The Courthouse and Depot in Georgia is not an architectural history, but a history narrated by architecture. This is a book about small towns because the South of 1910 was small towns. It is a book about courthouses because, more than any other building of that era, courthouses symbolized the collective self-image of the townspeople. Similarly, it is a book about depots because depots symbolized the hopes for a promising future, and the neglect of these depots symbolizes the disappointment of those hopes.