Troupville no longer exists as a town, but a Historical Marker, rarely read, will tell you it was once the County Seat of Lowndes County. The government of Troupville tried to pry concessions from the railroad company to allow them to come through Troupville and so the railroad went through Valdosta whose government was willing to sell their souls to get a railroad. Valdosta flourished and Troupville became a good place for a Historical Marker.

Troupville Road still connects Quitman with a major State Route going into Valdosta, and the once sleepy little backroad is getting crowded. The road is narrow, with even slimer shoulders, but more and more houses are popping up along the twelve miles of asphalt.

An Industrial Dairy has twenty-four hours a day bright lights going on so what once was deep night no longer exists. Their machines prowl the road during the day, rutting the sides of the paved road, and causing traffic problems. Industry cannot be stopped.

Spec houses have sprung up, with subdivisions and houses with small yards here and there, eating up farmland and the wild areas, and forcing deer to feed on the side of the road, when they aren’t crashing into cars.

The state built a bridge, a concrete bridge, over Millrace Creek back in the 50s, when a lot of construction was going on in America, and that was when the Interstate projects began. They just replaced that bridge a couple of years ago, and it won’t be long before they either widen the road or four lane it.

To me, it’s an alternative route from US84, which was four laned back in the 1980s. I remember it being one of those roads if you got behind a slow-moving tractor or something like that, you might be stuck for an hour or so. Now, it’s a highway I avoid and risk tractors and deer to keep away from cell phone distracted idiots traveling at speeds unheard of back when Troupville was trying to extort the railroad.

A woman friend of mine used to ride her bike the length of Troupville Road and back again, every Sunday morning but a man followed her home one day. This was back in ’92, right after I left the area for the first time, but she called me and told me about it. She moved away not long after, in search of someplace safe for women, but unless she left the country, I do not think she found it.

When I first moved to Hickory Head over twenty-five years ago, I met a moonshiner who told me would ride his horse down Troupville road, and he’d stop at a farm to water the horse. The owner of the farm had a daughter. Eventually, the two met, and he courted the woman, and they got married. He went off to fight in World War II, and when he returned, three years later, she had a one year old child.

He never quite got over it and never went down Troupville Road again.

Take Care,

Mike