Production of a documentary on the lost town of Zirkle is currently underway.
Once a thriving lumber town, Zirkle was founded around 1904 and was first known as Dixon Siding on the Alabama, Brunswick and Birmingham Railroad.
Located on the Little Satilla River off Georgia Highway 32 between Patterson and Hortense, the town was eventually named Zirkle for local timber baron L.A. Zirkle who owned a sawmill there.
The community sprang up around the Zirkle Lumber Company and was once the second largest city in Pierce County with between 400500 residents. About 300 employees are estimated to have worked at the saw mill. It featured a sawmill, post office, commissary, residential area and cemetery and had its own currency.
A steel dam was erected across the river in 1918. The town died out after sawmill production ended there in 1926.
The dam is one of the only remaining traces of Zirkle.
Local photographer and Satilla River enthusiast Wayne Morgan is an executive producer of the project. Gavin Roberson is also a producer.
Georgia Filmworks, owned by D.S. Luke and James Sauls, both Pierce County natives, will produce the documentary.
“Wayne’s knowledge and love of Zirkle and its history is well known. Zirkle has been one of his favorite places to photograph and he even named one of his coffee table books after the place,” said Luke and Sauls.
The group is still looking to find out more about Zirkle. Efforts are underway to locate living descendants of the Zirkle family.
Morgan is also still trying to determine the exact location of the town cemetery, which so far has not been found.
Anyone with information they believe may help with this ongoing project, are asked to email wmorganphoto@ hotmail.com or call (912) 288-0810.
