Georgia Natural Wonder #96 – Toccoa - Stephens County (Part 2). 1,080

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #96 – Toccoa – Stephens County (Part 2)

Yesterday we did the Natural Wonder part of GNW #96. We covered a lot of history with Camp Toccoa. Upon closer review of that memorial I photographed, 812 men of the 506th were KIA or MIA.



845 of the 501st. Those were the European theater.



The 511th and 517th jumped in the Pacific theater or the South of France and lost 437 men combined KIA or MIA.



Damn over 2000 men never came back home to Georgia or America from here. 



5562 men were wounded. So if my math and research is right, 3000 men in a regiment, 12,000 go to war - 7,500 casualties.  You had a 1 in 6 chance of not coming home at all, playing Real Russian Roulette for your country, our greatest generation.



Today we do a tangent on Stephens County. Located in the northeast Georgia foothills, this county is known for its scenic beauty. Places of interest include 900-foot-high Currahee Mountain, the last mountain in the Blue Ridge Mountain chain, and 186-foot-high Toccoa Falls. Both are GNW’s in the top 100.



Originally inhabited by Mississippian Indians known as "Mound Builders" and then by Cherokees, the first non-Indians in the area were Revolutionary War (1775-83) veterans who settled there just after that war. On August 18, 1905, the state legislature established the 179-square-mile Stephens County, Georgia's 143rd, from parts of Franklin and Habersham counties. It is named for the statesman Alexander Stephens, who served in the state legislature and the U.S. Congress, as vice president of the Confederacy, and as the state's governor in the two years preceding his death.


I provide a link for Alexander Stephens above. I will do a full blown tangent if we can find a Natural Wonder near Crawfordville. I do want to provide this interesting excerpt from his Wikipedia page…..

Almost all of his former slaves continued to work for him, often for little or no money; whether this decision was voluntary or the result of few other options existing for former slaves in the Deep South is difficult to determine. These servants were with him upon his death. Although old and infirm, Stephens continued to work on his house and plantation. According to a former slave, a gate fell on Stephens while he and another black servant were repairing it, "and he was crippled and lamed up from that time on till he died."


John White Alexander's portrait of Stephens, the year he died, 1883

Two courthouses have served Stephens County. The first courthouse was built in 1908, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.





The second was built in 2000.



On November 6, 1977, the Kelly Barnes Dam collapsed after a period of heavy rainfall, and the resulting flood killed 39 people and caused $2.8 million in damage. We did an extensive tangent on this with GNW #19.



Indian agent Col. George Chicken was one of the first people to mention Toccoa in his journal from 1725. The first residents of European descent were a small number of American Revolutionary War veterans led by Col. William H. Wofford who moved to the area when the war ended. The area was referred to as Wofford's Tract, or Wofford's Settlement. Col. Wofford is buried near Toccoa Falls.



His son, William T. Wofford, was born near Toccoa (then part of Habersham County), and was an officer during the Mexican–American War and a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.


William Tatum Wofford.

The Georgia Land Lottery of 1820 spurred the migration of Scots-Irish from North Carolina and the Georgia coast. The Georgia Gold Rush, starting in 1828, and the 1838 removal of the Cherokee on the infamous "Trail of Tears" further changed settlement patterns in the area.



Only three communities in the county are incorporated: Avalon, Martin, and Toccoa, the county seat. The name for the city of Toccoa, which is located ninety miles north of Atlanta, comes from the Cherokee word for "beautiful" or "where the Catawbas lived." It was laid out in 1873 around an area formerly known as "Dry Pond" (for a pool there that was dry nearly year-round). In its early days after the Civil War (1861-65), it was the site of a coaling station for the Georgia Air Line Railroad. Toccoa's position on the railroad between Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, and later to points further east, as well as its proximity to waterpower, were key factors in its rapid growth.





Incorporated in 1897, Toccoa became known as the "Furniture, Thread, and Steel City" for the industries that grew up there. It has received several honors, including the Georgia Chamber of Commerce "Stay and See Georgia" award in 1974, designation as a "Georgia Certified City," and selection as an "All-Georgia" community in 1987.



Three investors - Dr. O.M. Doyle of Oconee County, South Carolina, B.Y. Sage of Atlanta, and Thomas Alexander of Atlanta - anticipated the construction of a new railroad through Dry Pond. They purchased 1,765 acres; had it surveyed into lots; publicized a May 27, 1873, lot sale; and brought potential buyers to the village on excursion trains. The City of Toccoa was officially chartered in 1874 and the names of downtown streets reflect the visionary trio; Sage, Doyle, and Alexander Streets still crisscross downtown Toccoa today.



