How many plantations are in Thomasville GA?

Thomasville is located in the Plantation Trace section of Georgia's Southern Rivers region. Plantation Trace is so named because of the numerous plantations located there. The area is a popular hunting destination, and is known for antebellum homes and Southern hospitality. Thomasville is the location of three popular plantations of Georgia's Plantation Trace.

Birdsong Nature Center is a 565 acre haven for birds and other wildlife. Once a longleaf forest, then a plantation followed by a farm, Birdsong is now a center for conservation where one can the experience the beauty and serenity of a natural landscape that renews the human spirit. The center features a facility for bird-viewing, nature trails for hiking, a butterfly garden, and a screened pavilion that overlooks a swamp.

Historic Coalson Plantation and Inn is a 40+ acre plantation that offers conference and retreat facilities in an historic setting. It is a four star resort that features antebellum luxury that is a perfect honeymoon spot. One of 71 plantations in South Georgia and Northern Florida, Coalson Plantation includes formal English gardens, six cottages, a pool house, a library, and a resaurant. The historic Showboat Theatre, built in 1934, was designed o resemble Showboat Theatre in NYC. It has been used for private screenings of Gone With the Wind.

Pebble Hill Plantation was originally a pre-Civil War cotton plantation. After the Civil War, it became a winter home and hunting lodge for quail and turkey hunters. Today it is a museum of elegant and stately life in the early 1900s that features art and Southern plantation history.

Sweet Grass Dairy is a 140 acre dairy that makes artisan cheeses using milk from their own goats and Jersey cows. This family owned award winning farm uses a rotational system to grass the animals in lush pasture. The result of this rotation is healthier cows and ultimately healthier milk and cheese.

Southwest Georgia Search

Bob Fisher takes you on a tour of this enclave once the vacation destination of choice for the well-heeled.

Thomasville, a little town of 20,000 near the Florida border, has been kept a secret from ordinary folks, but it's well known to the rich and famous. Back in 1887, Harper's magazine said Thomasville is "the best winter resort on three continents." And it's fabulous even today, still popular with the rich, but not pricey at all. The town received the 1998 Great American Main Street Award and a 2001 City of Excellence selection by the Georgia Municipal Association and Georgia Trend magazine. Who knew?

Thomasville welcomed Yankee money (there wasn't any locally) in the period after the Civil War, and thanked the Northerners for buying up the huge plantations around the town, saving the properties from being divided, lost to development and perhaps ruined. There were over 300,000 acres of plantations in the area between Thomasville and nearby Tallahassee, and there are now about 71 plantations left--only two open to the public, however. The new owners converted their property from working plantations (mostly cotton-growing), of course, but hired plenty of locals to staff their mansions and keep up the grounds. Northerners liked to come south for the winter to their new pleasure plantations, because the climate here was mild, the area was beautiful, and there was a huge quail population to shoot at. Land prices were low, and Thomasville was nicely situated at the end of a railroad route with connections reaching down from the north. It was also ideal because no one dared head farther south--Florida was avoided as a land of malaria and yellow fever. The families usually stayed in Thomasville from Thanksgiving through Easter each year.

Today, the tradition of being a place friendly to all sorts of folks, including those of every race and religion, continues. Mayor Rick Singletary told me that he recently refused a request from a local to proclaim May as "Confederate History Month," telling the applicant that he wouldn't do so, as he did "not intend to offend the African-American members of the City Council."

At the small local airport, you can see several private planes at any given time, the mayor told me, but nobody likes to compromise the privacy of their visitors, so no names were mentioned. It was common knowledge, however, that Ted Turner (not a Yankee!) owns a plantation in these parts, he said.

Thomasville is only 35 miles from Tallahassee on Route 319, but is also within easy driving distance of Jacksonville (156 miles), Montgomery (196 miles), Savannah (210 miles) and Atlanta (230 miles).

Highlights

Try to visit Thomasville during its annual Plantation Wildlife Arts Festival, held in November, with celebrity appearances (last year, the Kratt Brothers from PBS and Wild Kingdom's Jim Fowler), field trial dog event, demonstrations by Native American artists, birds of prey on display, lectures and more. Tickets last year were $9 ($5 for kids 4-11). Contact them at www.tccarts.org or e-mail , phone 226-0588. If you miss that, try their annual Rose Show & Festival, held every April. Last year, among many other events, they had a police parade, and you could ask the officers questions about their work.

If you like southern plantations, visit Pebble Hill (rebuilt after a fire in the 1930s), once the winter home of the famous Hanna Family of Cleveland (a colleague of Rockefeller's, Mark Hanna made McKinley president and led the Yankee move to Thomasville after the Civil War). Pebble Hill is gorgeous inside, especially the small library. It costs $3 to get in the gate and visit the grounds, another $7 to visit the main house, where you are led around on tours. They have a marvelous Christmas Candlelight Tour, costing $45 and including the decorations, the music, a champagne reception and a carriage ride (weather permitting). Bird-watching tours are also offered on occasion, costing just $5 for three hours, during which you might have the luck to catch and band brown-headed nuthatches. On Oct. 6 there's an afternoon of family fun for just $3 (half price for kids under 12), and on December 20 free admission for a nighttime walking tour of the lighted grounds, Christmas readings for children and wagon rides (weather permitting). Closed Mondays. Five miles south of Thomasville on US 319, phone 912/226-2344, Web site www.pebblehill.com.

If you have time, visit the historic Lap ham-Patterson House (1884) for its engineering and craftsmanship. Closed Mondays. Guided tours only (45 minutes), $2 to $4. 626 N. Dawson Street, phone 225-4004, Web site www.gastateparks.org.

