Preservation posts: the online journal of the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Oct. 2014

Preservation Posts - October 2014
In this issue:
- Message from the Director - 18 Farms Honored at 21st-annual Georgia Centennial Farm Awards - A Solid Place in History: Rock City Attains National Register Listing - Recent News & Announcements - Upcoming Events
Message from the Director
By Dr. David Crass, Division Director & Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer
"Nothing suprises me, I'm a scientist." - Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark One of the reasons I've always enjoyed Raiders is that it pokes sly fun at Indy's profession. What makes archaeology so rewarding is that in fact there are always surprises. For instance last summer, in the course of excavating what we had always thought was a prehistoric (preEuropean contact) Indian site located on Ossabaw Island, archaeologists from the University of Georgia and our HPD team found traces of what may well be the village of Asapo. Asapo was a Guale (pronounced "wally") Indian village that Franciscan friars from Saint Augustine encountered in 1568. In 1579 it was destroyed in the Escamacu War (1576-1579), which was an uprising by coastal indigenous populations. Next summer our team will be back out in the field, and hopefully, we can learn more about this settlement, which lasted just 11 years after the Spanish made contact with its inhabitants. Earlier this month I had the opportunity to visit Ossabaw Island again in the company of Bill Hover, our Historic Resources Section Chief, and Stephanie Cherry-Farmer, our National Register and Survey Program Manager. We went down there to work with The Ossabaw Island Foundation (TOIF) to do a preliminary Conditions Assessment of the Torrey-West Mansion (pictured), the 1926 Spanish Colonial home of Ms. Sandy West.
We had a great time--Sandy, at 101 years old, took time to visit with us--but just as importantly, we got to climb in, through, and under this grand house. And what a house it is: despite 88 years of harsh coastal weather, the place--with all its original systems--has great bones.
The engineering and construction quality of the TorreyWest Mansion have stood it in good stead all these decades, and in the future, we'll be working with TOIF to develop some more detailed planning documents to guide our stewardship of this magnificent resource. Over the last five years HPD has instituted a series of organizational and business process measures ranging from new project tracking systems, to real time budget projection methods that synthesize our different funding streams, to redirection of our scarce resources to our highest-priority program areas. This spring we will take another strategic step in that process, moving into a purpose-built office at Panola Mountain State Park, located 18 miles southeast of the city on State Highway 155. This move will get the division out from under the escalating rents of the Atlanta real estate market, which have severely impacted our already-stretched budget, and allow us to direct those operating cost savings toward our historic preservation and archaeology programs. Additionally, we will be collocated with our sister Parks, Recreation, and Historic Sites Division (PRHSD), allowing for closer coordination on the many historic resources PRHSD manages, which is a growing edge of HPD's activities. The campus also includes a lab/curation facility in a rehabilitated Environmental Protection Division Building that will support our archaeology and curation functions, and a workshop. Look for more on this over the coming months; we anticipate that we will move out of our current offices in midFebruary, and will be closed for approximately a week during that process.
HPD's new headquarters building at Panola Mountain State Park.
18 Farms Honored at 21st-annual Georgia Centennial Farm Awards
By Charlie Miller, Media & Communications Coordinator
The 21st-annual Georgia Centennial Farm Awards ceremony was held on October 3 at the Georgia National Fair in Perry. This year, 18 farms across the state were honored, bringing the overall total to 469. Each of this year's recipients qualified for the "Centennial Family Farm Award" category, which honors farms that have been continuously operated by the same family for 100 years or more. This year's recipients reflect the great diversity of agriculture in our state. Here are a few highlights:
The W.W. Seaton Farm in Cook County was acquired by William Wesley Seaton in 1914. The land was considered by neighbors to be "worn-out," but Seaton soon proved himself to be an innovative farmer. He received many accolades over the years for his farm management skills, soil improvement methods, and crop diversity. He was honored in 1930 by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Power Company as the statewide winner of the "Profitable Farming Contest," and was later recognized as a Master Farmer by the University of Georgia in 1936. He was also featured that year in Progressive Farmer magazine. His descendants still live in the 1916 farmhouse (pictured). Today they farm beef cattle as well as corn, soybeans, hay, and timber.
County Line Farm is aptly named as it is located in both Greene and Taliaferro counties. It is owned by Ike Moore and Donna Jean Price Moore. The original 287-acre farm was acquired via headright grant in 1785 by John Moore, the great-great-great-great-greatgrandfather (5th) of Ike Moore, making it one of the oldest farms in our program. In the past the farm produced sugar cane, cotton, hay, wheat, and corn, along with a variety of livestock and fowl. It primarily operated as a dairy from the 1950s-1970s. Today the farm produces beef cattle and timber.