According to historical accounts, the Johns House, a Victorian cottage near Prather Bridge Road, was built in 1898.


This may be James Simmons house

Nearby, on a hill overlooking the valley of the upper Tugalo River, is Riverside, a Greek revival antebellum home that was built in 1850 by James D. Prather with slave labor and timber from his plantation. The Prather family cemetery is at the right of the house, about fifteen yards from the porch. During the Civil War, General Robert Toombs, a close friend of Prather, used the house as a refuge from northern troops. The soldiers pursued him to Riverside, where he was able to hide in a double closet and escape capture.


Also heard from a guide back when, that Toombs hid in closet at his Washington, Ga home too.

The first Prather's Bridge was a swinging bridge built in 1804 by James Jeremiah Prather. Until then, travelers crossed the Tugalo River at fords and later by ferries. The first bridge was washed away during a freshet (an overflow caused by heavy rain). A more substantial bridge was built in 1850, but was burned in 1863 during the Civil War to keep the enemy from crossing. James Jeremiah and his son, James Devereaux, rebuilt the bridge in 1868. This bridge was also washed away in 1918, and was rebuilt in 1920 by James D. Prather. It was afterwards replaced by a concrete bridge, but was kept as a landmark until burned by vandals in 1978.


Old Prather Bridge

The Georgia General Assembly created Stephens County in 1905, and Toccoa was established as the county seat. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Toccoa on March 23, 1938. Roosevelt's train made a brief stop in Toccoa, where he made remarks from the rear platform of the presidential train before moving on to Gainesville to deliver a major speech, then on to Warm Springs for a vacation.



Avalon (named for the Arthurian island of paradise) was founded in 1882 by Richard Dempsey Yow and incorporated in 1909. Yow and two brothers started a successful mercantile business there. Although it was at one time a self-contained village with a railway station, post office, school, and church, Avalon's tiny population now shares these functions with those dwelling in nearby towns.


Grave of Yow in Martin.

Martin was incorporated in 1891. Its first settler, Henry C. Black, was the Air Line Railroad agent at its station (set up in 1877) at the junction of Red Hollow Road and the railroad. Henry Black built houses and established stores around the junction, which attracted other settlers. The Red Hollow Road was an important conduit for farm products from the mountain areas to Augusta and Savannah. The town was named for John Martin, a Rhode Island man who became governor of Georgia in 1782.


Martin, Ga.

Arts and culture Stephens County

Annual events

Annual events include the Currahee Military Weekend, the Ida Cox Music Series, Taste of Toccoa, Summer Movies at the Ritz, Costume Parade, Harvest Festival, ChristmasFest, and Christmas Parade.

.......................

Tangent on one of the finest classic blues singers of the 1920s, Ida Cox was singing in theaters by the time she was 14. She recorded regularly during 1923-1929 (her "Wild Woman Don't Have the Blues" and "Death Letter Blues" are her best-known songs). Although she was off-record during much of the 1930s, Cox was able to continue working and in 1939 she sang at Cafe Society, appeared at John Hammond's Spirituals to Swing concert, and made some new records. Cox toured with shows until a 1944 stroke pushed her into retirement; she came back for an impressive final recording in 1961.



Cox left her hometown of Toccoa, GA, as a teenager, traveling the south in vaudeville and tent shows, performing both as a singer and a comedienne. In the early '20s, she performed with Jelly Roll Morton, but she had severed her ties with the pianist by the time she signed her first record contract with Paramount in 1923. Cox stayed with Paramount for six years and recorded 78 songs, which usually featured accompaniment by Love Austin and trumpeter Tommy Ladnier. During that time, she also cut tracks for a variety of labels, including Silvertone, using several different pseudonyms, including Velma Bradley, Kate Lewis, and Julia Powers.



During the '30s, Cox didn't record often, but she continued to perform frequently, highlighted by an appearance at John Hammond's 1939 Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall. The concert increased her visibility, particularly in jazz circles. Following the concert, she recorded with a number of jazz artists, including Charlie Christian, Lionel Hampton, Fletcher Henderson, and Hot Lips Page. She toured with a number of different shows in the early '40s until she suffered a stroke in 1944. Cox was retired for most of the '50s, but she was coaxed out of retirement in 1961 to record a final session with Coleman Hawkins. In 1967, Ida Cox died of cancer.

