History is reflected in landmarks for historian Ephraim J. Rotter. Rotter serves as curator of the collection for the Thomasville History Center, cataloging and organizing their collection’s nearly 500,000 photographs and 5,000 objects.
However, his favorite part of the collection is a building that was once owned by northern banker Oliver Ewart. Inside is one of the oldest single lane bowling alleys in America, built in 1896 and lacking any modern electrical or mechanical features.
“It was a huge craze in the 1890s, and there were many of these built, but this is one of the very few left,” says Rotter.
The Center in Thomasville, Georgia, is now open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and asks that visitors follow CDC recommendations for social distancing, face coverings and hand hygiene. For visitors who would rather have an open-air experience of Thomasville’s historical sites, Rotter recommends the Self-Guided Historic Walking and Driving Tour.
Many structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places with architecture that dates back to the 1800s. Building markers indicate both the year of construction and the original business or family that occupied the structure prior to its current tenants. Rotter says that many of the homes on the tour are still private residences, so it is important to respect the owner’s privacy and admire them from a distance.
“It’s been a success story for the city and all the business owners and organizations that have contributed to making it happen,” says Rotter who highlights historic downtown as a main attraction on the tour.
The tour stretches 4.3 miles and guides visitors through Thomasville’s 84 historic homes and buildings. First published in 1978, Rotter says he joins a group of nearly twenty individuals who have contributed individual entries to the map over time.
Rotter explains how the map tells the story of Thomasville as a small southern town that boomed during the “Victorian resort era” of the late 19th century. The town allowed many northerners to not only settle in the region, but purchase land and help establish Thomasville as an economic and cultural hub.
“All the people who moved here brought different ideas,” says Rotter, who is a transplant from New Jersey.
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He first became enchanted with the region when he started his position at the Thomasville History Center over a decade ago. His interest in history reaches back even further to a fourth-grade viewing of the comedy musical, “1776” about the American Revolution.
Rotter went on to major in history at Stockton University and earned his master’s degree from Rutgers in public history. He worked for a brief period of time on the Battleship New Jersey after graduation. Rotter experienced the unique stories tucked away in the maze-like battleship museum, which proved to be a non-traditional workspace as former veterans found his offices below deck and would share stories from WWII, the Vietnam War, and more.
In one instance, a gentleman with Alzheimer’s led Rotter through parts of the ship that hadn’t been accessed in years, sharing memories from his time on the ship 50 years prior. Rotter credits these experiences and his professors at Stockton for giving him a unique approach to interpreting history beyond names and dates.
“Rather than learning periods of time, classes were based around the four governing concepts of history, which are power, nature, identity and belief,” says Rotter. “Whenever you dig into a historical event, you’ll find these four driving forces, sometimes one more than others.”
The Center has also recently partnered with the Thomasville Center of the Arts, the Jack Hadley Black History Museum, Pebble Hill Plantation and the Thomas County Public Library system to create a project where the community can donate photographs, artifacts and documents related to their experiences during the pandemic.
Rotter hopes this combined effort will not only add to Thomasville’s historical narrative but will also provide a rare opportunity for residents to actively shape their own legacy.
In light of the pandemic, and whenever faced with the present-day news cycle, Rotter always asks if it can be tied to an event that has happened before.
He’ll dig through old newspapers and digital archives, unearthing stories that can often be sorted into those four prevalent narratives—power, nature, identity, belief—and allow them to guide his interpretations. When sharing Thomasville’s history in the Center or through the walking and driving tour, the focus always remains on larger themes.
“It’s more important to me that someone walks away knowing Thomas County was a frontier town and the psychological effects of being in a frontier town, or that the antebellum economy was based on the labor of enslaved Africans and the continuing effects of that,” says Rotter. “Those facts are far more important, and those concepts help people understand Thomasville and Thomas County a lot better.”
Amanda Sieradzki is the feature writer for the Council on Culture & Arts. COCA is the capital area’s umbrella agency for arts and culture (www.tallahasseearts.org).
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