Jarrell Plantation, Juliette, Georgia

Jarrell Plantation is a State Historic State near Juliette, GA. The visitor center has a museum, gift shop and movie. there are plantation buildings, a picnic area and a small parking lot, but does have a couple sites set for bus/RVs. It is only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and does have an entrance fee. The do have Saturday events and demonstrations.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.


      

This cotton plantation was owned by a single family for more than 140 years. There were three houses built. The 1920 house, which is not part of the tour, is now a Bed & Breakfast. The houses here aren’t fancy, like many people imagine plantation houses. This is more typical of the Georgia plantations with slaves.

     

In 1860, the 600-acre plantation was farmed by 39 slaves. After the Civil War, John Jarrell increased his land to nearly 1,000 acres farmed by former slaves. In 1895, Dick, John’s son, added a sawmill, cotton gin, gristmill, shingle mill, planer, sugar cane press, syrup evaporator, workshop, barn and outbuildings. In 1974, his descendants donated these buildings to establish Jarrell Plantation Historic Site.

          

For more pictures of this historic site, please click here.

On to Alabama

 

We stopped in Selma to go to the National Park Selma Interpretation Center. We dropped the motorhome off at the Selma Walmart (called first to okay it, as they don't allow overnight parking, but okay during the day). They are a visitor center for the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. It is located by the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the famous Civil Rights march and attack took place in March of 1965. There is a lot of information there and a film to watch. After that we drove around the area; there are some beautiful churches.

           

One thing we’ve noticed in both Mississippi and Alabama are a lot of brick houses, and a lot of trees being cut down. In the eastern part of the state the soil is turning more red and there’s more houses with columns in front. The trees are starting to bloom and leaf out. Some of the back roads we took didn't have very good Verizon cell service. 

             
  A catfish feed mill     

We stayed at two Walmarts, one in Demopolus and the other at Alexander City. In Demopolus, Walmart is beside Lowes, that's where we picked. Both Walmart and Lowes had guest wifi, but very slow.  It was a good-sized lot. Some train noise. In Alexander City we stayed in the lot with the trucks. That was noisy all night. We used our own wifi. Verizon cell service was good in both places.

For more pictures of Selma and our Alabama travels, please click here. 

Mississippi Travels

We’re on the road again, heading east and north to Virginia for some family time. We’ve been watching the weather, with snow in some areas northeast and severe storms with hail west and east of us. I had forgotten about the fickle spring weather. No specific plans along the way; we’ll see where we stop.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

                 

Click here for more pictures. We stayed at Meridian Walmart overnight. A note to self - Mississippi Walmarts have street cleaners going in the wee hours of the morning. Good Verizon cell service.