It’s a filmmaker’s dream that shares a past with America’s First Lady and now a place among the state’s most fragile historic sites.
The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation named the 90-acre Village of Rex to its sixth annual 10 Places in Peril list Wednesday. The designation isn't a form of rescue, but does bring public attention to places of historic or architectural merit that are at risk.
“It’s the boost that Rex needs so badly,” said Rex resident and business owner Paul Abraham who also serves as chair of the Historical Rex Village Association.“ We can get the funds that can help preserve some of the things in Rex.”
About two dozen families live in the village which is in the northeast corner of Clayton County.
The village, which dates to the early 1800s, was one of three Metro Atlanta sites named to the Trust’s 2011 list. The Craigie House, a deteriorating building across from the Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta, made the list. It is the second oldest Daughter of the American Revolution building in America. The Medical Arts Building near the I-75/I-85 connector was pivotal to Atlanta’s growth as a major medical center also earned a spot on the list.
Sites are nominated by individuals or historic and preservation groups. Members of the Trust visit the sites as part of their evaluation. Action plans are then set for each site that makes the list.
“I personally visited the Village of Rex and was extremely moved by the 19th century landscape that I saw there,” said Mark McDonald, president and chief executive of the Georgia Trust. “It’s a very intact scenic village that has all kinds of potential as a place to live, an arts community. It has a remarkable amount of charm. McDonald was smitten by the old bridge, cotton gin, mill with working water wheel and storefronts that look like scenes “right out of a movie from a place that time has forgotten.”
“It’s everything you’d look for in a southern setting, “ he said. “ It’d be a great site for a film.”
“What gives it some extra punch,” McDonald added “ is its connection with Michelle Obama’s ancestor.”
The village gained national attention a year ago when genealogists discovered Obama’s great-great-great grandmother, Melvinia, was a slave girl on a 200-acre farm just outside the village in the 1850s.
Hopefully, the designation will help the village attract a developer or investor who would respect the historic integrity of the community, McDonald said.
The village’s isolation is both its charm and its challenge.
“No one knows about it,” McDonald said. “So the awareness being brought to bear by the listing would bring knowledge of Rex’s existence and the opportunity that is there.”
The list helps raise awareness about the state’s historic, archaeological and culture sites throughout the states that are threatened by demolition, neglect or poor development policies. Founded in 1973, the Trust is the state’s nonprofit historic preservation group. It will help the sites on the list through programs and grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and other charitable groups in Georgia.
Folk artist Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden in the northwest Georgia county of Chatooga made last year’s list and since then art lovers have worked to clean and preserve art works at the site. That prompted Chatooga County to apply for grants to buy the site and turn it into a historic public place, McDonald said.
Other sites that made the new list include Zion Church in Talbotton; John Ross House in Rossville; Harrington School in St. Simons Island; Fairview Colored School in Cave Spring; Martin House in Columbus; historic buildings of Sparta in Hancock County and Berrien County Courthouse in Nashville.
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