Clocks keep time in the dome of the Chattooga County Courthouse in downtown Summerville, Ga. The Summerville Commercial Historic District was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Boosters of the downtown area hope that the designation helps revitalization efforts.
Historic SummervilleSUMMERVILLE, Ga. – Carlton Reynolds was born in 1937, the year that a New Deal-era post office was built in downtown Summerville.
His parents were born in 1909, the year the Chattooga County Courthouse was constructed in downtown Summerville.
So Reynolds was happy to hear that a roughly eight-block section that includes the domed courthouse and cupola-topped post office recently was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Summerville Commercial Historic District.
“I’m not hard to please,” he admitted while walking along the town’s Commerce Street on Thursday afternoon. “But I’m proud of our little town.”
The historic district’s collection of mostly one- and two-story brick buildings built between the 1890s and 1950s made the list because “it’s a good example of a Georgia county seat,” said Gretchen Brock of Georgia’s Historic Preservation Division. “It’s just an excellent collection of historic buildings.”