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Community Corner

Historic Hiram Home Used in 'Footloose'

The home on Seaboard Avenue has had only a couple of changes in its 86-year history.

When the remake of the movie Footloose was filmed in Paulding County, one of Hiram’s historic homes was used in the motion picture.

“It was pretty neat,” said Kathy Bookout, who has owned the Elliott-Shipp house on Seaboard Avenue along with her husband since 2008. “This old house, it’s had a lot more attention since we had it. It’s a neat old house.”

George Stephen Elliott built the white, wooden house at 77 Seaboard Ave., just down from Hiram Elementary School, in 1926 for his wife, Emily Moon Elliott. The wood used for the house was cut from their farm on Elliott Road in Powder Springs.

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Emily Elliott passed away one year after the house was built, and George Elliott lived in the home for four years until his death in 1930. At that time, the house was passed down to his daughter and son-in-law, Garron and Thomas Mitchell. In 1934, Elliott’s daughter and executor of his will, Arah, sold the house to John W. Shipp Sr. for $700. Shipp also owned the local grocery store, which is now where The Olive Tree restaurant is located.

Shipp died in 1960 but his wife, Jewell, continued to live in the Seaboard Avenue home. When she died in 1997, her adopted grandchildren, John and Suzanne, inherited the house. In 1991, they sold the home to Lester and Montee Lindsey, and in 2008, the Lindseys sold the house to the Bookouts, the home’s current owners.

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Aside from adding in a bathroom and renovating the kitchen, the home remains untouched from when it was built at the beginning of the 20th century. The house has three bedrooms—one of which the Bookouts use as an office—1 ½ bathrooms, a living room, a dining room, a room off the back entrance and a utility room. It still has its original moldings, five fireplaces, front door and “beautiful” hardwood floors.

“It’s a neat old house,” Bookout said. “Everything in it is pretty much how it was the way it was built. That’s why we bought it. We had always wanted an older home. Usually, people have redone them and not made them correct.”

The house also has an “old time” doorbell and a wrap-around porch.

“We really enjoy it,” Bookout said. “We have friends who come to sit and talk.”

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