On the road to Panama City Day 2
- Jul 24
- 9 min read
One of the amazing things about traveling with a family clan is that everyone does research on what to do and some times the add-on's / side trips are the best finds. Jen was driving us to our first National Park of the day and she just made a turn into Oak Ridge Cemetery. Why you ask??? Because she saw a cute stature of a little girl in this cemetery and wanted to find it. What we found instead was a historically significant, predominantly African American graveyard within Macon, Georgia’s sprawling Rose Hill Cemetery. Of course this made me do a dive into Macon history. This cemetery was established by the Macon City Council on September 12, 1851. Oak Ridge was originally designated as a burial ground for enslaved and free people of color. This Cemetery holds layers of history from the Antebellum South through the Civil War, and then into the modern era in Middle Georgia. Rose Tree Cemetery, of which Oak Ridge is a part, was designed in 1840 by horticulturist Simri Rose. He wanted it to be a rural "garden cemetery". This means that he combined Victorian landscaping with natural river bluffs. Due to Macon's role as a major medical hub during the Civil War, many Confederate soldiers were laid to rest at Rose Hill. After the war ended these men were moved to a "Soldier's Square," which contains the graves of roughly 600 southern troops. For the modern reader the cemetery is also the final resting place of several members of The Allman Brothers Band. No we did not look for there graves, sorry to all the fans out there!
Please look at the bottom two photos. The grassy field was established on the northwest side of Rose Hill and called Oak Ridge. City Council dedicated this area as a space for African American burials. The right photo gives you an idea about the number of African Americans buried here. There are at least 960 documented enslaved people and free people of color buried in this area before the Civil War. Archaeologists from the Macon area estimate the true number of burials to be in the thousands. Unfortunately for the modern era the vast majority of the graves are unmarked, and often forgotten. Over the last several decades, descendants, researchers, and organizations like the Historic Macon Foundation have made massive efforts to uncover this forgotten history. The archeologists have used ground-penetrating radar to locate unmarked graves. This has lead to a group of volunteers who are dedicated to cleaning and repairing the damaged headstones and other grave markers. Oak Ridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and I am so glad to have seen it.
The first National Historic Park that we went to in Georgia was the Martin Luther King Historical Park. We weren't sure exactly where it was, so we ended up at the Martin Luther King Junior public library. Which was lovely, because there books celebrated his life, and the paintings reflected African Americans' contributions to Georgia's history.
Once we’d walked past the library we were on our way to see The birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. It is located at 501 Auburn Ave NE in Atlanta, Georgia and is a two-story Queen Anne Victorian house. Dr. King lived here until he was 12. To get the full lay of the land visit the Historic Fire Station No. 6, located at 39 Boulevard NE, Atlanta, GA. Here you can learn about the Sweet Auburn neighborhood. In this area MLK Jr. grew up in an area that had a rich history in civil rights and Black entrepreneurship. This area centered around Cotton Avenue and Elm Street. Auburn Avenue was dubbed "the richest Negro street in the world" by civil rights leader John Wesley Dobbs. Amazingly it thrived during the Jim Crow era as an epicenter for Black-owned banks, insurance companies, and entertainment. Dr. King spent his formative years in this neighborhood. He eventually served as co-pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. You can see it in the photos above. Dr. King returned to visit Macon during the Civil Rights Movement; he wished to galvanize local activists. Today Macon honors its civil rights history and MLK's legacy across town.
I know it may seem odd to visit a national park that you've never looked up, but I cannot recommend it highly enough. As you all know, I went to an economics conference in Georgia, and when my sisters were kind enough to pick me up, I simply said, hey, let's hit the national parks between Atlanta and Panama City. They were extremely excited to do so, and we ended up at Andersonville. Again I told you I didn't google it, so in my mind, it was going to be a battlefield. I was not prepared to run into a confederate Civil War prisoner of war camp. If you have followed my other blogs, you know that Manzanar it's one of my favorite National Parks. Mike and I stumbled across it as we went to Mount Whitney. I am so credibly happy that I stumbled upon this national park.
Welcome to Andersonville National Historic Site. It is located outside of Macon Georgia, and preserves the infamous Civil War prison camp known as Camp Sumter. This area operated for just 14 months, but it was notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary. The 26.5-acre stockade held over 45,000 Union soldiers, nearly 13,000 of whom died from diseases, such as Dysentery, Typhoid and malnutrition. When you visit you will see a 515-acre site that encompasses three distinct areas. The first is the Prison Site, the second is Andersonville National Cemetery, and the third is the National Prisoner of War Museum. The Prison Camp was built by the Confederacy in early 1864 to relieve overcrowded prisons in Virginia. they did not expect so many people to be held here. This was because battle field parle agreements were common. This means that soldiers promised to go home and fight no more in return for being set free. The south realized that this was not happening so they began to house POW's. The fort was hastily constructed and undersupplied; it was intended to hold 10,000 men, it reached a peak population of over 32,000. when you see the site you can understand thy it was so devastating. The stream that flowed through it could not handle the human waste, the confederacy could not feed nor house this many people.
Andersonville entered the National Park Service in 1970, but the the National Prisoner of War Museum opened in 1998. This museum honors all American prisoners of war, across all branches of the military.
