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Long-lost mural found during revitalization project in Georgia

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Aug. 31 (UPI) -- A revitalization group doing work on a narrow building in Georgia made a surprising discovery: a mural that could date back as far as the 1930s.

DREAM Streets Sparta, a branch of the Hancock County Historic Preservation commission, revealed in a Facebook post that work was being done recently on a narrow building between the Hattaways and Dickens buildings on Broad Street in Sparta when the mural was found.

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Karen West, project manager for DREAM Streets Sparta, said the building was created in 1909 by covering a narrow alleyway. She said the building was a barber shop owned by three generations of the same Black family until it closed in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

"I had to sit down and cry -- happy tears! It was so beautiful and so unexpected," West told WMAZ-TV of the mural's discovery. "It could've been done as early as the 1930s, it could've been done as late as the 1970s."

West said she is not sure if the mural, a folk art rendition of a landscape, is complete, but it covers both walls of the building.

West said DREAM Streets Sparta has identified three possible artists who may have been behind the mural, and two are still alive.

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