A peanut stands on a round brick pedestal beside Interstate 75 at Ashburn, Georgia, inside a gold crown lettered Georgia 1st in Peanuts. The Georgia Peanut Commission put the first one up in 1975, from a design by Arthur Riddick Smith Junior, a Valdosta architect who had grown up in Ashburn, and dedicated it to the memory of Nora Lawrence Smith, editor and publisher of the Wiregrass Farmer and the first woman elected to the Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame. That original nut was fiberglass, and a motor hidden in the pedestal turned it slowly on its axis. Hurricane Michael came through on 10 October 2018 and smashed it, leaving only the brick base standing. Other storm damage came first, then the pandemic, and the pedestal stood empty for nearly five years. The replacement was built by Cole Sercer of Sercer Machine and Fabrication in Rebecca, Georgia, working with Justin Dallas and Jake Rice over some 800 hours. It is hand formed sheet metal panels shaped on an English wheel over a steel armature, modelled on photographs of the old one, and it weighs about 5,000 pounds and stands 16 and a half feet tall. It does not rotate. The crown above it is new as well, an aluminum frame with yellow plastic panels lit from within by color changing lights. The nut was lifted onto the pedestal on 12 June 2023 and rededicated on 20 July. The rebuild cost about 82,000 dollars: 55,000 from the state department of agriculture, 12,000 from the county arts council, 10,000 from a farm credit association and the rest from a public appeal.
Getting there
31.7064, -83.6353
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