There are no hugely famous historic sites or events held in Warrenton. No one really, really famous ever came from Warrenton. There are no nationally known cultural events that happen there, like the Woodstock festival or the annual ceremony in Punxsutawney, Pa., to see whether the groundhog named Phil stays in his hole on Feb. 2.
Warrenton has a population of about 2,000 people. It has one real red light and one blinking red light, each on opposite ends of town from each other.
And it's not really near anything, either. Augusta, Ga., is a good hour's drive away, Macon and Athens are more like 90 minutes, and Atlanta is a good two hours.
But even though you've never heard of Warrenton, I can bet that wherever you live in the United States, there's a little bit of Warrenton in your community.
You know those blue metal mailboxes the Postal Service has on street corners and outside buildings? The ones where you pull down the little metal handle on the flap and throw your letter inside? Think for a second about the last one you passed, either coming or going from work, or while you were out grocery shopping, or even when you walked past the Post Office yesterday.
The next time you go past that blue box, look at the sides, down at the bottom. I'll bet you money that you'll see stamped there these words:
JEBCO
WARRENTON, GA.
You see, Jebco is a manufacturing plant in Warrenton -- been there since the 1950s -- that basically makes things out of sheet metal. At different times, they've made just about everything you can imagine being made out of sheet metal, including metal cash boxes, what had to be the world's sturdiest (and heaviest) office furniture (my parents' house was filled with Jebco factory rejects that would likely have protected us from, say, a nuclear attack), and most recently, parts for barbecue grills.
But the thing that was Jebco's bread and butter for many, many years were those blue mailboxes, made under contract for the U.S. Postal Service -- 750,000 of them churned out in Warrenton, according to Jebco's own online estimate.
Those 750,000 mailboxes from tiny Warrenton, Ga., are now all over America.
And, no matter where you live, they're in your town.
I have seen Jebco mailboxes in New York City.
I have seen Jebco mailboxes in San Francisco.
I have seen Jebco mailboxes in Miami and Tampa, Fla.
I have seen them in Houston, Texas, in Indianapolis, Ind., in Nashville, Tenn., and in Asheville, N.C.
From sea to shining sea, from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam, millions of Americans put their mail into a Jebco mailbox every day.
My grandparents were still fairly recent newcomers to Warrenton when Jebco -- then called Knox-Warrenton -- opened in 1956, and my grandfather, who as the son of a blacksmith knew a bit about metalworking, went to work there. He worked there for almost 40 years, retiring not long before his death in 1994.
When he died, we buried him not in his Sunday best but in his navy blue Jebco work uniform -- blue pants, blue shirt with his last name over the breast pocket.
My mother also worked two stints in Jebco's front office as a clerical worker, and my uncle worked there over the summer while getting his business degree at UGA, running a spot welder. But when I think about Jebco, I think about my granddad, who worked there even longer than I have been alive today.
And when I travel and go to strange places, everywhere I go, I see blue mailboxes. And I look down on the bottoms of the sides I see this:
JEBCO
WARRENTON, GA.
And it's like a little piece of him is following me.
