Brian Brown – Page 6 – Building a better South

July 21, 2013July 18, 2013

Family farm, Owensboro, Ga.

"Motion" picture of family farm near Owensboro, Ga. By Brian Brown. All rights reserved. — “Motion” picture of family farm near Owensboro, Ga. By Brian Brown. All rights reserved.

For Georgia photographer Brian Brown, this family farmhouse near Owensboro, Ga., represents the heart of small-family farming operations.

“Owensboro is a ghost town today, with nothing but fields and farming, but once supported several businesses and many more families lived there fifty years ago than do today,” Brown writes.

Owensboro is in Wilcox County, one of the Peach State’s smaller counties with 9,068 residents, according to the U.S. Census. About two thirds of residents are white and a third black. Estimates by the U.S. Census are that 27.4 percent of county residents live in poverty.

More QuickFacts from the U.S. Census.

July 7, 2013July 13, 2013

Old one-room school, Montgomery County, Ga.

Old Memory Schoolhouse, Montgomery County, Ga., by Brian Brown. All rights reserved.

This decaying, tin-roofed building apparently is a one-room school remembered as the old “Memory School” northeast of Mount Vernon, Ga., in rural Montgomery County.

Vanishing South Georgia photographer Brian Brown, who snapped the shot last month along Thompson Pond Road, says, “I first thought it looked like a farmhouse, but these small rural schools often look like this.”

These days, Montgomery County and the area around

ount Vernon seem strapped, but interestingly, the population is about 50 percent bigger than it was in the late 1960s when Brack visited. In 2012, the estimated population was just under 9,000 — some 3,000 more people than in the 1970 Census. More.

Some 21.6 percent of people in the county live at or below the federal poverty level.

July 5, 2013July 13, 2013

Old farmhouse, Montgomery County, Ga.

South Georgia photographer Brian Brown enjoys snapping pictures of old farmhouses on his great site, Vanishing South Georgia. This board-and-batten farmhouse on the Mount-Vernon-Alston road in the Georgia heartland is typical, he writes on his site:

“This is one of the largest concentrations I’ve found of this iconic early South Georgia style. … I’d advise anyone who likes historic rural architecture who happens to be in the area of Montgomery County to find these roads. The structures located on them represent a quickly vanishing aspect of South Georgia’s agricultural heritage.”

These days, Montgomery County and the area around Mount Vernon seem strapped, but interestingly, the population is about 50 percent bigger than it was in the late 1960s when Brack visited. In 2012, the estimated population was just under 9,000 — some 3,000 more people than in the 1970 Census. More.

Some 21.6 percent of people in the county live at or below the federal poverty level.