Georgia County Government - May/June 2008 - (Page 62)

COURTHOUSE continued from page 61 Blair’s building is transitional. Gone are the four more-or-less equal entrances with their bold pediments so reminiscent of the Greek temple and of the Old South. In their place, Renaissance ornament abounded in bold rusticated quoining, splayed window lentils and elaborate fenestration featuring scrolling hood supports in the second story. Like Blair’s court buildings at Colquitt and Mount Vernon, the Grady County Courthouse takes a step on the road toward modern Renaissance-inspired forms at the extreme of which would be Beaux-Arts Classicism, an excessively baroque governmental style which emotionally recalled little of times gone by. Its appearance in the South would mark the end of an architecture of the people and the beginning of an architecture of the government. The emergence of Beaux-Arts architecture in Georgia celebrated a New South that, to some, appeared real. But its pompous impersonal styling warned others that the modern era would not arrive without a numbing cost. In Grady County in 1908, American industrialism and its flamboyant symbols were still a very long distance away. Cairo remained balanced on the razor’s edge between the old and the new, while the more modern Neoclassicism of Alexander Blair III’s 1908 Grady County Courthouse supplied a rare glimpse into a distant future. Originally in Thomas County, the town of Cairo had been the child of the extension of the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad in 1867. The right-of-way for this portion of the road had been secured in 1859, and the usual land speculations had ensued. Large tracts around Cairo were sold in 1861 and divided into town lots and resold in 1866. The resulting town was called Cairo after an old Post office in the area. After the arrival of the railroad, growth in Cairo was steady. By 1880, there were 55 households at the place that before the arrival of The Atlantic and Gulf, had contained little save the old Cairo Post Office located “five days from Tallahassee by ox cart.” By 1900, despite the intransigence of many of Grady County’s independent farmers, there were hints of New South zeal churning just beneath the surface in Cairo, and although one is hard pressed to attribute the creation of Grady County and the construction of Alexander Blair’s grand Neoclassical architectural symbol to the arrival of crossing rails in Cairo, crossing rails did arrive just as the new courthouse was nearing completion. In 1908, just as throngs paraded in the streets of Cairo to celebrate the new courthouse, The Pelham and Havana Railroad completed rails into Cairo from Havana, Fla. The road was never extended to Pelham. Still, by 1908, the end of an era was approaching for Cairo. Although she was still a long way from standing in the modern light of the new age, she was at least beginning to contemplate the fundamental changes that were to come. Sadly, Alexander Blair’s grand monument to the future burned to the ground on Feb. 18, 1980. ■ 62 GEORGIA COUNTY GOVERNMENT http://www.mjcpa.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Georgia County Government - May 2008

Georgia County Government - May 2008 Contents President’s Message County Matters ACCG 2008 Annual Meeting: Highlights County Focus: Clayton County Negotiating a Professional Service Firm Contract: Part 3 Counties Get Involved in Efforts to End Sexual Abuse of Children Smart Growth Scorecard Gives Communities a Way to Grade New Developments Wireless Technologies Critical for First Responders Research Corner: The ACCG Policy Process RDCs Assist the USS Georgia Flag Project Extension News: Animals Take Spotlight in Disaster Planning Georgia’s Grand Old Courthouses: Grady County NACo News: Green Initiative Launches Searchable Database Insurance News: ACCG Announces New Inmate Medical Savings Program County Parade Index of Advertisers

Georgia County Government - May 2008

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