[Editor’s note: Miriam Fulton, a true pioneer in the state’s first planned community, died Sunday at the first home built in the fledgling Peachtree City. This is a remembrance by The Citizen’s Carolyn Cary, whose first association with newspapers in Fayette County began nearly 40 years ago.]

I first met Miriam Huff Fulton in the late 1960s while working for the local newspaper, the Fayette County News.

There were only 8,000 citizens in Fayette County then, and it didn’t take long to get to know most of them.

Miriam was privileged to live all her life in two historic cities, Savannah, where she grew up, and Peachtree City, where she had lived since the spring of 1961.

She and her late husband, Jim, built the first house in incorporated Peachtree City and that is where they both died.

Because Peachtree City, incorporated in March 1959, sounded like a wild idea that didn’t have a chance of working out, they could only get lenders to give them $12,000 towards their new house.

Their children at that time were 15, 4 and 1 year old.

Though they lived in a “pioneer” community, she jumped right in to not only be a part of it, but to make it work.

Miriam had a smile that wouldn’t quit and voice that was gentle but persuasive. I worked for her at her real estate company in the early 1970s and felt privileged to do so.

I have always thought of her as a steady-as-a-rock older sister and I will miss her counsel. She is truly the First Lady of Peachtree City and I can think of no other person in Peachtree City whom I would point to as the perfect example for young people to use as their role model.

When Peachtree City founder Joel Cowan went to the legislature in the spring of 1959 to seek legal incorporation for the new city, officials told him the city had to have a mayor and the mayor had to live within the city limits applied for.

So developer Huie Bray built Cowan’s home in 30 days (it still existed until the 1990s) and Joel appointed himself mayor. It’s splitting hairs, but Joel had the first new house, but it was not in incorporated PTC.

The first house built in incorporated Peachtree City was Miriam’s.

Miriam and her late husband, Jim, applied for a loan to build the house, but because PTC sounded like a hair-brained idea, lenders would only finance $12,000, even then not a large sum for a house.

They both died in this same house.

“When I started Peachtree City, the big question was if anyone would move here,” Cowan said Monday. “This was particularly so with no shopping, schools or other amenities.

“Miriam was the perfect pioneer. She moved her family, jumped right in to the business of building a community, and never looked back.”

The scion of a long-time Fayette family, Jimmy Booth — now retired — started Peachtree City’s first newspaper, a tabloid-sized “This Week in Peachtree City,” in the mid 1970s and remembers the impact of the Fultons.

“Miriam and Jim Fulton were truly among the pioneers who greatly influenced the success of Peachtree City from its earliest days, and their impact will continue to be felt in both the city and Fayette County during the years ahead, both through their contributions and those of their descendants,” Booth said Monday.

“Miriam began selling homes and homesites for the developer of Peachtree City very soon after the Fulton family had moved to this area in 1961. Ten years later, she founded Miriam Fulton Realty Company, which I remember as being the first real estate company in Peachtree City.

“The word pioneer applies in other ways, as manifest in Miriam and the Fulton family’s important and strong leadership roles in local church, civic and real estate industry organizations,” Booth said.

“Another memory I have from Peachtree City’s early days is a group known as the Peachtree City Pioneers, composed of Miriam, my mother Helen Booth, and a number of the other women who were residents of the city back in those times when the city was in its beginning stages.”

The funeral service for Mrs. Fulton is at 11 a.m., Wednesday, Sept. 17, at the First Baptist Church of Peachtree City. The complete obituary is in this edition.

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