Georgia Williams Nursing Home

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

From the record

“Williams Nursing Home in Camilla, Georgia was the only facility where African-American women could deliver babies in Mitchell County, for many years prior to the Civil Rights Movement. It was owned by Beatrice Borders (1892-1971), a midwife who delivered over 6,000 babies at the home between 1941 and 1971.”
Wikipedia article Georgia Williams Nursing Home, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 10 National Register listings published here for Mitchell County · listed in 2011 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
Listed as. Williams, Georgia, Nursing Home - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 176 Dyer St, Camilla, 31730
When was it listed? April 2011
Category. building
Census division. Camilla
National Register reference number. 11000180 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

318 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 318 fires within 5 miles of Georgia Williams Nursing Home between 1992 and 2020, burning about 817 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 22 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	200
Equipment and vehicle use	30
Railroad operations and maintenance	27
Arson/incendiarism	22
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	12
Misuse of fire by a minor	8
Smoking	7
Natural	6
Recreation and ceremony	6

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 September 2007	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
7 September 2007	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
7 September 1997	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
6 September 2005	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
6 September 1997	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
29 September 2003	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
28 September 2012	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2013-MITCHELL-002
28 September 2000	Debris and open burning	1.6 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2001-MITCHELL-022

Every fire recorded in Mitchell County

Storms near this property

60 of 65 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Camilla, the town this property stands in, in 65 storm reports between 1994 and 2026: 45 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 4 tornado, 4 flash flood. The reports record 16 deaths and 377 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
February 2000	Tornado (F3)	Camilla	11 killed, 175 hurt, $20,000,000	A strong tornado tore through two major subdivisions and four mobile home parks just south of Camilla after touching down just east of Branchville. Damage assessments from the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency reported 200 homes destroyed and 250 homes were damaged. Two miles south of Camilla on GA Highway 112, a large trailer manufacturing plant was destroyed. Eleven fatalities were confirmed by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, all of which resided in mobile homes. Approximately 175 persons were injured. The American Red Cross and Salvation Army opened several shelters for the homeless. Hundreds of acres of pecan trees were uprooted, pine trees snapped, and power lines toppled. Numerous irrigation systems were damaged. Property damage estimates totalled $20 million with crop losses estimated at $2 million. Mitchell County was declared a federal disaster area. Reported by the Mitchell County EMA.
March 2003	Tornado (F3)	Camilla	4 killed, 200 hurt, $6,000,000	An F2 tornado touched down near Branchville, and traveled northeast. Its path was similar to the February 14, 2000 tornado. The tornado intensified to F3 as it passed just south of Camilla, then weakened as it neared the Mitchell-Worth County line. The tornado destroyed 66 homes, and damaged 200 homes and businesses. Numerous trees and power lines were down. At least three dozen roads were closed by debris. The tornado claimed four lives and injured 200. The hardest hit area was in the Goodson Road area of Camilla. A state of emergency was declared for Mitchell County. Reported by the Mitchell County EMA and CAP/NWS aerial survey team.
February 2000	Tornado (F3)	Camilla	1 killed, 1 hurt, $1,000,000	A strong tornado tracked northeast from extreme northwest Thomas County into extreme southeastMitchell County. Numerous homes were damaged as well as downed trees and power lines. One man died from injuries sustained when the tornado destroyed his mobile home and neighboring woodframe home two miles north of Meigs. Reported by the Mitchell County EMA.
September 1998	Tornado (F1)	Camilla	1 hurt, $500,000	An F1 tornado struck Camilla on Mt. Zion Rd and GA 37 uprooting large pines, damaging a residence and farm machinery, and destroying a shed. A man was injured when his pickup truck was blown off GA 262. The tornado toppled numerous pecan trees as it travelled north of Camilla along U.S. 19.
April 2002	Hail	Camilla	$100,000	Golfball size hail damaged several vehicles and homes. The hail destroyed several strawberry and peach crops, and damaged watermelon, cantaloupe and tomato crops on a farm located off U.S. Highway 19/300. Reported by the Mitchell County Sheriff.
August 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$75,000	The top of a trailer at the Mitchell County Middle School was blown off. Wood debris from the trailer damaged several vehicles parked in the faculty parking lot.
August 2016	Flash Flood	Camilla	$50,000	Significant flash flooding occurred in Camilla. Water entered some structures and some roads in town were flooded to a depth of at least one foot from Highway 19 to Ellis Street. The main highway running through town was flooded and blocked by a fire truck. Around 5 inches of rain fell in a 2 hour period. Damage was estimated.
January 2006	Flood	Camilla	$50,000	Four to eight inches of rain within a 12-hour period caused flooding of many streets, intersections and low-lying areas. Several houses were surrounded by water, with some flooded on Church Street. Reported by the Camilla Enterprise.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$40,000	Several trees were blown down. A house had water damage caused by a tree falling on its roof in Camilla. The monetary damage figure provided is a rough estimate.
November 2002	Lightning	Camilla	$25,000	Lightning struck and damaged the roof of a Camilla church. Reported by the Camilla Enterprise.
April 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$10,000	An irrigation system was overturned off State Highway 37. Reported by the Albany Herald.
February 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$5,000	Trees were blown down with power outages in parts of Camilla. Monetary damage was estimated.
