Like many small cities in the area, Sale City lost its local school to county system consolidation. A cotton gin burned and never was rebuilt.

The town’s bank closed during the Depression, a time when small farmers went under, a number of doctors left due to the lack of paying customers and the drug store closed when the pharmacist moved to Moultrie, Holland’s book said.

“The unincorporated area used to be real big because there were a lot of farm hands, but all those sharecroppers and everything moved away,” Holland said. “The same number of people live here (in the city) as did then, there are just fewer stores. The big stores in Camilla, Moultrie, Albany put small stores out of business. People went to (manufacturing) jobs because they got tired of living hand to mouth, crop to crop.”

The city’s population is now about the same as it was at the time of the 1910 census, which is included in Holland’s book, at about 300, she said.

Holland said she left out the town’s distasteful rumors, but the book does mention one episode that is part of the South’s legacy, the reported lynching of two black men in Sale City on Nov. 17, 1917. The book also notes that according to stories there could have been 20 to 30 similar victims.

“There are many such bizarre stories, but there is little to no proof as to whom the finger of blame can rightfully (be) pointed,” Holland wrote in the book. “Although the good folks of this fair city had their suspicions, they accepted the deeds as best they could and went about their daily routines as usual. If the victims of these tragedies had been white would the attitudes have been different?”

Holland said she has sold between 300-400 of the books out of 1,000 she had printed. She said she has had requests from former residents from Iowa, Tennessee and Texas, and even as far away as Japan.

“I didn’t go into it to be a money-making venture,” she said. “It was just something I wanted to do.”