UNION POINT
The City of Union Point received a 2022 Historic Preservation Fund Grant, administered by the Georgia Historic Preservation Division, financed in part with funds from the National Park Service. They commissioned LPC to complete a Phase 1 - Historic Resources Survey in Union Point that included a total of 312 historic resources to include 303 buildings, 2 structures, 6 objects, 2 sites, and zero landscape features constructed before 1983 within the city limits. Consulting services included: archival research, oral history interviews, community outreach meeting, field survey of resources over forty years of age, and a survey report following state survey guidelines.
By examining the list of resources surveyed within the boundaries, several periods of development were revealed spanning a hundred and eighty years, with the highest number of resources from 1900 to 1979. The highest concentration of buildings that remain coincides with national trends such as the railroad, post-World War II housing boom and suburban expansion, and local influences such as the industrial boom of processing and storing of cotton, peanuts, and pecans, and lastly the creation and expansion of bridges to cross the Ocmulgee River to the east. The city’s development can largely be attributed to the establishment of the Georgia Railroad’s turnpike lines in the 1830s and the establishment of Union Manufacturing Company at the end of the nineteenth century. Both the railroad and the mill came at key economic points in the city’s history helping boost the city’s economy and population.
Previous Historic Resource Survey work for the City of Union Point was completed by the University of Georgia’s FindIt Historic Resource Survey Partnership in 2009. This survey included approximately 76 resources within Union Point, 73 of which were included in LPC’s 2023 survey of the city. Of the three resources that were not resurveyed, one resource sits outside of LPC’s boundaries, one resource did not meet the 40 year age criteria, and the third parcel does not exist and is assumed that the address to this entry is incorrect. One industrial complex and one historic district have been listed on the National Register for Historic Places. These properties include: Union Manufacturing Company (NRHP #89000026), and Union Point Historic District (NRHP #90002100).