Music

Toccoa is the center of a thriving music scene and the home of a regional orchestra. The Toccoa Symphony Orchestra is made up of volunteer musicians from the surrounding community, South Carolina, and Atlanta. The symphony exists to provide quality symphonic music to the region and to bring together musicians from throughout northeast Georgia.



The symphony was founded in 1977 by Pinkie Craft Ware and Archie Sharretts, both music educators. Since its founding, the symphony has performed at least three concerts every season. It is supported by a board of directors and an extensive network of patrons. The orchestra collaborates with many musicians and provides a wide range of concert experiences. The ensemble has premiered works by young composers, presents a yearly Christmas concert with a one hundred voice choir, and incorporates budding performers from nearby Toccoa Falls College.

Miles Through Time Automotive Museum

The Miles Through Time Automotive Museum is a co-op style automotive museum in a restored 1939 dealership. There are over 100 years of automotive history on display. Vehicles can be stored, listed on consignment, for sale by owner or donated and everything is displayed as museum exhibits. The museum is constantly changing so you can't just visit once. Learn more at https://milesthroughtime.com/



Currahee Military Museum

We went into great detail on post one of Stephens County and Toccoa, but the Currahee Military Museum, located in downtown Toccoa at the original train station where arriving GIs would disembark, is dedicated to the paratroopers of World War II who trained at Camp Toccoa. Camp Toccoa was located just outside the city proper, at the foot of Currahee Mountain, and was formerly known as Camp Toombs. The museum houses the original Aldbourne stables where paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division were housed temporarily in England in 1944. Only one building remains of the original Camp Toccoa (the building is believed to be a former food supply storage facility, based on its position near the former camp's gates and the foundation's construction), and it was donated to the museum in 2011 by the Milliken company, which was using it as a machine shop. The museum intends to restore the building, along with the surrounding grounds.



Annual Currahee Challenge

On the first Saturday of every October, a six-mile race is held along the Colonel Sink Trail, the same trail used by the paratroopers as part of their training for combat. Known as one of the most daunting races in America, the common refrain is "Three Miles Up And Three Miles Down." The race is part of the Currahee Military Weekend, which features World War II military reenactments in a staged military camp, weapons demonstrations, book signings by veterans, a parade through the downtown historic district, a hangar dance at the airport, and a special banquet featuring keynote speakers and veterans.



Other points of interest

Local lore includes the Hanging Tree, located on the western side of the Stephens County Courthouse. The actual tree used for the executions is now just a stump on the courthouse lawn, the tree having been removed in 2011.


This must be the hanging tree, otherwise I am hung as to why this picture was taken with this tree blocking the view of the courthouse.

The clock at the spire of the courthouse was restored to operational condition in 2010 as part of an overall renovation of the building, and is the highlight of the historic district which features several buildings from the American Civil War period.


Funny story behind this clock.

The Toccoa Casket Company, now out of business, was the largest supplier of caskets to the military until Vietnam. Its building, located on the main road leading into Toccoa from the south, on the route from Toccoa to Currahee Mountain, was razed in 2014.


Be the first one on your block, to have your boy come home in a box.

The Georgia Baptist Conference Center is located near Toccoa.



Toccoa also has a thriving classic car culture, as evidenced by frequent car shows. In addition, classic cars from the late 1920s through the 1970s can easily be spotted on the roads and in parking lots.



Stephens County is home to two institutions of higher learning, Toccoa Falls College and the Currahee Campus of North Georgia Technical College.



Along with natural beauty, the county is known for its historic sites and opportunities for outdoor recreation. Travelers Rest is about 6 miles east of Toccoa, Georgia, near the Tugaloo River, on Riverdale Road just north of United States Route 123. It was built upon Cherokee land close to the former Cherokee town of Tugaloo granted to Major Jesse Walton in 1785. Walton, a Revolutionary War soldier and political leader, was killed by Indians near here in 1789.



The Walton family sold the land to James Rutherford Wyly who built the main part of the house between 1816 and 1825. Wyly opened the house as an inn for travelers on the newly constructed Unicoi Turnpike.



