#Road
A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
Day 16 (5/31/2022)
This morning after breakfast, I headed southwest out of Columbia 15 miles on US-1 to visit the Craft Axe Throwing Company located in Lexington, SC. I have heard about axe throwing, and I’ve read about it. My son tells me he has done it, but I have never been in one of these places to see what it’s all about. When I got there, this place didn’t open until later in the day, so I just continued another 60 miles southwest on I-20 to visit my first museum of the day.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
This took me across the border, not to a museum, but to Broad Street in downtown Augusta, GA where I stopped to take a photo of the Confederate Monument. This impressive 76-foot-tall monument, also known as the Richmond County Confederate Monument, was erected in 1878, and is dedicated to all those Georgia Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Just a few blocks from the Confederate Monument, there in Augusta, I saw a mural on the side of a building that honors the musician, James Brown, and his contribution to the music world as the ‘Godfather of Soul’ music. It appears that the mural by artist, Cole Phail, was the winner of a Greater Augusta Arts Council contest in 2020, and named his mural ‘The Spirit of Funk.‘
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Now I headed 35 southwest on US-1 looking for the ‘Old Quaker Road’ historical marker located in Wrens, GA. I couldn’t find the marker, but the internet tells me this marker designates where that important road ran thru this area in around 1769. As it turns out, this area is also where the ‘Famous Indian Trail’ connected Augusta with many of the Cherokee, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws Indian tribes in the mid to late 1700s.
Photo Credit: www.bing.com/old+quarker+road+historical+marker+wrens+ga
It was another 30 miles southwest on SR-88 to where I visited the Old Jail Museum located in Sandersville, GA. This museum is housed in the old 1891 Victorian era sheriffs’ home and jail, and really doesn’t look like the ‘Old Jail’ I was expecting on the outside. I was sure it had been given a major facelift at some point, but no, that is the way it was built. Looks like the sheriff lived in style. The museum is filled with historic jail artifacts as well as historic local county, and state memorabilia dating from the mid-1800s. The old jail has a gallows yard at the back of the house. That’s not a pretty sight.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
It was just a few blocks from the Old Jail where I planned to visit the Sandersville Railroad Museum. However, what I found was the privately owned Sandersville Railroad, which is a relatively short section of track used for freight between Deepstep and Tennile. The Sandersville Railroad was formed in 1893 with only 3-miles of track. The railroad continued to grow, over the years, until now it provides rail transport services to a variety of companies on its 37-mile rail system, which also has links with the Norfolk-Southern Railroad.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
Now I headed west 30 miles on SR-24 to visit the Museum on Main located in Scottsboro, GA but it was closed. So, I continued west another 35 miles on SR-57 to visit the Griswoldville Historic Battlefield located just outside Macon, GA. This historic site is dedicated to the memory of the northern and southern soldiers who fought at the Battle of Griswoldville, when General Sherman made his famous ‘March to the Sea’ from Atlanta to Savanah in November of 1864.
Photo Credit: Bill Lites
—–To Be Continued—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 65 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
One of Bill’s favorite Scriptures is: John 10:10
Old Things R New 