The Mary Willis Library was the first free public library in the state of Georgia in 1889. The free library was a revolutionary concept at the time when users were charged a subscription fee.
In the town of Washington, Georgia, it was built by Dr. Willis in memory of his daughter who is remembered in the Tiffany glass window.
A noted Atlanta architect designed the library in the Queen Anne style and it cost $15,000 to
construct.
There's Mary, forever young, in the stained glass window. The room inside was very inviting.
This is the Madison, Georgia, Courthouse, built in 1905 and still used as it was intended. Madison, is another antebellum town; it was voted prettiest small town in America in 2001 by a travel magazine and I might have to agree.
The Indian Rock Eagle Site is near Eatonton, Georgia. Constructed about 2,000 years ago, it was built up of thousands of pieces of quartzite laid in the mounded shape of an eagle.
This is the path to it with an observation tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
A fence is constructed around the Mound to protect it. I climbed the stairs to the top of the observation tower so I could see the flying eagle on the ground.
The bird is 102 ft. long from head to tail and 120 ft. wide from wing tip to wing tip. What prompted the early inhabitants of middle Georgia, who lived long before the rise of the Creek and Cherokee cultures, to build massive effigy mounds is a mystery; they appear to hold ceremonial significance.
There are two other sites in this area that I did not visit, with ancient bird shapes.
I liked the experience of being in the silence of the forest contemplating the significance of the eagle effigy on the ground.
Mom, great post. I like the Tiffany window - so pretty - and the story of the history of that library. (Did you know that the original round window at the Pasadena Methodist Church chapel was also a Tiffany window?)
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