For those who remembered picking tobacco by hand, or the smell of the cured leaves in the old auction warehouses, the timing of Lee Waters’ presentation about the history of tobacco production, both generally and within Bulloch County, could hardly have been more appropriate. It was the middle of a Monday in late July when Waters, one of the youngest members of the Bulloch County Historical Society and now its secretary, shared his research with a slideshow. The organization’s new president, Tyson Davis, had just noted that although hot, that Monday would likely be the coolest day of a week when heat index values would rise above 105. “This crop, I know most of this for me is learning about the past, but I know that for many of y’all it was your livelihood,” Waters said. “It was the crop that fueled the Bulloch County economy. Before Erk Russell … got to Statesboro and Georgia Southern took off, this is what paid the bills in Bulloch County.” In his mother’s side of the family were farmers near Register who grew tobacco, and his father’s family operated, and still does, L.A. Waters furniture, started by the presenter’s great-grandfather, and expanded by his grandfather, Si Waters. Lee Waters works in the family furniture business but maintains an interest in farming, and noted that even the furniture side of things benefited from the summer tobacco market season in its peak years. “Granddaddy talks about that’s when bills got paid,” he said. “Farmers would say, ‘We don’t…
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