“It’s just a little hole in the road,” said Sara Cranford, lay leader at Boneville’s only church.

The community’s post office and only store have closed in the past three years. All that’s left is a Methodist church and a few scattered dwellings.

“People are still (in Boneville),” said Gail Higdon, Boneville’s last postmaster, “but what the future holds, I don’t know.”

One hundred years ago, it was a different story.

Boneville in the late 1800s to early 1900s was a resort community said to have been named for Jones Bones, an Augusta investor in the factory there.

According to the McDuffie County Driving Tour, wealthy Georgians would ride the train to Boneville during the summer to enjoy fishing and swimming and stay at the inn.

The Boneville Mill was also in its prime, having become the first incorporated industry in McDuffie County in 1872. It was erected before the Civil War as a card factory for wool and cotton and later changed to a grist mill and cotton gin, according to Historic McDuffie County, GA .

But in 1922, the Georgia Railroad discontinued Boneville’s train station, and things began to change.

“Since that time, Boneville kind of dried up — like bones,” said Jenny Lindsay, the director of the McDuffie Museum.

According to Columbia County historian Charles Lord, a bus replaced the lost stop to help residents who depended on the train for work, but it was discontinued in the 1960s.

“I remember I was working in Fort Gordon, standing in a doorway, when I saw the last bus,” Lord said. “It would bring a tear to your eye. It was like watching the passing of time.”

The community, halfway between Thomson and Dearing, is now just a remnant of the past. Only fragments are left of the historic mill, but other buildings still stand.

The old inn stands with its doors wide open and graffiti covering its walls. Legend says it’s haunted, and YouTube videos show kids in the area venturing there in search of ghosts and floating orbs.

The post office closed in 2007 because of mold infestation, a collapsing roof and brick deterioration, but it still stands by the railroad, with its windows boarded.

When it closed without warning, Higdon said customers tried to protest and preserve what was left of the community. She described it as the community’s “meeting place.”

“I miss all my friends at the post office,” said Higdon, who transferred to the Dearing post office, along with all the Boneville mail.

“When you live in a small town, everybody shares all your problems and happiness. You see children grow, and then you see them have their own children. I can still see them now, but it’s not like when I was in Boneville.” A small, green sign pointing to the Boneville historic district is the community’s only marker on U.S. Highway 78.

What used to be Boneville Grocery also closed after its owners, Tommy and May Sue Clark, died last year.

The Boneville Methodist Church, which has been open since 1902, is down to fewer than 10 regular attendees, but members said they’re determined to keep it alive.

“We’ve always been able to do something to keep the doors open,” Otis Freeman said, standing amid leftover churchyard sale items.

“We had something recently where we got down to the brass tacks, but everything just seemed to fall into place.”

The church has been relying on rotating lay speakers since 2004. Freeman’s daughter has been the pianist since she was 13.

“There are times she isn’t there because she’s a nurse,” Freeman said of his daughter. “Sometimes she has to work Saturday nights, so we just sing a cappella.”

Although many consider Boneville a “ghost town,” 80-year-old Harold Harbin still calls it home.

He described the Boneville of his youth as an “active, close-knit community” that never had a population of more than 150.

He recalled how active the pond was in the summer and how the young boys would gather to play baseball in the afternoon.

At a time when the highway still went through the community, there were three stores and Harbin recalled traveling salesmen stopping in the area for several days to work the Boneville stores.

“Of course, the history of time deteriorated and it never did grow from there,” he said. “All the old people died out.”

Without new residents coming in, Harbin said there’s little hope for the community to return to the one he knew as a child, but that doesn’t affect the place that Boneville holds in Harbin’s heart.

His own children moved away years ago, but he said he understood.

“There’s nothing here for them,” he said with a grin.

“It would be nice if we could put it back on the map,” said Higdon, a 30-year Boneville resident. “That’s what my desire would be — to go back to Boneville, have a post office there and build it up.”