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Southern city makes incredible transformation from 'ghost town' to booming tourist hotspot that may soon be home to state's first national park
The Georgian city of Macon has gone under an incredible transformation, after years as a ghost town to a now booming tourism hotspot.
The city, located in central Georgia, which is known for its rich history, architecture and Southern charm, is well known as a music destination.
With around seven art galleries, 40 theaters and bars, 52 restaurants and 37 shops and boutiques, the city has gone under significant revitalization
In recent years, the city has learned hard into its musical heritage and opened attractions highlighting its ties to artists like Little Richard, Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers.
The Otis Redding Foundation was formed in 2007, a museum dedicated to the Allman Brothers dubbed 'The Big House opened in 2009. While Little Richard's childhood home also opened as a community center in 2019.
In recent years, the city has learned hard into its musical heritage and opened attractions highlighting its ties to big name artists
Little Richard, born Richard Wayne Penniman, was born in the city, while Redding moved there at a young age.
The Otis Redding Foundation are set to expand their museum next year, according to his daughter Karla Redding-Andrews.
She told CNN: 'Everything is just really popping and growing in downtown Macon', adding that had her father not died in a 1967 plane crash he'd have stayed in the city.
She added: 'He would remain right here, his offices were located at 535 Cotton Avenue, which is about four blocks from here.
He would be an integral part of walking these streets every day, inspiring young people in our programs and in the school system.'
Redding had performed early in his career at the now restored Douglass Theater, which also showcased talent like James Brown, Ma Rainey and Little Richard.
After local man Phil Walden formed Capricorn Records, Duane Allman assembled his band and moved to Macon to work with Capricorn.
The Otis Redding Foundation are set to expand their museum next year, according to his daughter Karla Redding-Andrews. Redding is seen here
The city, located in central Georgia, known for its rich history, architecture and Southern charm is well known as a music destination
Visitors are now able to visit their studios and a museum that is loaded with memorabilia and information.
The Allman Brothers nearby Big House Museum is inside a Tudor house in which some of the band lived in from 1970 to 1973.
It is now full of memorabilia and personal belongings and run by executive director Richard Brent.
Brent told CNN he moved to the city in 2007 as a construction manager before volunteering at the museum to now running it.
He said: 'When I first got here, Macon was a ghost town. I traded in a hardhat for some AC and rock 'n' roll music.
'If you leave the real world out there, you can come in here and you just feel like it's 1970 all over again.'
Brent said the musical history has now become a 'backbone of the city' and help push its revitalization and tourism.
The Allman Brothers, seen here in Macon in 1969, Big House Museum is inside a Tudor house in Macon in which some of the band lived in from 1970 to 1973
In April, officials unveiled markers telling the long scarcely mentioned history of Macon's 1800s slave markets
Richard was known for his outlandish looks, sporting androgynous fashion that would become the norms for mainstream acts like David Bowie. Pictured in London in 1972
The city may also be soon on the verge of having Georgia's first national park at Ocmulgee Mounds.
Georgia is currently home to 49 state parks, 17 historic sites, a National Seashore but never a National Park.
A proposal to re-designate and expand The Ocmulgee Mounds Historic Site located across the river from the city could change that.
With a bipartisan bill moving through the US Congress, President Biden could pass the bill giving the state its first national park.
Congress had created the Ocmulgee monument in 1934 and the site has since expanded and re-designated as a National Historic Site.
It protects a prehistoric Native American site that was occupied by multiple different cultures some thousands of years ago. Those people constructed mounds which still stand today.
Descendants of the mounds' builders, the Muscogee, were removed to Oklahoma hundreds of years later in the 1830s.
The remains of a funeral mound at the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Macon
With a bipartisan bill moving through the US Congress, President Biden could pass the bill giving the state its first national park
The entrance to the Earth Lodge, where Native Americans held council meetings for 1,000 years until their forced removal in the 1820s,
Such a push for a National Park would only enhance the amount of tourism and foot traffic coming into Macon, which has already been pushing historic tourism.
In April, officials unveiled markers telling the long scarcely mentioned history of Macon's 1800s slave markets.
The historic area in downtown Macon was known as the Cotton Avenue District, a hub for African American owned businesses known colloquially as Macon's 'black wall street'.
Tracie Revis, director for the Ocmulgee National Park & Preserve Initiative, told CNN: 'Macon is really at a time where they're saying we need to really reconcile our history, and we need to honor all parts of it, good and bad.'
Revis added that after the Muscogee were removed and taken to Oklahoma, the site became a slave plantation.
He added: 'So it's knowing that this one story led into another story which led into the founding of this area. And it's reconciling all of those histories
'That includes the indigenous story that we kind of erased and bring that back to life and allow the people who went through that to tell their own story.'