MACON, Ga. — Some students at Middle Georgia State have been working with the Historic Macon Foundation this semester to uncover hidden Macon history.
Now, their hard work is coming full circle as they nominate Payne City for the National Register of Historic Places.
Payne City was a mill village founded in the late 1800s. It played a vital part in the textile industry in Bibb County and for a long time was a village separate from Macon and independently incorporated.
It became part of Macon in the 2010s.
Professor Susan Asbury's historic preservation class spent the semester looking at the history of Payne City and discovering what is left the of the industrial village. They were assigned properties and tasked with gathering as much history as they could about the village.
"The mill is gone but the warehouses still remain and many of the homes still remain and you get a real sense of mill life throughout the 20th century and it highlights middle Georgia's contribution to the textile industry in the new south," she said.
When the village was in its heyday, the community had its own auditorium, stores and many other amenities. What's left of the village is now a few residential homes and Payne City Antique Mall.
History major Caitlyn Blackwell says they would be ecstatic if the nomination was accepted into the registry. They said it's important to remember the little moments too.
"Because most people think we need to preserve the bigger side and it just goes back to what I was saying earlier, we should preserve the smaller side of history as well," they said.