{"nrhp_refnum":"95000741","name":"Dickey-Birdsong Plantation","other_names":["Birdsong Nature Center"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Meridian Rd., off GA 93 W of Beachton","address_restricted":false,"city":"Beachton","county":"Grady County","state":"GA","lat":30.697655568000044,"lon":-84.19402118616475,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1995-06-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Conservation","Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 565-acre rural historic district near Beachton in Grady County, Georgia, near the Florida border, with a 1912 house built onto a mid-19th century dogtrot, an 1858 barn and 20th-century outbuildings. It is now partly used as the Birdsong Nature Center.","why_significant":"The property documents about a century of Dickey family farming, from cotton, corn and cane plantation agriculture through tenant farming, and preserves 19th-century journals, fields and landscape features. It also reflects the long-term wildlife conservation and ecological management begun there in 1938 by Edwin and Betty Komarek. Its surviving barn, house, pecan trees and fields illustrate both eras.","narrative":"Dickey-Birdsong Plantation is a 565-acre rural property near the Georgia-Florida line in Grady County. Its core is a frame, one-and-one-half-story house finished in 1912 by enlarging a mid-19th century dogtrot, using heart pine cut on the land. Nearby stand an 1858 barn, a pump house, a cow shed and other frame outbuildings, along with five historic fields, a 1910 pecan orchard and a champion pecan tree planted in the 1850s. The Dickey family acquired the land between 1836 and 1872 and farmed it until 1938, growing cotton, corn, sugar cane and rice, and later relying on tenant farmers. William Dickey's journals describe daily plantation work. In 1938 Edwin and Betty Komarek took over and managed the land for wildlife, creating ponds, swamp and varied habitats. Since the 1980s part of it has served as the Birdsong Nature Center, where visitors watch birds from a large window added in 1958.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Arthur Lee (built the Komarek barn and garage/office, 1942-1943)","architectural_style":"Neoclassical Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Partly in use as the Birdsong Nature Center, with 196 acres used for educational programs; the historic barn hosts nature center programs and the house contains a gift shop and natural history collection.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:43.191479-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/95000741.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95000741/cfd23975f6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/95000741/cfd23975f6-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Jud McCranie","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birdsong_Plantation,_Grady_County,_GA,_US.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jud McCranie</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birdsong_Plantation,_Grady_County,_GA,_US.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93208458","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdsong_Nature_Center","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29094503"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/grady-county/dickey-birdsong-plantation-95000741/"}