THOMASVILLE — Almost a century ago, two brothers founded a Thomasville company that eventually swept the nation with food products.

In 1919, brothers Howard and Joseph Flowers opened a bakery on Madison Street that is still in operation today.

Today, Flowers Foods operates 49 bakeries and has more than 10,000 employees nationwide. More than 85 percent of the U.S. population has access to Flowers’ breads and snack cakes — Nature’s Own, Sunbeam, Wonder, Merita, Dave’s Killer Bread, Cobblestone Mill, Tastykake — on supermarket bread aisles. 

Flowers Foods is seeking donations of historical items, photographs, documents and stories from the early days of Flowers Baking Company and Flowers Industries for the Flowers museum to be housed in the historic building at 135 N. Broad St. The company also is collecting stories and memorabilia about the building, which was built in 1914 as a post office and later was home to the public library and the genealogical library.

The permanent museum will be open to the public.

“We’ll have limited times when it’s open,” said Marta Jones Turner, former executive officer for Flowers Foods. 

Turner is coordinating research and design for the museum to honor the company’s 100-year history, as well of that of the community and the historic post office. 

The small museum will be housed on the main floor of the downtown building. Offices and meeting spaces occupy the structure’s second and third floors.

“We moved in the building early this year for the office and meeting space,” Turner said. 

Most corporate employees remain at the company’s U.S. 19 South headquarters, with 22 at the North Broad building.

Turner described the building — at North Broad’s intersection with Jefferson Street — as a “historic cornerstone of downtown.”

“We thought it would be a good thing for the community,” Turner said, adding that the building’s marble floors and old doors have been preserved.

Flowers Foods’ Heritage Center 100 Years of Baking exhibit, opening in early in 2019, will be an interactive graphic display telling the story of the company, its employees and the founding family. The exhibit also will include highlights from Thomasville’s history and from the history of the post office building and its uses through the decades. 

Flowers asks individuals who have memorabilia, photographs, documents and stories from Flowers Baking Company, Flowers Industries, the old post office, the library or the genealogical library to contact Turner by phone at (229) 379-3466 or e-mail marta.turner@flocorp.com.

“We appreciate items that already have been donated, including old stock certificates, a Miss Sunbeam doll, marketing materials, photos and a marble table made from the old post office countertop,” Turner said. “We still hope to find vintage employee uniforms, correspondence from early years, bakery equipment or wooden bread boxes, marketing items for Flowers’ Quality Bread or Sunbeam bread from the 1930s through 1960s and memorabilia from the historic post office building. The information we gather from old letters, documents, personal recollections, and other materials will help us tell interesting stories about the company and its employees, the Flowers family, the community and the old post office.”

Flowers acquired the old post office in 2014, and has carefully renovated the building in keeping with historic preservation guidelines. The first phase of renovation was completed early in 2017. During 2018, the exhibit space will be renovated and the centennial exhibit installed in advance of celebration events for Flowers’ anniversary in 2019.

Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 1820