Cross Roads Communities, Past and Present

By John Harvey

At the turn of the century, Jasper County had changed little from the previous twenty years.  There were no paved roads, few buildings were made from materials other than wood.

Only an occasional automobile passed through Monticello on the rutted, muddy roads.  Reading from the local papers and talking with some of the older citizens of the county reveals that there were two systems of roads in the area.  There were the improved dirt roads used for regular travel and also a system of wagon roads set aside for commercial use. 

Often these wagon roads were parallel to the regular roads.  We have heard of huge wagons pulled by teams of from four to eight horses that hauled cotton, grain and other farm produce from Monticello to Macon, making an overnight stop at Sand Creek in Jones County, and continuing into Macon the next day.

After the products had been sold and the wagons reloaded with goods for the stores in Jasper County, they would return to the Sand Creek campground and return to Monticello the next day.  On the return trip each wagon had six to eight mules and horses tied to the back for sale to the farmers through the livery stables in the county.  Charles Catchings remembers helping his father on some of the last of these wagons as a child.  With the coming of the railroad most of the business for these wagons died out.

Along these roads every few miles were small crossroads, communities usually consisting of a general store, a blacksmith shop, and an occasional gin house.  A few of these communities were larger, as there might be more farms located around them.  A look through the local newspapers of that period will show that many of them had a local citizen who wrote the news for the paper at least once a month.  Some have completely disappeared, through others are still recognizable today.

Some of the communities were: Mechanicsville, Hebron, Farrar, Friendship, Eula, Hopewell, Adgateville, Winfred, Smithboro, Murder Creek, North East, Talmadge, Live Oak, Calvin, Hardin, Maxwell, Hillsboro, Shady Dale, Forest Hill, Waller, Sardis, Eudora, Woodfin, Aikenton, Glovers, Gladesville Aldine, Old Rocky Creek, Palalto and Alva.  As paved roads came and roads were rerouted many of these little places were bypassed and soon disappeared.

Additional Comments:
Transcribed by Suzanne Forte (suzanneforte@bellsouth.net) April 2005,  from copies of articles contained in the Monticello News. There articles were prepared by Mr. 
John Harvey and published in this newspaper during the 1970's and 1980's time frame. Some were under the title "Jasper Reflections", others "Bicentennial Bits".
Permission has been granted by Mr. Harvey for use of these very valuable and informative articles.

Copies of articles provided by Benny Hawthorne.