The Dr. James Henry Carter Farm in Bacon County was purchased in 1898. Dr. Carter graduated from the Atlanta Medical College in March of 1894 at the young age of 20, and he soon returned to south Georgia to practice medicine. He practiced out of his home on the farm, which was built in 1900 and still stands (pictured). The farm was located on a rail line in the unincorporated community of Sallie, which was later renamed Rockingham. Today the farm is owned by his great-grandson, James H. Carter, and wife Bertha West. The farm grows timber and pecan trees. The nuts are used to produce "Rockingham Fried Pecans," a family recipe that was judged as the number one snack food in the 2008 Flavor of Georgia contest.
The Sunrise Farm on the Soque is so-named because it is bisected by the Soque River in Habersham County. The original 314-acre farm was acquired by William Wilburn Alley in 1825. Today it is owned by his great-great grandson, Mark Alley. A unique feature of the farm is a historic rock dam, which was an early effort to control erosion. It would have been a huge undertaking to transport this large quantity of rock without modern machinery. Owner Alley sees this as evidence that his ancestors cared about "conservation, when conservation wasn't cool." Today the farm produces beef cattle and timber. It is in Georgia's Forest Stewardship Program and is served by the Natural Resource Conservation Service to conserve natural resources.
This year we had the unique privilege of honoring two African American-owned farms - The Titus Stephens Centennial Farm in Dougherty County and the Cooper Family Farm in Burke County (owner Clinton Roberts is pictured above). African American Centennial Farms are extremely rare; they make up only 13 out of the 461 farms in our program. Look for detailed articles on these farms in the next issue of Reflections, the quarterly enewsletter of the Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network (GAAHPN). Descriptions and photos of each of this year's recipient farms are on our Flickr page. All 469 Centennial Farm applications are publicly available to researchers at our Atlanta office. The collected applications are an important resource on Georgia's agricultural heritage. With considerable assistance from the Georgia Department of Agriculture, we've recently begun an effort to develop a website to make this collection available online - there will be more updates on that effort in the near future. Applications are available on our website and are due each year on May 1st. Congratulations to our 2014 recipients!
A Solid Place in History: Rock City Attains National Register Listing
By Denise Messick, National Register Historian
A new accolade was recently bestowed upon an iconic tourist attraction; Rock City Gardens was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 17, 2014. Few destinations are as well known throughout the Southeast, but our article will focus on some lesser known facts about this fascinating place. For instance, did you realize that Rock City is in Georgia? While its perch on Lookout Mountain is only a few miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee, the property is located entirely within Walker County in northwestern Georgia. It is reached by a winding mountain road that climbs to ridgeline elevations of over 1,600 feet. Why is this place considered historic? There are several reasons; we won't discuss them all here. Rock City Gardens is significant because it was one of the first commercial tourist attractions that catered to middle-class families with automobiles. When the venue opened to the public in 1932, the Dixie Highway was still being paved. (This important route from Michigan to Florida, through Chattanooga, was the first to link the rural South with the Midwest.) A few Americans were just beginning to take road trips, but there were no theme parks such as Disney or Six Flags. Admission to Rock City was 50 cents during the Great Depression. Rock City Gardens sparked vacation trends that continued to evolve, especially as leisure time became part of the national ethos. Who was responsible for Rock City's creation and development? It has always been a family business, but much of the initial layout was the vision of one woman. In the 1920s Frieda and Garnet Carter owned hundreds of acres of land on Lookout Mountain, including
their residence and tracts for planned subdivision development. Frieda, who was an avid gardener, began transforming her own oversized rock garden by adding vegetation and creative embellishments. She used balls of twine to design primitive paths through the formations and crevices. The Carters later supervised further enhancement of these walkways with stone walls, stairways, bridges, benches, overlooks, and man-made caves, with the intention of opening Rock City Gardens to the public. The main path, which winds through the gardens, became the 4,000-foot multi-level Enchanted Trail. In 1933 the Garden Club of America recognized Frieda Carter with the Horticultural Bronze Medal of Distinction. Where did the little gnome statues come from? Fairytale dioramas became part of the vernacular designed landscape at Rock City. Frieda Carter was enamored of storybook creatures and ceramic gnomes, which she initially imported from her native Germany. Most of the original ones were replaced over the years, but the concept has been expanded with larger collections of scenes. Charles