Interesting Fort Valley History:

Fort Valley is one of the few cities in Georgia that still has 3 Railroad Buildings - The Passenger terminal, the Freight building, and the Switching station.

The Fort Valley Ice Plant:

The Atlantic Ice and Coal Co. built a new million dollar ice plant in Fort Valley in 1925 which produced 50,000 tons of ice to cool 17,200 railroad cars filled with peaches. At the time it was built, it was the largest ice plant in the world.

According to local peach grower Bill McGeehee (Big 6 Packing Company), and local historian Wallis Hardeman, the 17,200 railroad cars were the equivalent of about 9,000 truckloads of peaches (one railroad car averaged 400 bushels of peaches). Today growers ship approximately 1,500 to 2,000 truckloads of peaches per year.

In the 1950s and '60s, 400-pound blocks of ice were still used to "hydrocool" (cold water wash) peaches before they were washed, graded, packed, and loaded on trucks for shipment. Every local packing house ran trucks to and from the ice plant to constantly replenish the huge hydrocoolers. Modern-day refrigerated trucks and railroad cars have eliminated the need for ice houses and hydrocoolers.