North GA Mountains History Center

10/19/2026

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1984 Blue Ridge, Fannin County, Georgia. Wells and West Shopping Center Hwy 76. A loose photo donated to the Baugh House Museum. - Danny Mashburn

10/07/2026

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🍂 Georgia's second oldest state park was a gift from two leather men in Milwaukee who never lived here.

August and Fred Vogel ran a tannery in Wisconsin, and tanning hide in those days meant bark. Ground bark from chestnut oak and other mountain hardwoods was the source of the tannin that turned a raw hide into leather, so northern tanneries bought up southern mountain timberland to keep the process fed. The Vogels owned a stretch of it in Union County with a lumber mill running on it.

When the mill shut down in 1927 they did not sell the land. They gave it to Georgia. In 1931 it opened as a state park, the second in the state, and it still carries their name.

What it looks like today was built by hand in the Depression. In June of 1933, Company 431 of the Civilian Conservation Corps moved in. Those were young unmarried men, most of them between eighteen and twenty five, sending nearly all of their pay home to their families. They dammed Wolf Creek to make the 22 acre lake, cut the trails, laid the stone, and put up cabins and campgrounds that people are still sleeping in almost a century later.

By 1937 the same crews had finished the stone building up at Neel Gap, which ran as an inn and a restaurant until 1965 and went on the National Register in 1977.

That is the photograph here. The lodge, the gatepost, and the cars of people who drove up for the day.

A tannery closes in Wisconsin and a Georgia family gets somewhere to take their children for the next ninety five years. That is a strange chain of events to end up with something this good.

Which Georgia state park did your family go to when you were growing up?

Photo: Tennessee Valley Authority, National Archives

10/06/2026

Earthen mounds still rising above the fields mark where Georgia's Native American communities once farmed and built.

10/06/2026

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April 1951 - New bridge across the Chattahoochee River is nearing completion. Four-lane stretch of new highway to Marietta will end at this point.

Photo Courtesy of (Sandy Sanders / AJC)

10/03/2026

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Another view of Stuckey's Candy Shop Tallulah Falls facing North just before the bridge. Real Photo Postcard postmarked 1952. Gas pumps.

10/03/2026

WHEN ELECTRICITY CAME TO CHEROKEE COUNTY

Cherokee County, GA:

Long before Cherokee County was covered with power lines, electricity was a new and exciting technology that was slowly making its way into local communities.

In 1901, The Cherokee Advance reported that Capt. Brady had electric lights installed at his office, residence and store connected with the marble works in Canton. The newspaper predicted that it would not be long before electric lights reached throughout Canton.

By 1908, electricity was becoming more familiar around Canton. The Advance reported that the Methodist Church had installed electric light chandeliers, a sign of how quickly electric lighting was becoming part of community life.

That same year, the newspaper was also discussing the installation of electric light poles in Canton, showing that the town was developing a more permanent electric lighting system.

By 1909, a description of Canton published in The Cherokee Advance proudly listed the town as having its own waterworks, electric lights and sewerage.

The demand for electricity continued to grow.

In 1914, Canton officials made a major change to the municipal system. The Cherokee Advance reported that the town planned to add a new boiler and machinery so its plant could operate throughout the night, giving Canton all night electric lights.

By 1915, Canton was advertising both day and night electric current and had established power rates for businesses using electric motors. The rates were based on horsepower and kilowatt hours, showing that electricity was becoming more than just lighting. It was beginning to power local industry and machinery.

But Canton was not the only Cherokee community developing its own electricity.

In 1923, the Roberts family built a hydroelectric power plant at Ball Ground on Long Swamp Creek. The plant supplied electricity to Ball Ground and operated for more than a decade. History Cherokee identifies the Roberts operation as the first electrical power service supplied in Cherokee County.

By 1925, the Georgia Electric Light Company was installing streetlights and supplying electricity in Woodstock, while looking toward extending service to Canton. In 1928, Georgia Power acquired the Roberts Dam.

What began with a few electric lights in businesses and homes had, within a generation, become an essential part of Cherokee County.

Electricity did not arrive in Cherokee County on one particular day. It came community by community, building by building, and light by light.

10/03/2026

US 41 Ringgold Georgia in late 1930’s to early 1940’s

09/14/2026

📜 Today in Georgia History – September 14, 1917

Born near Blood Mountain in Union County on September 14, 1917, Byron Herbert Reece spent much of his life caught between two worlds—the hard physical demands of a north Georgia farm and the literary world that eventually brought him national recognition.

Known as “Hub,” Reece grew up in a family deeply rooted in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He attended Young Harris College but never completed a degree, leaving school more than once because the family farm needed him. Even so, he continued writing, and by his teens he was already publishing poetry in a Blairsville newspaper.

His breakthrough came in the 1940s. His first poetry collection, Ballad of the Bones and Other Poems, appeared in 1945, followed by more poetry and two novels. Bow Down in Jericho brought him a Pulitzer Prize nomination, while his work earned him two Guggenheim fellowships. He later served as writer-in-residence at UCLA, Emory University, and Young Harris College.

Yet literary acclaim never brought financial security. Reece continued farming and teaching while caring for parents stricken with tuberculosis. He eventually contracted the disease himself. Years of illness, exhaustion, and depression took their toll, and in June 1958, at only forty, Reece died by su***de at Young Harris.

His life was tragically brief, but his poems and stories preserved something enduring—the landscape, faith, hardships, and rhythms of the north Georgia mountains he knew so well.


Georgia on My Mind curated by Lisa Land Cooper – Author and Historian

© 2026 Lisa Land Cooper – Author and Historian

09/13/2026

Interesting history

https://decorhint.com/this-tiny-georgia-town-is-the-smallest-city-in-america-with-an-original-carnegie-library-79cee982/?utm_source=ga&fbclid=IwZnRzaAUTn3hwZG9mBWZkaWQWUOX6EoptUesnCvaqH_opGxQFazMQmmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR6hjQf0zfWdAyHtSTCWKj1Fkl7cCEou6sSJNTOlBOGFLk_9SrqNdrqbysxL6Q_aem_tILaGrxvFluBVvz0MuFzKQ

Discover a tiny Georgia town where a historic Carnegie library still welcomes readers and preserves more than a century of history.

09/13/2026