Devereaux Jarrett bought the house on August 21, 1838 and it became the headquarters of his 14,000-acre plantation. Jarrett added to the original structure and opened it to the public. Due to the growing population and increased through traffic, the structure served as an inn, trading post, and post office. While the ten room house was open to the public it entertained many illustrious travelers.



The Jarrett account books, that doubled as hotel registers, contain the name of the English scientist and author, George William Featherstonhaugh. He said, "Here I got an excellent breakfast of coffee, ham, chicken, good bread, butter, honey, and plenty of good new milk for a quarter of a dollar...What a charming country this would be to travel in, if one was sure of meeting with such nice clean quarters once a-day!"  The main building is a large and rambling two story wood frame structure, more than 90 feet  long.



It is built out of wide pine planking and has six chimneys. One of the fireplaces has a mantle with drawers for storage of valuables. The front porch has seven rooms on each level with separate entrances, and an inside staircase providing access to the second floor. The rear of the house is where the innkeeper's family lived, with public rooms (dining room and parlor areas) in between.



The post office was located on the second floor. The property includes, in addition to the main building, recreations of typical outbuildings of the 19th century, including slave quarters. It remained in the hands of Jarrett's descendants until 1955, when it was acquired by the state.



Today, visitors can tour the house and see many original artifacts and furnishings, some of which were crafted by Caleb Shaw, a renowned cabinetmaker from Massachusetts.



Both Lake Hartwell and Yonah Lake were built on the Tugaloo River to produce hydroelectric power in the mid-twentieth century. Lake Hartwell is surrounded by eighty public park sites, including Tugaloo State Park, that offer fishing, boating, hiking, and other outdoor pursuits.

                                                                                                                          

According to the 2010 U.S. census, the county population was 26,175, an increase from the 2000 population of 25,435. Notable residents of Stephens County include Paul Anderson, an Olympic gold medalist in weight lifting.



Paul Anderson was an amateur weight lifter and professional strongman who gained widespread recognition in the 1950s and 1960s as the strongest man in the world. While deeply rooted in the culture of rural Georgia, he became a national, world, and Olympic heavyweight champion, a cold war hero, and a worldwide icon for strength and size.


Birth home.

Dubbed "the Dixie Derrick," Paul Edward Anderson was born on October 17, 1932, in Toccoa (Stephens County), the only son of Ethel Bennett and Robert Anderson. His father worked in construction, often on hydroelectric projects, throughout the Southeast. Thus the family moved frequently, and Anderson attended various public schools. After overcoming Bright's disease as a child, he steadily gained strength, size, and athletic ability. In 1950 Anderson attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, on a football scholarship but resigned during the first year. While there, however, he started weight lifting seriously and realized his extraordinary leg strength by squatting more than 400 pounds.



After  moving to his parents' home, Elizabethton, Tennessee, Anderson was discovered by the legendary deadlifter (one who lifts weights from the floor to hip level) Bob Peoples. Eager to enter competition, Anderson developed basic power by hip-lifting a concrete-filled safe and practiced his technique on the overhead lifts. In the 1952 Tennessee state meet, he broke all heavyweight records in the press, snatch (in which the weight is raised from the floor to an overhead position in one motion), and clean and jerk (in which the weight is raised to shoulder height and then, after a brief pause, lifted quickly to the overhead position), and then performed a 660-pound squat. At the 1955 national championships in Cleveland, Ohio, Anderson set a world record of 436 pounds in the clean and jerk and later gained international acclaim at a meet in Moscow by becoming the first man in history to press more than 400 pounds.



The Russians called him chudo prirody, "a wonder of nature," and Anderson quickly became a cold war symbol of America's massive strength and superiority. At 5 feet 9 inches tall and 350 pounds, the Georgia strongman went on to become world heavyweight champion at Munich in 1955. Though weakened by fever and weight loss, Anderson won an Olympic gold medal at the Melbourne, Australia, games in 1956 and returned to Toccoa as a conquering hero. He raised weight lifting from obscurity to prominence by his seemingly superhuman might.



Having won the highest accolades possible in amateur weight lifting, Anderson entered show business as a professional strongman. Whether he unofficially performed a 1,200-pound squat and a 6,270-pound back-lift has been much debated, but most pundits believe he either did them or could have done them. One credible witness saw him perform eight easy squats with 700 pounds; Anderson claimed to have done eight with 800. He also pursued professional wrestling and boxing careers briefly.



