 |
|
BUILDINGS EMPTY ON
MAYSVILLE'S MAIN STREET
This was once a busy thoroughfare of commercial activity. |
MAYSVILLE, Ga.—A church here is deserted.
Ghosts of a once-prosperous way of life listen silently from within its
walls as the town’s three other churches conduct Sunday worship. “One by
one, the Presbyterians just moved away,” a local resident explained.
People have been moving away from Maysville—in the foothills of
Appalachia—in a steady trickle for 35 years, he added. Like many rural
Georgia towns, this is a place with an interesting past but a limited
present. Unlike some, it could have a bright future.
4 PASSENGER TRAINS
At one time, four passenger trains made daily stops here. Two banks served
a bustling economy in this northeast Georgia center of cotton commerce. A
large mercantile exchange store catered to farm families from South
Carolina and nearby Georgia counties. Two drugstores were kept busy on
Saturday afternoons, dispensing either liniment or sodas, depending on the
success of the town’s baseball team.
BOLL WEEVIL
Old timers recall that on Saturday nights the board sidewalks were often
so crowded that people had to walk in the street. Then came the boll
weevil. Soon after the tiny insect started gnawing away at the town’s
economic base, the passenger trains quit the Maysville route. Now a dusty
freight rumbles through and back each day. It seldom stops. The banks
folded long ago. One of the drugstores burned and the other is now the
home of a small soft drink and candy business.
EMPTY BUILDINGS
The building that housed the big general store is now a row of boarded
windows and locked doors. A tin roof sags over the sidewalk. Once one of
the busiest towns in northeast Georgia, Maysville is now a collection of
empty buildings. All but a dozen or so of the approximately 500 persons
who live here are either retired or work somewhere else. Three small
stores, two filling stations, a cotton gin and a one-man broom factory
comprise the town’s total commercial existence. But a new day may be
drawing here if the dreams of a couple of energetic men come true. A
33-year-old Baptist preacher wants to shake off the lethargy of
Appalachia, which starts around here and stretches its scar of poverty
northeast towards New England. The Rev. Brian Edwards, pastor of Maysville
Baptist Church, has lived here 2½ years.
|
 |
|
SERVICES ARE NO LONGER
HELD HERE
86-year-old Maysville Presbyterian Church |
SEEKS INDUSTRY
He was elected last year to head a Community Improvement Club, which meets
monthly to consider ways of attracting industry. The minister has written
every government official he thinks can help provide federal funds for
community development. And he corresponds with the development office of
the Southern Railway System, which says it wants to see industry
re-established on its line here. Most members of the Community Club have
lived here since the Depression or longer. The youngsters move away. The
club members try to raise money for the town, but the energy they derive
from a nostalgic longing for a town once again industrious often is
expended on a cake sale or similar small projects.
PUSHING PROJECTS
With the help of Hiram Hancock, a 71-year-old retired Gainesville
postmaster, the Rev. Edwards is pushing projects to widen the town’s main
street, build a new post office and install a city sewerage system.
Hancock, who returned to his hometown after retirement, is also a member
of the town council. Maysville is luckier than some other Appalachia
communities. It is linked to the rest of the commercial world by a
railroad, and in coming months it hopes to feel the influence of an
interchange three miles away connecting it to the important Interstate
Highway 85. “We’ve got a good water system and natural gas from the
Atlanta Gas Light Co.,” Hancock said. With plenty of electric power, also,
Maysville hopes it can attract small industry to pump new life in the
town. Then some day maybe Presbyterians will start coming back…and the
Baptists, and Methodists. And maybe people who want to live near the
splendor of the north Georgia Mountains.
|
Home