31 First Street SE

This photo shows the buildings of downtown Moultrie (looking south on 1^st Street, SE) on February 14, 1895, when the city was blanketed with 10 inches of snow! Articles the next week gave positives of the unusual weather-turpentine supplies dropping and prices rising as turpentine boxes could not be cut during the cold, improved land for farming, and Mr. WD Baldy catching 114 partridges during the storm!!

February 1895  The two-story building just to the left of center sits where Lazarus is today. Note the wood framed buildings. There were no brick buildings in 1895, but as fire destroyed these structures, brick began to replace wood. In 1902, this became law. By the 1920 Sanborn fire map, brick buildings surrounded all but one corner of the Courthouse Square.

In 1895 WB Dukes initially began selling in Moultrie while still a merchant in Chastain, GA. He moved his family and entire sales force here around 1892. Interestingly, Moultrie’s first merchant, Robert Bearden, sold his business and left this same year. He was known for charging exorbitant prices to the farmers and turpentine men who patronized his store. Initially, WB marketed primarily to the farmers, but by 1895 he had added dress making, jewelry, millinery, and watch and gun repair to his services. It is said that WB Dukes was Moultrie’s first department store. In late 1896, the store failed.

As well as owning five stores simultaneously, he branched into other vocations. He was a contractor, a cotton merchant, and a fruit and nut farmer. His home, on East Broad, was said to be the finest in town.

By 1905, Rogers, Touchton & Company had moved into this location on East Broad Street.

 

Elaine Barber, Caroline Barber, and Debbie Friedlander conducted research on this building as part of the NSCDA-GA Moultrie Town Committee’s project for America’s 250th birthday. If you have a photo you think would look good on this page, or have missing information, please email mediarequest@moultriega.com.