123 Heads Avenue (House), Americus

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS GA,131-AMER,8-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Example of a cottage-style house typical of residential houses the area ca. Description: This saddlebag house has a standing seam metal gabled roof. The front porch has square wooden columns with simple capitals. Two paneled front doors have six glass \ 1 ~ 'r ~ There is a 6/6 window next to each door and one on each end of the original one room deep house. A lean to addition extends across the rear., "Brick paper" siding has been added over the wood siding. Bead board underpinning obscures the piers. A rounded top block wall at the street sets off the front yard. History: This house was constructed by a well known Americus native W.E. King as rental property in the early In Jimmie and Mary lane Sapp purchased this house from W.E. King.

Persuant to the Jefferson/Ashby Urban Redevelopment Project and severe delapidated conditions of the house, it was torn down and another house erected in its place. This house was located in the McCoy Hill neighborhood, encompassing Academy, McCoy, Poplar, Winn, Jefferson, and Ashby streets. It was originally the residential property of a prominent antebellum attorney and Confederate general, Henry Kent McCay. The modern misspelling results from the name's pronunciation not matching its own spelling. During the Reconstruction Era in the the site was used for public executions even as freedmen were establishing a black residential neighborhood in the immediate vicinity.

After the destruction of the old McCay home in the early the site became the location of the city's first public school for blacks, McCoy Hill School, built in With the earlier addition of Mt. Olive Baptist Church in the neighborhood boasted the residences of many of the black community's professional class. For example, two of the city's preeminent black educators, Professors George Philips and Alfred S. Staley, were homeowners there. For almost 130 years, the McCoy Hill neighborhood has nurtured generations of Americus' black citizenry.

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS GA,131-AMER,8-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Alan Anderson, Sumter Historic Preservation Society Historian and Archivist Meda Krenson, Architect Desi L. Wynter, Acquisition and Relocation Coordinator 123 HEADS AVENUE (HOUSE) HABS No. GA-2303 (PAGE 2) I II c : PO~CH - "~ ~I lO fl J ~ 8 DECEMBER TIM LITTLEFIELD