Colbert Historic District

Colbert is a small railroad town in rural Madison County, Georgia, about ten miles east of Athens. Its historic district preserves the town's core, laid out as a gridiron at right angles to the railroad tracks. The area includes a row of five brick commercial buildings, an 1892 wood-framed depot, the 1892 Glenn Hotel, small warehouses, a livery stable, and a residential neighborhood of mostly one-story late-Victorian cottages. Notable homes include the mid-nineteenth-century Hardman house, the Neoclassical Hampton house of 1906, and the Gaulding farmhouse known as Twelve Oaks, with its commissary. Most buildings date from the 1890s to the 1920s, a period that began with the railroad's arrival in 1892 and ended when the boll weevil damaged the cotton economy. Together, these buildings show how commerce, transportation, housing and farming fit together in a Piedmont railroad town. The district was recognized for its architecture, planning, commerce, transportation and ties to local leaders.