Tennille was initially created as Station 13 on the Central Rail Road and Canal Company as it was built from Savannah, arriving in Macon in 1843.  The Washington County seat and established City of Sandersville was bypassed four miles to the south.  In the coming decades those four miles were covered by two competing railroads: the Sandersville and Tennille in 1876 and the Sandersville Railroad in 1894. The S & T later became the Georgia and Florida, and survived until 1934.  The Sandersville Railroad grew with the kaolin industry to become one of the most successful short line railroads in the US.

In 1883 the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad arrived, making Tennille the center of four railroads radiating five lines from the city.  Tennille thus established its importance as the commercial center of the surrounding area, with direct passenger, express and freight trains to Savannah, Augusta, Macon and Atlanta.

The downtown area was covered with a network of tracks from which the four railroads served warehouse collection and distribution points.  As well as the wholesale warehouses, there was a full complement of retail and service facilities, such as drug and grocery stores, at least three banks, a large hotel, and restaurants.  There was light industry, such as a bottling works.

The Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad and the Sandersville Railroad became nationally famous in the post World War II era for being quaint steam powered relics of a time past.  Writers and photographers such as Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg wrote about and photographed them to a world wide audience of rail fans.

The Wrightsville and Tennille office building, built in 1903, looks very much as it always has, and across the tracks is the 1869 Central Rail Road freight depot, now owned by the City and undergoing restoration as a museum and cultural center.

That this depot building was constructed in 1869 is telling of the post Civil War reconstruction period.   Tennille is the crossroads of two Civil War trails: the Sherman’s March to the Sea and Jefferson Davis Heritage Trails, with an interpretive sign planned at the Depot.  Sherman essentially destroyed all the rail facilities at Tennille, his soldiers heating and bending the iron rails around trees, which some older residents claim to have still been there in the surrounding woods when they were children.

The W & T building is one of seven Charles E. Choate designed and built structures in the City, the Tennille Baptist Church also being of particular note among these.  The church sanctuary is particularly unique and impressive for its offset orientation, decorative ceiling, and roll down partitions.

In the automobile age, Tennille continued to be an area commercial center, with at least ten active automobile service stations from the 1910’s to World War II, an amazing number of service facilities for so small a town.

Tennille looks forward optimistically to a bright future, and recognizes that its history serves as a cornerstone to that future. The linking of economic prosperity with historic preservation is the approach taken by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in its Main Street program which uses a four point program to achieve downtown revitalization:

Organization

Promotion

Design

Economic restructuring

The first three are probably self-explanatory; economic restructuring is about finding the mix of businesses for each community’s downtown which works for that community, whether it is restaurants, antique shops, book stores, coffee shops, service business or professional offices.

The Georgia Department of Community Affairs through its Office of Downtown Development has embraced this approach, and offers substantial assistance to participating Georgia communities.  The version of the Main Street approach for towns under five thousand in population, like Tennille, is the Better Hometown program.  In driving around Georgia, it is not hard to identify towns which participate in the Main Street or Better Hometown programs; the results and effectiveness of these programs in revitalizing downtowns are clearly visible.

May 15, 2009 marked the beginning date for Tennille’s official entry into the start-up phase of the Better Hometown program.  However, the Better Hometown program approach is one Tennille has been working toward for three years.

Organization.

To begin the process, the Tennille City Administration established two auxiliary organizations to work toward improving Tennille:  the Tennille Historic Preservation Commission and the Tennille Downtown Development Authority.  This began the organization phase.

In 2007, the Tennille City Council designated the Tennille Downtown Commercial Historic District.  The immediate reason was to save Tennille’s inventory of old buildings until the present or new owners can rehabilitate them.  Several of these buildings are dilapidated, and could even be called eye-sores, but they are part of Tennille’s history, and can be an important part of its future.  Once they are lost, they are lost forever.

Promotion.

The promotion phase was begun by the Tennille Downtown Development Authority, also in 2007.  First, there was the Greater Tennille Golf Classic at Twin City Country Club, which will be in its third year when it is held August 21^st.

Also in its third year when it is staged next October 16 and 17 is the Tennille BBQ Blast.  This event has been amazingly successful in promoting Downtown Tennille, and attracts support and attendance from a wide area, including well outside Washington County.  This event combines a seven category BBQ Cook-Off, awarding trophies and cash prize