Wesleyan Methodist Campground and Tabernacle

Wesleyan Methodist Campground and Tabernacle is a three-acre camp meeting site a few blocks from downtown Ashburn, Georgia. Its main feature is a pine post-and-beam tabernacle built in 1902 by R. V. Ayers and church members. The tabernacle has a large hipped metal roof, seats about 400 people, and is open on three sides, with only the wall behind the platform enclosed. Original movable pews remain. A frame kitchen and a sleeping room with eight small chambers, both from about 1914, complete the historic group; two buildings from about 1984 do not contribute. The campground is notable as an urban example in a state where such sites were usually rural, and as a surviving place of the Wesleyan Methodist faith, uncommon in Georgia. It hosted annual summer meetings for decades, drawing several hundred people. The City of Ashburn bought it in 1984 to prevent demolition, and it serves as a community meeting place.