Homer Historic District

Homer is a small county-seat town in Banks County, Georgia, and its central 57 acres hold a varied group of buildings from the mid-1800s to the 1930s. The town was incorporated in 1859 on land donated by William Turk, with sites set aside for a courthouse, jail, school and three churches. It grew on a gridiron plan on a level plateau. The district includes the Greek Revival courthouse, begun in 1860 and completed in 1875, a Gothic-style jail, a row of simple frame Plantation Plain stores, Victorian-eclectic houses and churches, and a Craftsman house built in 1918. Open spaces include the courthouse square with its early well house, Veterans' Park and several cemeteries. Homer was bypassed by the railroad in the late 1880s, but a federal highway reached it by the 1920s and encouraged growth. Its role as county seat, its architecture, its planned layout and its landscape are the main reasons it was listed.