Location: 405 Raney St., Ashburn, GA
Date: May 18, 2026

The home at 405 Raney Street in Ashburn has a history of Ashburn’s early years of travel, commerce, and family life.

According to the current owners, the boarding house was known as Drummer’s Inn. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a “drummer” was the common term for a traveling salesman who journeyed from town to town promoting goods to local merchants on behalf of wholesalers. These salesmen often traveled by train or carriage, stopping in communities like Ashburn to take orders and build business relationships. Boarding houses such as this one provided a convenient place for them to stay while in town.

The house was originally built in 1909. Former Turner County resident and historian David Baldwin recalls that the house once looked quite different: “At one time, that house was two stories,” Baldwin said. “My great-grandmama, Ola Jackson (1866–1949), ran a boarding house there. One night, it caught on fire, so they removed the top floor, and it became a single-story house. After she passed away, Porter Hudson (1884–1958) and my Aunt Marion [Marion Jackson Hudson] (1890–1958), my grandmama’s sister – lived there.” It was in the early 1920s that this fire occurred.

Rather than rebuilding the entire second story, the upper level was removed, leaving the one-story home that stands today. Remnants of that fire can still be seen more than a century later. Current owner Roger Jones notes that pieces of the original structure remain visible in the attic. “If you go up in my attic, there are charred 2×12s from the fire you can still see,” he said.

Though its appearance changed after the fire, the house remains a tangible link to Ashburn’s past, when traveling salesmen passed through town, and local homes often doubled as welcoming places for visitors on the road.

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