Folk Victorian House, 1904, Groveland

Central Hallway House Ruins, 1894, Groveland

This house is of a form very common in late-19th-century Georgia.

Film Set, Groveland

I took a turn off a dirt road at Groveland a few years ago and stumbled onto a fascinating collection of buildings. Though I was unsure of their purpose at the time, Bill Warnell, wrote in January 2012: Both Glory and East of Eden filmed scenes here. The buildings are original structures used in farming. Both movies painted the houses/barns for their purposes. The buildings last served as the town of Darien in the movie Glory. The movie called for the town to be torched by “the 54th” after they pillaged it as part of the War of Northern Aggression! Most of the buildings are still used for storage and can be seen from Hwy 280 but are ALL on private property. The Warnell family has long been associated with Bryan County. They lived in Groveland until moving to Pembroke in 1927. Daniel Brooks Warnell is the namesake of the UGA School of Forestry, one of the best-known in the nation, and the Mary Kahrs Warnell Forest Education Center, named for his wife, is an excellent resource near Guyton.

Plantation Plain House, Groveland

Though it’s hard to see due to its overgrown state, this is one of the tallest Plantation Plain houses I’ve ever seen. My guess is that it dates to the mid-1850s. This vernacular style is also known as an I-House.

Kwik Chek, Groveland

Though this store has had numerous incarnations over the years, the old Sunbeam Bread sign out front indicates that it was once known as Kwik Chek #1. The sign has rusted since I made the shot below (in 2011), but the place remains a Groveland landmark.

Laura’s Grocery, Groveland

On 28 August 2014 Joe Driggers wrote to say that his grandmother, Laura Sauls Driggers Bland, used to run a small grocery store out of this building. He also notes that in its earliest days it served as the Groveland Post Office.

In January 2012 Janet F. Dubois of Winston-Salem NC wrote:  I remember Groveland when I was a child. My grandfather used to live there and run a little store which I believe at one time was in one side of the joined together building. The store used to be one room on the side of his house. The house no longer stands as many of the other houses are gone too. I still travel through Groveland occasionally and remember so vividly that is where I was when the news of the Meldrim train disaster happened in 1959. I was 11 at that time. There is an old cemetery there behind all the old buildings for the film made there that my Grandmother was buried in…in the mid 20’s. My own mother lost track of the burial plot due to lost grave markers and the moving of the original fences. Oh how I wish we could have found it before she herself passed away. It was her dream to locate her mother’s grave and have it moved. Sad what happens to our cemeteries and landmarks…