Near a crossroads in Monroe County, two men got to arguing over a cockfight. One pushed the other, and as he stumbled back, he tripped over a box, breaking his ankle. This is allegedly how this community earned its name.
Centered at the intersection of Box Ankle and Johnstonville Roads, story has it the community once had two stores, one run by a Mr. Matt Darden and the other by Mr. Wesley Ivey. The Iveys are still in Box Ankle, though the store is long gone. Until recently, Mayfield’s Grocery still stood at one corner; Vanishing North Georgia has a good picture of what was left of the store. The photo above is from our most recent visit, when we discovered the structure had been leveled. Across from the stores stood the Castelberry School at one point. Remember that name, because it will come up in another post from Monroe County, another old town that is mostly gone.
There’s not much to tell about this community other than the humorous story of how it got its name. The area remains populated, though the only remnants of the old days are a couple of signs you might see along the side of the road if you’re looking carefully enough and the name of the road crossing that intersection as you come down Johnstonville Rd. It merely serves as a reminder that once upon a time, not all that long ago, our state looked very different from the way it does today.
Now, this isn’t the only community to bear the name Box Ankle in the state, and sometimes people can get the stories of these two areas confused, as they are pretty similar. The other one was in Stewart County, in the town of Richland, which was once called Chisholm. The story here was that a drunken man stumbled over a box and broke his own ankle, no fighting involved. These two communities in different parts of the state share a nickname, complete with similar stories of how the name was acquired. Chisholm and Richland are definitely not in Monroe County, and maybe one day, we’ll find ourselves down there, taking pictures and sharing what we find on our travels through Nowhere, GA.
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Nowhere, GA 