TIFTON, GEORGIA POSTCARD

Starting in the mid-19th century, Captain Henry Harding Tift left his home in Mystic, Connecticut for South Georgia to harvest timber for the family ship building business. Little did Captain Tift know that the sawmill he built to prepare the lumber for shipping, and the train tracks that were laid to ship the lumber would be the beginning of Tifton, Georgia. As Tifts Town (as it was known until 1890 when the name was changed to Tifton) grew, Captain Tift and his associates adopted the same town layout that Mystic, Connecticut had, with even numbered streets running east and west as one traveled north from the center of town, and odd numbered streets following the same suit as one traveled south. Tifton had no town square and the city was crisscrossed with rail lines, all heading from the center of town like spokes on a wagon wheel. The town boasted the same grand facilities as many small South Georgia towns a courthouse, a town hotel, commercial buildings and other features. Many of these buildings featured interesting interior and exterior architectural embellishments of the times. As the town grew, Tifton built an opera house, several silent movie theatres, churches, and saloons. At the turn of the 20th century, a thriving community had evolved from the pine forests and electrical lighting was the rage. The Myon Hotel, built in 1906 was billed as the grandest hotel south of Atlanta. Progress met the south when President Eisenhower proposed a new road system that would allow travelers to get from place to place in record time. The interstate was a major contributor of the demise of many downtowns. As the interstate was built, new areas of development came along side these roadways. Since WWII, many women had joined the workforce and did not have the time or luxury of staying home with children while father was at work. Quietly, the communities focus on town activities shifted from the town center to the new suburbs. Hotels were being built along the interstate to accommodate the travelers. Service stations and shopping areas were going where the development was occurring, on the interstate. The location along a major junction of highways made Tifton the ideal location for medical services serving a large geographic area. In 2000, Tifton officially became the Reading Capital of the World, a distinction based on amassing over 2 million points in the Accelerated Reader program and achieving other goals such as increasing library circulation and reducing illiteracy rates. This distinction was celebrated on Nov. 15, 2000, when a packed high school stadium read aloud from Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, as a 30-foot Cat in the Hat balloon swayed overhead. The crowd then read silently from books of their own, earning the city dual entries in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most people reading together in one place as well as the most reading together silently. Although Tifton is the reading capital of the world, the only public bookstore in town is The Christian Bookstore on Main Street. Tifton has a public library, in addition to an extensive college library located at nearby Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.