
A closed business in downtown Hawkinsville, carpet samples still in the windows.
As a building is demolished in downtown Hawkinsville, advertising sign murals for Chero-Cola and a hardware store are revealed. The Chero-Cola ad likely dates to the 1920s, and the company would later be reborn with Nehi and RC Cola.
The cotton harvest is ginned to remove seeds. Hawkinsville was almost the state capitol once, and the town grew due to its railroad access and central location in cotton country.
A small portion of the retired US Space Fence is visible from the road outside Hawkinsville. From 1961 to 2013, this Air Force radar installation detected objects as small as a basketball as far as 17,000 miles above Earth. There’s another one in Tatnall.