Lodging

Serendipity Cottage represents everything a B&B should be, from its down-home ambience, including the cats and canaries, to the excellent breakfasts on the sun porch with birdcages at your elbow and a hummingbird garden outside and the kindly interest shown by the owners towards guests. The Cottage has earned a tree diamond rating from the AAA and has been under current management by Kathy and Ed Middleton for nearly nine years. Rates $95 to $120, single or double. Four elegant, Victorian bedrooms are in this 1906 structure, which just happens to be for sale?the turnkey operation listed at $450,000 (the owners want to leave for health reasons). 339 East Jefferson Street, phone 800/383-7377 or 226-8111, fax 226-2656, Web site www.serendipitycottage.com.

The Paxton House Inn (1884), while gorgeous, seems angled toward corporate visitors in its six rooms and three suites (seven more rooms), making a total of 13 rooms. Their breakfasts are fabulous, with homemade breads, fresh fruit, strawberry toast, Belgian waffles, a three-cheese quiche, ham, eggs Benedict, and frittatas--grits and biscuits with gravy are available on request as well. Like a small resort in the heart of town. Indoor heated pool/hot tub. The owner and innkeeper, Susie Sherrod, is a jolly soul in charge of her collection treasure trove here since 1991. Rates $125 to $250 for doubles. 445 Remington Avenue, phone 226-5197, fax 2236-9903, e-mail , Web site www.1884paxtonhouseinn.com.

The 1854 Wright House has just two rooms, but the hosts, Peggie and Carl Wood, offer a sitting room for each bedroom. Doing business as a B&B since 1999, the couple present breakfasts with country sausage, muffins, cranapple French toast, fruit and more. Each room has 12-foot ceilings, and there is a wonderful garden, good for watching birds from the vantage point of your alcove window. Rates $85 to $125. 415 Fletcher Street, phone 225-9922, fax 228-9626, e-mail , Web site www.1854wrighthouse.com.

If you're a big spender, you could not do better than staying at Melhana, a "grand plantation resort," developed by the Cleveland Hanna family on 40 acres but now utterly modernized for comfort, even though it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The guest rooms are fabulous, the service outstanding, with many bathrooms equipped with Jacuzzi tubs for two. Other amenities include an indoor pool, moonlight carriage rides?you name it. The first screening of Gone With the Wind (even before the premiere) was in the small theater here, in an effort to get New Yorker John Whitney to invest in its distribution. Humming birds frequent the patio, and you can hunt birds on horseback. You experience here what a pampered guest must have felt in an old-fashioned plantation, but one that is now, thanks to its new owners, Charlie & Fran Lewis, as plush as a Ritz-Carlton. The cheapest room with bath is $285, without private bath $250. Other rooms (all with private bath) are $285 to $450 per night, suites more than that. If you don't want to stay here, you can take a guided tour daily (with advance reservations) at 10 and 2, costing $10 and lasting about 60 to 90 minutes. Located on the appropriately named 301 Showboat Lane, phone 226-2290 or 888/920-3030, fax 226-4585, e-mail , Web site www.melhana.com.

Dining Out

The town's best southern-style eats can be had at Fallin's Real Pit Bar-B-Q, where you can choose between beef, pork, chicken or ribs, all of them digit-lickin' good. Plates of barbecue cost $6.95 for chicken, $8.95 for pork or beef, children's portions $5.50 to $6.95. I liked the combination platter, any two choices of meat for $9.50. Everything you order is served with garlic bread and choice of salad bar or two of the 15 different side orders (including Brunswick stew, fried okra and other southern goodies). There's an all-you-can-eat special served every day with chicken at $7.95, pork and ribs at $9.95 (no doggy bags on those!). Their luncheon specials ("served any time") start at $4.99 for bean and franks, $5.50 for pork barbecue. You'll find them at 2614 E. Pinetree Boulevard, Thomasville, phone 228-1071.

Family style dining is the rule at the Homecoming Restaurant, where the lunch special ("all you can eat") costs just $6 and a catfish sandwich $4.95 (served with French fries or onion rings). The ambience is straight up Dogpatch, the service friendly but confused at times. 14010 US Highway 19 South, phone 551-0972.

Lillie's is the place to go for a quick sandwich or salad at lunchtime, a Jackson Street club going for $5.75, a cup of soup just $2, big salads from $3.75 (house) or $4.50 (spinach) and up. Reminiscent of a high school cafeteria, but with friendly service. 109 E. Jackson Street, phone 226-9922.

At bright and airy Praline's, you can dine quite nicely, thank you, on Georgia peach chicken at $14 (with cole slaw, homemade bread and a vegetable), or shrimp and grits (with ditto accompaniment, plus bacon) for $16. They add an 18% tip for you, and it's worth it, believe me. 123 N. Broad Street, phone 228-0447.

Richard's Evening Grill is fairly sophisticated, with fine service and good cooking. Try their 8 oz. sirloin steak with hash browns and salad for just $10 or a new dish, mahi mahi & gumbo (a blackened filet with rice) for $13. They are at 415 Smith Avenue, phone 226-3376.

You can go overboard, if your wallet permits, at Melhana's restaurant, where a six-course dinner will run $58, not counting wine or coffee, but it will be memorably delicious. They serve dinner only and reservations are required, so are the jackets for men. See above for contact information.

Summing Up

The area code for Thomasville is 229.

More information can be had through the Thomasville Welcome Center, 135 North Broad Street, Thomasville, phone 227-7099 or 800/704-2350, fax 227-2470, Web site www.thomasvillega.com, e-mail .

Where was the largest plantation in Georgia?

Were there slaves in Thomasville GA?

Who owns Pebble Hill Plantation in Thomasville Georgia?

What's the name of the oldest plantation in Thomas County?