By Eric Curl
Nov. 26, 2023 – The site of one of the country’s largest sales of enslaved people is now is now sitting unused one year after Dixie Plywood sold the site for more than $30 million to a shipping container transportation company.
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Zoned for light industrial uses, the property about two miles west of downtown at 204 West Old Lathrop was purchased by Tennessee-based IMC on Dec. 20 last year, according to public records. Fenced-in and surrounded by overgrown vegetation, the site now includes a vacant office building, unmanned guardhouse, empty warehouses and a water tower.
At this time, IMC has not made any decisions regarding the property and the site’s development, according to IMC’s chief marketing officer, Katie George Hooser.
“Our industry is experiencing a freight recession and we have paused much of our new spending,” Hooser said in an email on Nov. 21. “As we assess our options, we remain committed to being good citizens of Savannah and stewards of its history and plan to engage all stakeholders involved if the time comes to develop the property.”
Comprised of about 30 acres, the property acquired by IMC is not part of the controversial site directly to the north at 2305 Augusta Avenue where the Salvation Army plans to develop a homeless transitional shelter. That site, which the Salvation Army purchased from the Housing Authority of Savannah, is under dispute as to whether it was part of the original site where the Weeping Time took place and a lawsuit filed by opponents of the plan is ongoing. Meanwhile, furniture, trash and grass covered asphalt has overtaken the east end of Old West Lathrop at I-516, which divides the Salvation Army site and IMC’s property.
A consultant hired by the city to conduct an archaeological resources survey in 2021 found that the Salvation Army’s project tract was not associated with the tragedy, as reported by the Savannah Morning News. The same survey found that the site south of Old West Lathrop sold last year to IMC is the location the former Ten Broeck Race Course, where more than 400 enslaved men, women and children were auctioned off in 1859.
Named for the families that were torn apart and the heavy rain that accompanied the two-day auction, the Weeping Time is currently memorialized with a historical marker at a small park on Augusta Road about half a mile away from where the tragedy occurred. The auction was thought to be the largest sale of enslaved people in US history up until recently, when it was discovered a sale comprised of 600 people occurred in Charleston.
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