and Jessie Sanders, a husband-and-wife team of artists, made sculpted figures and whimsical dioramas. These were painted to glow in the ultraviolet light of the man-made tunnel known as Fairyland Caverns. A large diorama called Mother Goose Village was added in 1964. Scenes that remain include Snow White, Rip Van Winkle, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and many others. So what's the story behind those barns? Some of us remember barns with the words "See Rock City" painted on their rooftops. Over 800 of these once dotted the rural landscape, but most have not survived. The barns were part of an innovative roadside marketing campaign. Barns in several states from Michigan to Texas to Florida received free paint jobs in exchange for using the Rock City slogan. Beginning in the 1930s, a sign painter from Chattanooga named Clark Byers was hired by Garnet Carter to paint many of the barns. Barns (and later bird houses) were the best known advertising for Rock City, but there was much more, including framed prints placed in hotel rooms, matchbox covers, and advertising on customer checks used by restaurants. How did those big rocks get there? The geology is complicated, but the present topography is due to the erosion of alternating layers of hard and soft sedimentary rock during the building of the Appalachians. This erosion produced folds that created ridges and valleys. Seismic changes (including earthquakes) created faults that opened some of the narrow passageways seen at Rock City. As human settlers arrived in the area, they gave fanciful names to the natural rock formations. Current names include Mushroom Rock, Needle's Eye, Tortoise Shell Rock, Fat Man's Squeeze, Balanced Rock, and Shelter Rock. Can you really "See Seven States" from the overlook? Well, maybe we're not qualified to answer that one, but the view on a clear day is truly expansive. So decide for yourself! For further reading about Rock City, refer to Tim Hollis' 2009 book, See Rock City: The History of Rock City Gardens. For more information about the National Register of Historic Places, please visit our website.
Recent News & Announcements
Toccoa designated Georgia's 89th Certified Local Government
A big note of congratulations to the City of Toccoa, now Georgia's 89th and newest Certified Local Government (CLG). The National Park Service officially designated Toccoa on October 10, 2014. Toccoa has a dedicated Historic Preservation Commission and members have attended numerous HPD trainings and actively promote their city's heritage through preservation projects and raising public awareness. One of the HPC's most recent projects was the designation of the Toccoa Downtown Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. With the support of the Toccoa Main Street Program and a dedicated commission, the City of Toccoa has demonstrated their commitment to preserving and promoting the historic character of their charming community. Congratulations Toccoa! Rock City Gardens Listed in the National Register of Historic Places - (press release - October 24) Georgia's Centennial Farms honored at Georgia National Fair - (press release October 6)
Upcoming Events
November 6-7 - 90th Anniversary Celebration Symposium for Fairview Brown School - Berry College, Mount Berry Berry College will host a symposium about Rosenwald Schools and segregated education in the rural south. Speakers include Stephanie Deutsch, author of You Need A Schoolhouse; Mary Hoffschwelle, author of The Rosenwald Schools of the American South and Robin Banks, great-granddaughter of Booker T. Washington. These events are FREE and open to the public. Full details are available here (PDF). November 11-14, 2014 - Past Forward: 2014 National Preservation Conference Savannah The National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual conference will be held in Georgia for the first time in many years. Full details are available here. November 17-18 - NEPA Compliance and Cultural Resources - Atlanta Learn about environmental impact analysis, cultural resource management, and historic preservation responsibilities and relationships. Assess practical applications for effectively integrating the analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act, related environmental regulations, and the National Historic Preservation Act. An agenda is available at www.npi.org. The deadline to register is November 3. November 19-20 - Section 4(f) Compliance for Historic Properties - Atlanta Section 4(f) of the DOT Act of 1966 is triggered by projects funded or approved by a U.S. DOT agency that propose the use of historic property or land from a publicly owned park, recreation area, or refuge. Examine the stringent approval standards of this substantive law and discuss ways to better integrate and streamline Sections 4(f) and 106 with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. An agenda is available at www.npi.org. The deadline to register is November 3.
Please send your comments or suggestions to charlie.miller@dnr.state.ga.us.
Not a member? Subscribe now! Our mailing address is: Georgia Historic Preservation Division Department of Natural Resources 254 Washington Street, SW, Ground Level Atlanta, GA 30334 Add us to your address book Copyright (C) 2014 Georgia Historic Preservation Division All rights reserved. Title image: County Line Farm in Greene and Taliaferro counties, a 2014 Georgia Centennial Family Farm.