Georgia Museum of Agriculture

June 11, 2021

If you're a local South Georgian, you've already heard of (and probably visited!) the Georgia Museum of Agriculture (known to locals as The Agrirama {pronounced Ag-uh-rama}). If you're not from around here, you need to put this on your list of stops if you're headed south on I-75 toward Florida!

Found in the heart of Tifton, the GMA is an amazing place to learn about life in the 1800s in South Georgia. There are several different parts to it and you won't want to miss any of them. If you arrive on a Saturday (the recommended day to visit!) you'll park at the Country Store and after buying your tickets, you'll head past the playground. You're welcome to stop and play as long as you want. If you're ready to get on with the tour, head down the sidewalk and board the Vulcan Steam Train (the train ONLY runs on Saturday - any other day and you'll pay and then drive yourself around to the village). The train will take you around to the Historic Village, which is the best known part of the GMA. Houses and businesses built in the 1800s were moved to this spot in order to make up an agricultural town that you can walk through. Docents are set up in many of stops to tell you a little about the building itself, the family that lived there, and to answer your questions. You'll see a church, a school, a barn, a grist mill, and many houses on one side of the village. On the other side you can find a print shop, drug store, train station, saw mill, blacksmith, doctor's office, etc.! There is SO MUCH to see and explore.

The boys and I visited on a Wednesday and while it wasn't crowded at all and our interactions with the docents was very educational, not everything was open. If you don't visit often or you're from out of town, visit on a Saturday. There are more people working, more open, and often they'll have events happening so that you'll see demonstrations you otherwise would not.

The Sand Hill School House built in 1895 in Ty Ty, Georgia.

Getting water from a well at the Clark Cabin, a typical homestead from the 1870s.

Trying to come up with a way to get stray turkey feathers out of the pen. :) This is at the Cravey House, the millers near the grist mill.

The highlight of the day was meeting this gentleman, who let the boys help make grits. This is ALWAYS a hit, but this nice man took it over the top. He was kind and patient and answered all the questions that they had. The grist mill is a working water-powered mill where the GMA makes grits and cornmeal to sell. The boys got to turn the wheel to let the water through to turn the millstones and grind the grits and they helped put the wire on the sacks to close them up. They even helped stamp the "made on" date on the bags.