Archaeological Survey of the Proposed 19th Street Extension and Widening Project, Columbus-Muscogee County, Georgia

Close visual inspection guided by copies of various nineteenth and twentieth century maps, coupled with the excavation of a small number of shovel tests allowed an assessment of the archeological potential of the project area. The maps and other archival sources had provided a very clear and detailed record of what structures once existed in the project area. To simplify, large houses began appearing within and in the vicinity of the eastern half of the project corridor (from 5th Ave. to Talbotton Road) by the 1870s, but this area has been very heavily impacted by mid-twentieth century development and urban renewal. The western half of the project (west of 5th Ave.) developed as an area of low income residential housing in the early to mid-twentieth century. Many of these small houses (a mixture of bungalows and shotguns) have been razed in the past two decades. In such a densely packed residential setting it is difficult to identify and isolate archeological sites; a one-to-one correspondence of former houses to sites is impractical. We have identified four sites, some of which are the locations of multiple houses closely grouped. Others are individual houses. Mainly because of severe disturbance, but also because of a lack of future archeological research potential, we recommend that none of the sites encountered by this survey are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. We conclude that no potentially eligible archeological resources exist in the proposed project area.