Sunday, April 21, 2002
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Sunday, April 21, 2002 |
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The meaning behind the mural
By CAROLYN CARY
The nine-year-old mural on the building at the south corner of Ga. highways 54 and 85 is being refurbished. The original artists, Ed and Patsy Gullett, along with various helpers, are repainting the colors which have faded through time and weather so they can be bright once again. Looking at the mural from left to right, a steam engine is depicted sitting alongside Fayetteville's 1902 train depot. The depot building was moved across the street in 1976. The tracks were laid down in the late 1880s and extended from Atlanta, through Kenwood on the north end of the county, coming down the present Jeff Davis Drive, on through Inman and Woolsey and then extending through Spalding County toward Columbus and Fort Valley. The southbound train came through the county in the morning and returned traveling north in the afternoon. In its heyday, the trains would stop in Woolsey and load up with peaches and watermelons. The red building depicted above the courthouse is Starr's Mill, located on Hwy. 85 south, just one mile from the Coweta County line. It is the third mill building at the site and remained unpainted until the early 1950s. It is believed the first one was built in the mid-1820s. Starr's Mill has been closed as a mill for nearly 50 years. It is currently owned by the Fayette County Water Department, which erected a similar looking building behind it as a pumping station. The antebellum home in the middle of the mural is the Holliday-Dorsey-Ware-Fife House, built in 1855. It was constructed for the Dr. John Stiles Holliday family. His brother, Major Henry Burroughs Holliday, is the father of the "Doc" Holliday of Western fame. The Holliday family first came to Fayette County in the late 1830s. The plantation doorway is a typical one of the area and period. If you stand on the opposite side of the street with your out-of-town guests and pose them in front of it, you will give them a souvenir of their visit. You will also see rows of cotton growing, which depicts the main cash crop until the 1920s. There was so much cotton grown here that at one time families would send their sons to Fayette County as apprentices. The boll weevil hit in 1920-21 and devastated the crop for a number of years.
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