I found the museum credibly hard to get through. I can't imagine being a POW. This museum did not just cover prisoners of war from the civil war, but from all wars. In the photos above, you can see homemade radio devices that POWs made in WWII, a cage where men were kept in Vietnam as well as two diorama areas where you can see what it is like to be marched into a prisoner of war camp. There are three items that I found particularly fascinating. The first one is in the second row on the left hand side. During the landings in North Africa in nineteen forty two soldiers in the thirty fourth infantry pinned these triangular banners to their backpacks to identify themselves to allied aircraft. Harry Kaczorowski was later taken to a prisoner of war camp. He carried this banner into the camp and it became a record of his imprisonment. A fellow prisoner Frank Stabbing did the artwork. A map of Europe shows Kaczorowski's travels, and the names of fellow prisoners are shown on the eagle feathers. The second one is in the last row in the middle This item is a "blood chit," it is a fabric survival tool carried by U.S. military personnel during Korea and Vietnam. You can see the American flag alongside text in multiple languages that airmen might come in contact with when downed. The message promised rewards to anyone who provided aid or helped the soldier return to allied lines. I love this so much because it reminds me of the fabric map of the south pacific that airmen carried so that if they had to make an emergency landing, they would know where friendly bases are located. Like this fabric item, it was also designed to be destroyed if the soldier thought he would be captured. The last one in in the center. Its not that the gun had a special story it's just that I own one and it was cool to see another one in a museum. It is an Arisaka Type 99 bolt-action service rifle chambered in 7.7x58mm. Don't worry if you've never heard of this round it is very uncommon.
After doing the driving tour and the museum we took a drive through the POW graveyard. The original burial grounds created for the deceased union prisoners quickly became permanent. It was established in 1865 as a national cemetery, and it is the final resting place for the Union soldiers who died at Camp Sumter. When we were in the cemetery, we actually saw a funeral procession for a modern soldier who was being laid to rest. It was very hard to witness because I know the only reason that they can be buried here is because they were prisoners of war. The cemetery remains an active burial site, averaging over 150 interments a year. When we returned to the visitors center to get our Junior Ranger badges The Park ranger was nice enough to make me a Bark Ranger badge for each of the Corgis. I think we have enough now to create a bark ranger tree in the front hallway to complement out Junior Ranger tree in the living room.
The Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, Located in Georgia, is an amazing prehistoric Native American site. This park preserves over 12,000 years of continuous human habitation. In it you will see massive ceremonial earthworks which were constructed around 900 CE by the Mississippian people. It is also the ancestral homeland and a sacred site for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. This one is really hard to show in pictures so I made 2 videos to do the site justice.
The last national park that we did today was Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. I am going to be candid, I was not excited to do this park. I thought might as well check it off the list... Then I reached Plaines Georgia and my opinion changed. Very few U.S. Presidents have maintained ties with the town were they were born and raised. When you get to Plains it looks like any other rural southern town. Life here appears to revolve around farming, church, and school. As you visit the various subunits of the Carter NHP you begin to understand just how influential this town and its way of life was on the 39th President of the United States. As you traverse the main museum, which is in the high school he attended, you can sense the large influence this town had on his character which inevitably shaped how he viewed politics and his tenure as president.
Here are just a few photographs from the Carter high school museum. Of course, I had to pick up and make a joke with a bag of peanuts. If you don't know anything about Carter's campaign, sometimes it's a bit amazing that he was ever elected. Cartoonists and comedians constantly used peanut imagery, joking that the White House would be turned into a peanut shell or that national policy would be decided by peanut crop yields. I was also very touched by the beautiful Last Supper piece, that was given to him by Yasar Arafat. Another place that Carter was often made fun of revolved around his open discussion of being a "born-again" Christian. This led to jokes from critics and comedians who quipped about how many times a politician needed to be re-elected or re-saved. This was oddly contradicted by an interview that he gave in 1976 to Playboy magazine. In the interview he admitted he looked upon women with lust and committed adultery "in his heart". I'd say you don't get to be president after saying things like this, oh wait just look at the white house for a minute….
After we left the museum, we drove to Jimmy Carter's family home. Wow were they right about the religion stuff! There are three churches within throwing distance of the museum, and that's just the beginning. When we drove to his house, we passed so many more. We also passed a ton of peanut fields, getting to this museum, and then after we left. Carter and his family were poor but not destitute. They were peanut farmers but made enough money to have hired hands that worked with them. They also ran a small store on property. Lilian Carter also made sure that the family had money for the little extras because she planted pecan trees in front of her home to shade it and also sold the pecans for spending money. You can see the pecan trees in the foreground enter the right of the house photo above. Jimmy Carter was often looked after by an African American woman named Rachel Clark, whose husband worked on the Carter property. He said that he felt as at home in her house, as he did in his own. The following is a quote that I saw in the Jimmy Carter Museum.
No poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job or simple justice.
I can only imagine that Mrs. Clark might be the reason for his assertions and policies. The even more amazing thing is that he came home after serving four years in 1981 and lived there until his death on December 29th, 2024.
On the way back to Florida, we hit one State Park. It deals with the same time period as the mounds that I showed you above, so I'm going to skip the pictures of this particular location. Plus we got home really late and it's time for me to sign off.
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