Funston, GA

Funston grew from a planned settlement in Colquitt County, with its first town lots and industries laid out together. In 1898 the community was known as Touchton, and W. H. Spivey laid out a town around a sawmill, planing mill, grist mill, general store, and his home. He donated land for schools, churches, a park, and a cemetery, giving the place a civic shape before the city charter arrived in 1906. A post office followed soon after, tying the new town into the wider South Georgia farm network.

ATTRMichael Rivera / CC BY-SA 3.0

Georgia Highway 37 changed the rhythm again when the first paved road through Funston opened in 1932. The route connected the town with Moultrie and the surrounding Colquitt County agricultural belt, while the churches and cemetery kept older neighborhood lines visible. Funston United Methodist Church traces its congregation to services held at the Union schoolhouse in the early 1900s; its first frame church opened in 1905 and the present brick sanctuary followed in 1950. Funston remains a small town with a deliberate beginning, a highway through its center, and a landscape shaped by fields, timber, and the institutions Spivey set aside land to build.