Cherokee County, Georgia has an amazingly rich historical heritage. One area in particular seems to have the highest concentration of history in the county - the Sixes / Cherokee Mills / Little River area! Prehistoric North American Indians, the Cherokee, a Georgia Gold Rush, the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War are all part of an intricate pattern of connections centered here.A modern reservoir has turned the ancient Etowah and Little Rivers into a broad lake that now covers much of the land holding the hidden history of Lake Allatoona.
Old Atlanta may conjure images of southern belles and Civil War ruination, but the full story stretches back millennia, even before the first known residents arrived five thousand years ago. From centuries of Native American settlements that ended with the removal of the Creeks to the rough-and-ready pioneer days, the area was rich in history long before it was called Atlanta. Author Mark Pifer unfolds a complex saga, including forgotten details from the struggles of African Americans and new immigrants, while noting modern locations bursting with tales that predate the City in the Forest's rise amid the treetops.
An archeologist reveals the mysterious world that disappeared under North Georgia’s man-made lakes in this fascinating history. North Georgia has more than forty lakes, and not one is natural. The state’s controversial decision to dam the region’s rivers for power and water supply changed the landscape forever. Lost communities, forgotten crossroads, dissolving racetracks and even entire towns disappeared, with remnants occasionally peeking up from the depths during times of extreme drought. The creation of Lake Lanier displaced more than seven hundred families. During the construction of Lake Chatuge, busloads of schoolboys were brought in to help disinter graves for the community’s cemetery relocation. Contractors clearing land for the development of Lake Hartwell met with seventy-eight-year-old Eliza Brock wielding a shotgun and warning the men off her property. Georgia historian and archeologist Lisa Russell dives into the history hidden beneath North Georgia’s lakes.
When the bustle of a city slows, towns dissolve into abandoned buildings or return to woods and crumble into the North Georgia clay. In 1832, Auraria was one of the sites of the original American gold rush. The remains of numerous towns dot the landscape - pockets of life that were lost to fire or drowned by the water of civic works projects. Cassville was a booming educational and cultural epicenter until 1864. Allatoona found its identity as a railroad town. Author and professor Lisa M. Russell unearths the forgotten towns of North Georgia.
In the middle of the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas casinos use billions of gallons of water for fountains, pirate lagoons, wave machines, and indoor canals. Meanwhile, the town of Orme, Tennessee, must truck in water from Alabama because it has literally run out. Robert Glennon captures the irony—and tragedy—of America’s water crisis in a book that is both frightening and wickedly comical. From manufactured snow for tourists in Atlanta to trillions of gallons of water flushed down the toilet each year, Unquenchable reveals the heady extravagances and everyday inefficiencies that are sucking the nation dry. The looming catastrophe remains hidden as government diverts supplies from one area to another to keep water flowing from the tap. But sooner rather than later, the shell game has to end. And when it does, shortages will threaten not only the environment, but every aspect of American life: we face shuttered power plants and jobless workers, decimated fi sheries and contaminated drinking water. We can’t engineer our way out of the problem, either with traditional fixes or zany schemes to tow icebergs from Alaska. In fact, new demands for water, particularly the enormous supply needed for ethanol and energy production, will only worsen the crisis. America must make hard choices—and Glennon’s answers are fittingly provocative. He proposes market-based solutions that value water as both a commodity and a fundamental human right. One truth runs throughout Unquenchable: only when we recognize water’s worth will we begin to conserve it.
The textile era was born of a perfect storm. When North Georgia's red clay failed farmers and prices fell during Reconstruction, opportunities arose. Beginning in the 1880s, textile industries moved south. Mill owners enticed an entire workforce to leave their farms and move their families into modern mill villages, encased communities with stores, theaters, baseball teams, bands and schools. To some workers, mill village life was idyllic. They had work, recreation, education, shopping and a home with the modern conveniences of running water and electricity. Most importantly, they got a paycheck. But after the New Deal, workers started to see the raw deal they were getting from mill owners and rebelled. Strikes and economic changes began to erode the era of mill villages, and by the 1960s, mill village life was all but gone. Author Lisa Russell brings these once-vibrant communities back to life.
Labor conflicts, arrests, espionage--it was all there at the once ubiquitous mills of Fulton County. Employee records and snatches of paper prove workers spied on each other. Company owners were paranoid about labor unions taking over. Copious documentation, unearthed here by author Lisa M. Russell, brings the workaday drama back to life. These mills sustained families, but exploitation was far from uncommon. When mill workers finally went on strike, there was hell to pay. The company bosses yanked strikers from their shacks. With the help of Governor Talmadge, the National Guard arrested working women with their children. They marched these "criminals" to a former WWI prisoner of war camp that once held enemy German soldiers. Hard to believe this was happening in and around Atlanta in the early 1900s.
A lighthearted chronicle of how foods have transformed human culture throughout the ages traces the barley- and wheat-driven early civilizations of the near East through the corn and potato industries in America.
The Cherokee Removal of 1838-1839 unfolded against a complex backdrop of competing ideologies, self-interest, party politics, altruism, and ambition. Using documents that convey Cherokee voices, government policy, and white citizens' views, Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green present a multifaceted account of this complicated moment in American history. The second edition of this successful, class-tested volume contains four new sources, including the Cherokee Constitution of 1827 and a modern Cherokee's perspective on the removal. The introduction provides students with succinct historical background. Document headnotes contextualize the selections and draw attention to historical methodology. To aid students' investigation of this compelling topic, suggestions for further reading, photographs, and a chronology of the Cherokee removal are also included.
The first volume highlights communities and history of numerous villages, cities and townships of Kane County. The second volume contains biographies of many Kane County residents.
