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Searching for Schools
It's one thing to go through microfilm and read about the schools being built in the 1950s. It's another thing to go find them. School systems went through a good bit of effort to get the money through the state to build them. If they did go through the state, they took out 20-year bonds on them. You think about a place like J.L. Williams Elementary in Commerce. In March 1955, the system signed the bonds to build J.L. Williams and a new Commerce High. Both were completed in 1955. Williams would cease being used as a school about 10 years later. Commerce city wasn't the only one to abandon a building before the bonds expired. All over the state are scattered little brick schools in out of the way places. Some are recycled - Heard's Grove in Elbert County is a retirement home. Some are rotting in the sun, such as New Hope Elementary, located a few miles south of Register in Bulloch County. A few are still in use as actual schools, but this number is dwindling as systems are building new schools. Probably most impressive is Atlanta's Washington High, in use since the 1920s. Occasionally, when looking for the 1950s-built schools, you find one of an earlier era. Middle Hill and Mount Olive in Washington County. The original Homerville High & Elementary. Billups Grove and Chestnut Grove in Clarke County, the latter a one-roomer being located in the city limits. These are off-site links to Flickr, where the state is divided into counties. Advance warning that several of these are not of good quality. Photography does not come naturally to me.
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