The Forgotten South

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The Forgotten South Exploring Untold Stories of the South
đź“śTraveling Historian
🪦Cemetery Advocate & Preservationist
đź“ŤNorth Carolina Based


(325)

Photography and Stories of the Forgotten South. www.theforgottensouth.com

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Email: [email protected]

I found this old piano down a dusty farm road in Georgia, sitting inside an empty church sanctuary. You just never know ...
10/23/2026

I found this old piano down a dusty farm road in Georgia, sitting inside an empty church sanctuary. You just never know what you're going to find on the back roads.

10/22/2026

Fix it up?
Tear it down?
Host an exorcism?

🌿 "The years teach much that the days never knew" 🌿~Ralph Waldo Emerson
10/22/2026

🌿 "The years teach much that the days never knew" 🌿

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

✨This old country store was much like so many others shops of its day that residents relied on for supplies and connecti...
10/22/2026

✨This old country store was much like so many others shops of its day that residents relied on for supplies and connection to their community.

But this one was propelled to national fame in 1939 when a famed photographer from California passed through this quiet crossroads in rural North Carolina.

You can read more of the story below...

✨ This town has changed, and this old home was demolished, but its story is still important.This house belonged to the B...
10/22/2026

✨ This town has changed, and this old home was demolished, but its story is still important.

This house belonged to the Bigham Family of Coleman, Florida, and was built in the early 1900s. Since I took these photos, the house was demolished, so I wanted to share a little bit of its story to help remember the place and the people who lived here.

Coleman is located in Sumter County, Florida. When this place was built, that region looked vastly different from what it does today. In recent years, the population and development have exploded in Sumter County to accommodate The Villages, one of the largest retirement communities in the United States.

When Coleman was originally established in 1882, most residents were farmers. They raised corn, sheep, and hogs, but in the early years, their main industry was citrus. Then came a devastating freeze, back-to-back in 1894 and 1895, that wiped out most of their crops. The farmers of this region were resilient, however, and found new success with different crops like cabbage.

In the 1880s, a stage line arrived, and shortly after, the railroad followed, connecting this small farming community to larger markets like Tampa and Jacksonville. The population grew as farmers found success growing here and shipping their goods out. In 1908, the town was officially incorporated, and by 1923, Coleman was known as the "Cabbage Capital of the World."

The success spread across the community, and the city received its charter in 1925, when the streets were paved, and electric lights were installed throughout Coleman. The Great Depression and World War II changed the fabric of this community, and over subsequent decades, the number of residents declined as people moved to bigger cities for new opportunities.

Many old homes like this one were left empty, and this particular house was eventually demolished. Today, the area has seen a resurgence in residents as the population has grown to accommodate The Villages, and little towns like Coleman have experienced a different kind of change.

✨I’d like to introduce you to Moses Bigelow (1900–1981)I came across this photograph while researching a community in Ca...
10/22/2026

✨I’d like to introduce you to Moses Bigelow (1900–1981)

I came across this photograph while researching a community in Caswell County, North Carolina, and I was immediately intrigued. Even through this old image, I feel like Moses’ personality still shines through after all these years, and it grabbed me. I had to know more about him.

Here’s what I learned:

Moses Bigelow was born on August 16, 1900, to Dollie Womack and Julius Bigelow.

On April 15, 1924, he married Luella Jeffers (1901–1998), and together they built a life and raised a large family, having at least seven children.

Like so many working men of his era, Moses did whatever he had to do to provide. Census records show him working hard over the years, including as a laborer on steam rail lines in 1930, and later as a custodian. But no matter what job he held, Moses also stayed connected to farming by working the land that he rented to support his household.

And that detail matters, because in early 20th-century North Carolina, tenant farming and sharecropping were still very common, especially in tobacco-growing areas, where many families worked land they didn’t own and paid rent with cash or a share of the crop.

Moses and Luella were also deeply connected to their Baptist church community. In Luella’s obituary, she was remembered fondly as “The Mother of the Church,” which says so much about the kind of presence she must have been. (And I’m still looking for a photo of her to share with you!)

Moses passed away in Virginia Beach in 1981, and his family brought him home to Caswell County, where he rests today in the Baptist church cemetery beside Luella, who lived until 1998.

I just love it when one photograph can help bring someone back to life.

I found this old house in Hamilton County, Florida, and out back was an old school bus with the roof cut off.In case you...
10/21/2026

I found this old house in Hamilton County, Florida, and out back was an old school bus with the roof cut off.

In case you've never seen one of those before, they're used during harvest time to drive through the fields while farmers throw whatever they are harvesting into the back. In this area they're typically used for watermelons which would otherwise be too heavy to transport efficiently to the bigger truck that will take them to the markets.

The house has been empty for many years but has found some purpose as storage for farm equipment.

You can see pictures of the interior below.

✨Tucked away in the ghost town of Rodney, Mississippi, stands one of the state’s oldest surviving churches- Rodney Presb...
10/21/2026

✨Tucked away in the ghost town of Rodney, Mississippi, stands one of the state’s oldest surviving churches- Rodney Presbyterian Church, built in 1832.

Back then, Rodney was a booming river port, nearly chosen as Mississippi’s capital. This elegant red-brick church reflected the town’s prosperity, with its Federal-style architecture and a gallery once used by enslaved worshippers.

During the Civil War, Union sailors attended a service here when Confederate troops surrounded the church and captured them. In retaliation, the Union gunboat USS Rattler fired a cannonball into the sanctuary, and you can still see the hole in the wall today.

When the Mississippi River shifted course, Rodney was left inland and slowly faded away. But the church still stands - weathered, beautiful, and quietly telling the story of a town time forgot.

❄️ Old farmhouse spotted on the backroads of Wythe County, Virginia
10/21/2026

❄️ Old farmhouse spotted on the backroads of Wythe County, Virginia

✨This was the Reaves School, located in Duplin County, North Carolina, which was built in the late 1800s by Wilson Reave...
10/21/2026

✨This was the Reaves School, located in Duplin County, North Carolina, which was built in the late 1800s by Wilson Reaves.

Reaves owned a sawmill nearby and grew several species of trees from which he milled wood to build this country school.

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