February 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$5,000	Trees and telephone lines were blown down in Camilla. Monetary damage was estimated.
March 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$5,000	A SKYWARN storm spotter reported downed trees and power lines on Highway 37.
January 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$5,000	Downed trees and power lines on Highway 97. Reported by a SKYWARN spotter.
July 2001	Lightning	Camilla	$5,000	Lightning struck the 911 tower and knocked out communications for several hours. Reported by the Mitchell County EMA.
May 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$5,000	Trees and power lines down reported by Mitchell County EMA.
September 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$4,000	Trees and power lines were blown down along Highway 112 near Camilla. The monetary damage figure provided is a rough estimate.
May 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$3,000	Multiple trees and power lines were blown down on Andrews in Camilla.
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$3,000	Multiple trees and power lines were blown down.
August 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$3,000	The Mitchell County Sheriff reported downed trees and utility poles.
March 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$2,000	Strong winds caused some power lines to sag, resulting in a power outage. In addition, tree limbs were blown onto the lines. Outages affected around 99 customers near Camilla.
June 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$2,000	A shallow rooted and fairly small tree fell on the Two Scoops Ice Cream shop on Oakland Ave in Camilla as a narrow line of storms moved through. Minor damage to the roof occurred. There was no other damage reported anywhere in southwest Georgia with these storms. Monetary damage was estimated.
May 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$1,000	A couple of trees were blown down northwest of Camilla near SR-37.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$1,000	A tree and power line were blown down on Harney Street in Camilla.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$1,000	Trees limbs fell on power lines on Mt Zion Road.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$1,000	A tree was blown down in Camilla. Monetary damage was estimated.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$1,000	A pecan tree was blown down and a trampoline was blown across the street. The monetary damage figure provided is a rough estimate.
July 2007	Lightning	Camilla	$1,000	Lightning caused several power outages.
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$500	Trees and power lines down, reported by sheriff's office
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$500	Numerous tree limbs and a few power lines were downed by thunder- storm winds. Power outages lasted for a couple of hours in Camilla after lines were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$500	Thunderstorm winds downed a few large trees across power lines along Georgia Highway 112 on the Mitchell-Grady county line.
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	$200	Trees and power lines down, reported by sheriff's office
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	Trees were blown down on Highway 37 near Sale City Road.
August 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	There were several trees blown down in Mitchell county.
April 2024	Flash Flood	Camilla	-	Flooding was reported on SR37 in both directions at SR3 with all lanes closed.
April 2024	Flash Flood	Camilla	-	Flooding was reported on SR37 in both directions at Sale City Road.
March 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	There were four reports of trees down in Mitchell County.
March 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down near the intersection of Highway 37 and River Road.
March 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down on Newton Road at Mile Marker 23.
June 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	Mesonet station UGA09 gusted to 50 knots.
June 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down onto a house at 175 N Butler Street.
June 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down near PSC Road.
April 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	The UGA weather station at Stripling Irrigation Research Park gusted to 52 knots.
April 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	Multiple trees were blown down across the county roughly in a line from Highway 19 near the Tyson Chicken Plant to north of Sale City.
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down across the road at the 500 block of South Macarthur.
July 2022	Flood	Camilla	-	Flooding was reported at Highway 19 and Industrial Blvd as well as near residences on Morgan and Thomas Streets in Camilla.
April 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	Trees were blown down.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A few trees were blown down.
April 2020	Flood	Camilla	-	Minor road flooding occurred at the intersection of Highway 97 and 37.
April 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down along Horseshoe Road.
April 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A couple of large tree branches blew into the roadway and blocked it.
June 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	An irrigation pivot was blown over between Camilla and Pebble City.
August 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down onto Palmer Street on the north side of Camilla.
April 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A tree was blown down on Highway 19 north of Lewis Collins Road.
July 2012	Hail	Camilla	-	Quarter size hail was reported in Camilla.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	Several trees were blown down east of U.S. Highway 19.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	A few trees were down.
June 2006	Flash Flood	Camilla	-	A trained spotter reported many ditches, fields and poor drainage areas flooded from several inches of rain in less than two hours.
November 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Camilla	-	Strong winds severely damaged the cotton crop on a farm located along State Road 37 near the Mitchell-Colquitt County line. Reported by the Camilla Enterprise.

Every storm recorded in Mitchell County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Camilla Commercial Historic District	0.4 miles	1985
	James Price McRee House	0.5 miles	1979

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 11000180 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Mitchell County	All 10 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.