Dr. Buchanan Created Popular Recreation Area for Charlton

"Dixie Lake"! The name has a rhythmical ring to it. Now it's just a residential settlement west of downtown Folkston. Few know the money and heartaches that went into the projects of an Ohio doctor who first arrived in Folkston on September 1, 1916. Doctor J. W. Buchanan would begin an eighteen-year experience in Folkston, Homeland, and Charlton County that would end with his death on November 9, 1934.

Dr. Buchanan boarded a southbound passenger train in his hometown of Wooster, Ohio heading to Folkston, Georgia, a town he had heard of from some of the fifty-six families from Ohio that had settled in nearby Nahunta, Georgia.  They had urged Buchanan to follow them south to the "land of opportunity."

Buchanan was only 56 years old when he arrived in Folkston. He had practiced medicine in Wooster for 30 years, accumulating a substantial fortune, but more importantly, his favorite aunt was Mrs. Jacob Firestone of Spencer, Ohio, a wealthy member of the Harvey Firestone family, founders of Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and one of the nation's richest men. Many would say Dr. Buchanan was spending some of the Firestone fortune with his economic ventures in Charlton County.

The night the portly Buchanan got off the train at the Folkston railroad depot was cool and damp. He grabbed up a grip in each hand and headed across the town's Main Street toward the Hotel Arnold to put up for the night. A crowd had gathered in the hotel's lobby that night, and Buchanan chose to move a block further down the street to the gleaming, white, Central Hotel.

The hotel's operator, Mrs. Charles Sikes met Buchanan at the registration desk. She had only recently taken over the business, and was eager to register as many guests as she could.

Buchanan told her he would be staying several days.

Thus began almost a quarter-century of spending in Charlton County for the Ohio doctor. In the dining room of the Central Hotel that night, Dr. Buchanan learned that the county's newspaper, The Charlton County Herald, had just changed hand on that very day. Mrs. J. W. Robinson and her husband, of Elred, Florida had bought the newspaper from Tom Wrench.

Two months after first arriving in Folkston, Buchanan began buying up farmland west of Folkston. On this land would be his Dixie Lake Dairy. He spent weeks-riding railroad cars to numbers of towns in Florida, buying up prize bulls and cows for his dairy. Dr. Buchanan, always one to find the most competent help he could, imported a native of Switzerland, C. J. Klumph, who bred prize Jersey Bulls, to run his dairy farm. Even though there was no electricity available at the time, the ambitious doctor bought electric milking machines. Current furnished by gasoline engines would operate them. The dairy showed a profit only when Buchanan and Klumph sold off some of their prize bulls.

Soon, Buchanan would begin his dream, building Dixie Lake itself and in conjunction with it, the county's first swimming pool. Buchanan bought lands at Clay Branch, a half-mile west of Folkston, owned by Abraham Ponce, and once operated as a small grits mill. The site held the remains of an earthen dam that had been built 75 years earlier.

Buchanan began his Dixie Lake project by using dynamite to blast out a huge hole in the clay soil. Men with shovels labored for months to fashion out Dixie Lake. Buchanan's money flowed like wine.

With the lake taking shape, Buchanan decided to build a large community swimming pool adjoining the lake. Buchanan rapidly became one of the county's more popular businessmen. His Dixie Lake Dairy supplied housewives with milk, butter and ice cream. On his Dixie Lake, ten rowboats afforded people of the town with countless afternoons of boating pleasures and his Dixie Lake Swimming Pool endeared him to the county's young. 

Buchanan chose to develop a large pecan grove, sending to west Georgia and Alabama for the finest young pecan trees. He developed a 210-acre pecan grove that became the envy of the state.

With the nation getting into World War One, Buchanan was called upon to lead patriotic parades to spur military enlistments. The people of the county wanted to celebrate July 4, 1917 as never before. Buchanan responded, gathering brass bands, what few automobiles that were available, including Dr. A. D. Williams' new Overland sedan and Ben Scott's shiny new Buick. The automobiles were decked out in red, white and blue bunting. Horses in the parade, likewise, were wrapped in colorful bunting.

On that July 4, 1917, there was no one more popular with the people of Charlton County than Dr. J. W. Buchanan. Buchanan relished the warm friendship heaped upon him, a northerner, by the people of the area. On that July 4, he opened his Dixie Lake and swimming pool at no charge. Ice cream from his Dixie Lake Dairy was served free to all that would have some.

Buchanan then became obsessed with airplanes. He bought land between Folkston and Homeland and developed an airport. Buchanan hired pilots from Atlanta to move to Folkston to provide rides over the Okefenokee Swamp. To run the airport venture, he hired a man who called himself "Count DeWay". Deway caused commotion's in Folkston when he rode his prancing walking horse along the dirt Main Street, dressed out in fashionable riding clothes  and holding a riding crop under his arm. A giant airplane hangar was built at the airport, used for airplanes and for holding boxing matches among the locals. The hangar would be destroyed by a wildfire in the 1930s.

In retrospect, it turned out that DeWay, whom some called a con man, helped Buchanan run through hundreds of thousands of dollars on the airport project. Buchanan's money, and perhaps some of the Firestone's too, began to reach the bottom of the barrel

Then, the luck of Dr. Buchanan began to change; for the worse. A typhoid fever epidemic struck Charlton county causing many deaths. Dr. Buchanan's Dixie Lake was blamed for breeding mosquitoes, which the residents thought responsible for the fever. Buchanan was criticized in the weekly newspaper for allowing the mosquitoes to breed. He responded in subsequent issues, reminding readers of their own unsanitary outhouses, garbage dumps and privies, and citing evidence that his lake had no mosquitoes.

Then, too add insult to injury, a severe hurricane worked its way up the coast north from Florida, bringing deluges of rain and wind ahead of it to Charlton County. Weeks of rain undermined the soil at Buchanan's Dixie Lake swimming pool, and after a few days, the dam broke, the walls of the swimming pool crumbled, and the dreams of Dr. J. W. Buchanan were dashed against the driving winds of the tropical hurricane.

The health of Dr. Buchanan began to deteriorate, and his son, Clarence, moved down from Ohio to help his struggling father. Dr. Buchanan's wife and daughters however, remained in Wooster.

Clarence Buchanan began to wind down his father's projects. He continued to dip gum from the pine trees, but soon began to dispose of his property. Many of the land holdings were sold to the Firestone family, and some were sold at public auction in front of the Charlton County Courthouse.

Dr. Buchanan died on November 9, 1934. His body was returned to his native Wooster, Ohio for burial, but the forward-looking projects of the Ohio physician excited Charlton County residents for 18 years. Locals speculate that Dr. Buchanan spent millions on his Charlton County projects, much of it during the Great Depression.

The ventures of the stocky-friendly doctor , J. W. Buchanan, from Wooster, Ohio are mentioned now only infrequently. Few recall the beginning of Dixie Lake and its accompanying projects, the visions of an ambitious man who sought adventure and lost his fortune in the pinelands of Charlton County.