Thomasville...A Place Apart

On Tuesday, I got to volunteer at the Thomas County Museum of History where I worked previously, to help with their annual Pilau Dinner fundraiser. It was so wonderful to get to spend time with some of the best folks in Thomasville, GA. I miss my little museum family a lot. However, when I showed up at 4:30, there was no time to catch up with everyone. We had to get to work! People started coming really early Tuesday, so it kinda messed us up as far as having plenty of plates already served up and ready to go. So we never had the chance to build up some stock. We served around 1,100 dinners. Whew. It was tiring! I took my camera to take pictures, but there was just no time for that. I was on the serving line from 4:30 until 7:00. Thankfully, my gal Mindy took a picture, so you can get an idea of what we were doing. You can see I was taking my job of scooping pickles very seriously! I then got moved over to the coleslaw. Guess that's one good thing about just being a member of the Historical Society and not an employee. I got the easy job. No running dinners back and forth to the street for me this year! Plus at the end of the evening, I didn't have to stay to the bitter end cleaning up (although I did stay for most of it). I looked at Ephraim, our curator of collections, and said peace out! I don't work here! Somehow, I don't believe he appreciated that.

The guy in the Guiness apron, John is the man. I heart him. He is HI-larious! He helps out at the museum a lot, especially during History Camp time. Between John and Mindy (our Treasurer) I laughed all night long. That big blue thing is where all the pilau is stored after it is cooked. It's some kind of serving thing that we borrow from the hospital every year. It looks gross though. Ha! We have a whole team of men that volunteer every year to cook the pilau under the shed. They cook it over fires in big, black kettles. I think it's just an excuse for them to skip out on work and shoot the breeze with other men while drinking beer!

Without a doubt, working at the museum was probably the best job I have ever had. Probably because I just enjoyed it so very much and got to do a lot of neat things, meet some really nice tourists, and learn a lot about history. So today, I thought that I would share my love of the Thomas County Historical Society and the museum that they run. So get ready for a slight history lesson  :-) 

Thomas County Museum of History
725 N. Dawson Street

The museum is housed in the 1923 J.H. Flowers home. Mr. Flowers was the grandfather of the gentlemen that started Flowers Baking Company in 1910. You may know Flowers Baking Company by the things they make like Sunbeam bread, Cobblestone Mill, and Nature's Own. They recently acquired Tasty Cakes, which Ephraim (who is from Jersey) was very pumped up about. Guess that's big in the Northeast... This 20th Century Jeffersonian Revival house was constructed after the previous house that was on the property burned in 1923. The house that sat on the site originally was a gorgeous Victorian home that was built in 1893 by O.C. Ewart. As sad as it was that such a beautiful Victorian house burned, there are a few things that remain from the original home. There is a gorgeous fountain that survived and still works, as well as the wrought iron fence that encompasses the property. The really neat thing that survived from the original house is the 1893 bowling alley. The bowling alley is one (if not the) oldest private bowling alleys in the country. It predates the one at the Biltmore by two years. Take that, Vanderbilts!!

The bowling alley is constructed of heart pine with beautiful woodwork throughout. The lane itself is made of maple. If you visit the museum, they may even let you bowl. (I would, if I was still there) Kids think its great to bowl in there until they realize that they have to reset the pins themselves. Ha! You will also see in the picture above the 1890 Metcalfe Courthouse. The courthouse was brought to the museum grounds in 2005 or so after the Historical Society won it in an auction. To this day, there are still some Metcalfe residents that believe that we stole their courthouse. It's pretty funny.

Next up on the grounds is the 1860 Rufus T. Smith log house. This log home was donated to the museum in the 1970s by a descendant of the original owner. The Smith's did very well for themselves, considering they were middle class farmers and not large plantation owners like some of their other Thomas County counterparts. They farmed around 500 acres, but owned no slaves. However, they did have 13 children to help out on the farm.

The 1910 Flowers playhouse is just a little novelty that is on the grounds. It actually has a twin that is still being used by the Flowers family today. Two were built by the same owners of the 1923 Flowers house because they had two granddaughters. So each granddaughter got their very own playhouse. 

Finally, we come to the 1877 Emily Joyner house. The home is original to the museum grounds. This house represents what the local city residents of Thomasville would have lived in during the Victorian period. Thomasville is known for it's grand Victorian "cottages" aka mansions, but those homes were built by wealthy Northerners who came to Thomasville in the winter to vacation (Thomasville was the Miami of it's day). A house like this is what "normal" people lived in. Emily Joyner is unique because she paid for the land and built this home all by herself. Her husband died in 1863 during the Civil War in battle and she had to raise and support their daughter alone. So she became a seamstress and eventually saved up $125. She paid $25 for the lot and another $100 to have her home built. She lived in this home until 1895. She did eventually move, because in 1893 she got some new neighbors. That is when the Ewart family bought all the adjoining property and built their "cottage" on the grounds. The Ewarts owned half of the block, with the exception of Ms. Joyner's home. So Mr. Ewart basically harassed her for a couple of years until Ms. Joyner finally agreed to sell. That's because Mr. Ewart offered her $3,000 for her property and her home!! She made quite the profit. She took her money and built a much nicer and bigger home right a few blocks up on Dawson Street. So she got a nicer house, and Mr. Ewart got to move his nanny to the Joyner House.

So that is a little overview of the buildings that comprise the Thomas County Museum of History. Maybe you are still reading and haven't fallen asleep with my little history lesson. Maybe, just to make Stacey really happy, I will start posting every week about a historical home or event in the history of Thomas County. That would be fun! ;-)

For more information on the Museum or the Historical Society go to http://www.thomascountyhistory.org/ or check out their Facebook page. Oh and you can go to the Museum and actually purchase a pictorial of the history of Thomas County and it is named... Thomasville, A Place Apart along with other books that were written about Thomas County.