She graduated from The University of Georgia in 1971. She grew up working on her family’s farm in Mitchell County in southwest Georgia. “We’ve worked very fast to get the farm and barns looking their best,” said Pam Shirah NeSmith, who has always been one to roll up her sleeves and work. As chair for the Georgia Trust Ramble in Athens, she worked with Tucker Plantation in planning a tour and dinner at Smithonia. He converted the biggest barn into an event space.Īnd that new business is what lured NeSmith to Tucker Plantation in 2006. Then, in 2000, Jewett Tucker bought the barns and surrounding acreage from Rogers. The most notable deed holder was country recording artist Kenny Rogers, who assembled 18 tracts in the 1980s to amass about 2,000 acres.įor a while, The University of Georgia leased the brick barns for its equine breeding operation. They fall in love with the history and beauty of HSF at first sight.Īfter Smith died, the property was broken into multiple tracts and passed through many hands. Dozens of brides and grooms have since said their vows in the barn, the courtyard, the pasture or under the 200-year-old laurel oak by the lake. 12, 2012, she purchased the three barns, including 223 acres, and selected a new name: Historic Smithonia Farm, LLC.

Smith died in 1915, but his legacy lives on through legendary lore and impressive structures he built on the rolling land.Īnd now, a century later, Pam NeSmith wants to revive the magic that Smith started. Smithonia boasted a hotel, schools, commissary, post office, two railroad lines, his mansion and hundreds of other structures, including three mammoth brick barns. On the 16,000 acres in Madison and Oglethorpe counties - the headquarters of his diversified agricultural and manufacturing operations - he carved a community. Cotton was king, and he was definitely Georgia’s King of Cotton. He may have been the largest farmer in America. Jim Smith’s holdings were estimated to be 80,000 acres. That may have been the same way James Monroe Smith felt when he purchased the land in the late 1800s and turned it into a masterpiece of agriculture and manufacturing in northern Oglethorpe County.Īt the height of his career, Col.

The former chair of Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation admits, “It was love at first sight.” When Pam NeSmith first visited Smithonia, she was awestruck by its beauty and history.

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