Volume 14, No. 3 ... October 1996 October 4th witnessed the debut of the Troup County Historical Society's newest project Travels Through Troup County: A Guide to its Architecture and History. The new book and exhibition of photographs were revealed at a cocktail reception at the Highland Country Club. All one hundred of the photographs of historic houses which John Lawrence made for the book were displayed at the Country Club. The framed 16" x 20" photographs were also on sale as part of a silent auction. Several people commented that they had never seen the Country Club look better. Everyone had a great time looking at both familiar old houses and buildings they had never seen before but vowed to go find on Troup County's roadsides. Party attendees received a "red ribbon" copy of the book. The books went on sale to the public the next day and sales have been brisk ever since. The framed photographs are on exhibit at the Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum and will remain there until November 30th. The CVAM hosted a reception honoring the exhibit and John Lawrence on October 12th which was well attended. [Editor's Note: Our strictly unbiased advice: be sure to see the exhibit at the CVAM. The photographs look beautiful and the CVAM provides a wonderful setting for the display. It's fun to see familiar landmarks hanging on the walls of the museum on Hines Street.] Credit where credit is due! Travels Through Troup County was a two year project which began with a discussion at a Historical Society Executive Board meeting about how to best distribute copies of Julie Turner's short history of Troup County. The history was done as part of a grant from the Georgia Office of Historic Preservation to survey historic structures in Troup County and to write a historic context statement for future National Register nominations. After reading Turner's short history of the county, the Executive Board agreed that the text merited as wide a distribution as possible. Perhaps a book spotlighting historic homes and buildings (those over 50 years old) in the county and the history would be the best idea. Slowly the idea for a new book began to form. Charles Hudson realized that rather than just use any photographs that happened to be in the Archives for the book, we should make use of area photographic and artistic talent. Mr. Hudson, Walter Murphy, Glenda Major and Kaye Minchew presented the concept to LaGrange College Professor of Art John Lawrence and what could he do but say yes? Actually he had recently finished a book project on Faulkner's Rowan Oak with Dan Hise and was ready for a new project. (Famous last words!) He had been photographing Troup County sites for years, especially the churches and theaters. After the project was completed, he admitted that at first he thought "ok, this will be nice to do." Then several months after he photographed Salem School, the school burned in the aftermath of Hurricane Opal. He began to appreciate how important the photography would be in documenting our structures for future generations. Of course, he enjoyed the houses, the people, and the challenge of capturing the feel of these historic structures. After recruiting John to do the photographs, the Executive Board agreed that then Vice-President (and now President) Glenda Major, Clark Johnson and Kaye Minchew should do captions for the photos and coordinate the project. Glenda and Clark had coauthored the Historical Society's very successful Treasures of Troup County: A Pictorial History. Choosing which photographs to include was the toughest step of all. After recruiting a selection committee, which included Jane Strain of Hogansville, Julia Dyar of LaGrange, Ann Petry of Liberty Hill, and Margaret Zachry of West Point, one hundred structures were chosen from the over one thousand historic buildings in the county. The group quickly agreed to several basic points: all types of architecture would be represented - not just the grand and wonderful structures; all areas of the county would be represented; and buildings which appeared in Treasures of Troup County would mostly not be included in an effort not to duplicate our earlier project. The decision to include all types of architecture was based on the idea that it is the variety of homes and buildings which make Troup County a wonderful place to live. While shotgun houses and mill houses are not necessarily our finest structures, they are very important parts of our heritage and our architectural legacy. Alas, this meant some wonderful houses had to be omitted. We already have a list of "must include" for our next Travels book! About this time, we also applied for and received a grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts to do the project. The grant application stressed that while this was a historic preservation project, it was also an art project. One look at John Lawrence's photographs provided evidence that an artistic eye, large format negatives, and careful photography could make a tremendous difference in how historic buildings are presented, plus art is evident throughout architecture. The Arts Council liked the fact that the Troup County Historical Society, the LaGrange College Art Department, and the Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum would be working together on this project. Hard work continued. For a year and a half, John Lawrence made photographs and Clark Johnson, Glenda Major and Kaye Minchew wrote captions. During that process, many people shared information about particular buildings. Gardner Newman and Joe Daniel were particularly helpful. Tracking down architects and documenting builders was sometimes easy and sometimes impossible! Fortunately, the Archives' project to index the LaGrange newspapers (funded by the Callaway Foundation) revealed much information that would have otherwise not been accessible. Numerous home owners were also contacted as part of the research. Randall Allen of the Troup County Archives staff drew maps of each section of the county and located the buildings. Equally important to putting the book together is presenting it. John Lawrence had several suggestions for laying the book out - including a key suggestion of using historical photographs to "liven up" the history text. (For those who haven't seen the book, ten buildings which are no longer standing are shown in the section on the history of Troup County. The photographs remind us of our losses through the years and help make the text much more pleasurable to read.) Marcia Brown, who is on the Art Faculty of LaGrange College, made key suggestions about the layout of the text. Finally, the book went to print AND came out on schedule. The photographic prints were framed by Guy and Terri Johnston of Gallery on The Square. The books and the exhibit were presented to the public and have been very well received. The authors and the Historical Society's governing boards have several long-term hopes for this project:
 This newsletter is a quarterly publication of the Troup County Historical Society and Archives, 136 Main Street, P.O. Box 1051, LaGrange, GA 30241. Archives Staff includes: Kaye Lanning Minchew - Director Randall Allen - Archivist Shirley Bowen - Reference Assistant Clark Johnson - Historian Diana Thomas - Bookkeeper Shirley Dykes - Office Assistant Officers of the Historical Society include: Glenda Major - President Casey Zito - Vice-President Sally Macomber - Secretary Speer Burdette, III - Treasurer Ed Long - Past President
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