In 1959 Anderson married Glenda Garland. Their daughter, Paula Anderson Schaefer, was born in 1966. After committing their lives to Christianity, in 1961 the Andersons established the Paul Anderson Youth Home in Vidalia to raise troubled young men ages sixteen to twenty-one in a wholesome and disciplined environment. Over the next two decades Anderson traveled throughout the country conducting lifting exhibitions and giving Christian witness to raise money for his youth home. In 1974 he was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. At the USA Power and Strength Symposium in Orlando, Florida, in 1992, Anderson was named "Strongest Man of the Century." After a prolonged kidney illness, he died on August 15, 1994.



Other Notable People

Upon another review of this post, and a tweaking with Imgur images, I see that I shortchanged my review of Toccoa with other notable people, so I continue.

Howard "Doc" Ayers (born 1922) - football coach at the University of Georgia. Howard “Doc” Ayers is a former football coach of the Cedartown Bulldogs and was the first assistant coach hired by Vince Dooley at the University of Georgia, coaching the freshman team for three years. He amassed a 91-43-5 record at Cedartown High School, including a North Georgia championship in 1956 and the Class AAA football state title in 1963.



Dan Biggers (1931–2011) – actor. Best known for his role as Frank "Doc" Robb on the television series In the Heat of the Night.



Bobby Byrd (1934–2007) – musician, songwriter, and record producer. Although Byrd would eventually have over twenty years as a solo performer, it is his association with James Brown for which he is chiefly remembered. A lot of the James Brown Band Famous Flames came from Toccoa. Wikipedia tried to claim James Brown himself as a notable Toccoan.



Dee Clark (1938–1990) – American soul singer best known for a string of R&B and pop hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the song "Raindrops," which became a million-seller in the United States in 1961.



McKenzie Coan (born 1996) - swimmer and 2016 gold medal winner in the 2016 Summer Paralympics.



Dale Davis (born 1969) – former professional basketball player.



DeForest Kelley (1920–1999) – actor, known for his roles in Westerns and as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the USS Enterprise in the television and film series Star Trek (1966–1991).


Dang, a lot of Doctors for Toccoa, Doc Ayers - Doc Robb, and Doctor McCoy.

R. G. LeTourneau (1888-1969) – inventor and Christian philanthropist.



Herb Maffett (1907-1994) - All-American football player at the University of Georgia.



Ethan Martin (born 1989) – professional baseball player.



Evan Oglesby (born 1981) – professional football player.



Tauren Poole (born 1989) - professional football player.



Ralph E. Reed, Jr. (born 1961) – political activist.



Oral Roberts (1918–2009) – pastor and televangelist. Wait Oral Roberts is Oklahoma you say, turns out In 1945, Roberts resigned his pastorate in Shawnee, Oklahoma to hold revivals in the area and attend Oklahoma Baptist. But in the late summer of 1945, while preaching in a North Carolina camp meeting, Roberts was asked by Robert E. "Daddy" Lee of Toccoa, Georgia to consider becoming pastor of his small, eighty-member church. Roberts suggested they pray about it, and unexpectedly, decided to accept. By the end of the year, Roberts resigned and moved back to Shawnee. So Oral Roberts preached in Toccoa for a while.



Ramblin' Tommy Scott (1917-2013) - country and rockabilly musician.



Billy Shaw (born 1938) – former Georgia Tech and NFL football player; Pro Football Hall of Fame member.



Aaron Shust (born 1975) – Christian singer and three time Dove Award winner



Jerry Kenneth "Ken" Swilling (born 1970) – football player and a safety on the Georgia Tech 1990 National Championship Team


Grrrrrr... 1990 Sanford Stadium.

Pat Swilling (born 1964) – professional football player and politician.


Damn, Toccoa is T for Tech.

Kimberly Schlapman (born 1969) – member of the country music band Little Big Town



In Literature And Film

The novel Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff was published by St. Martin's Press and released nationwide on March 30, 2010. A day-long celebration was held in Toccoa culminating in a fireworks display at Boyd Field in the evening.



The documentary Fireworks Over Toccoa was filmed in Toccoa about resident trans man Robert Eads. A woman who becomes a man falls in love with a man who became a woman.



In Media

The Weather Channel remembers the 1977 Toccoa Falls dam break and flood.



On May 7, 2000, Mary Ann Stephens of Toccoa was shot to death outside a Ramada Inn in Jacksonville, Florida while on vacation with her husband. The incident received national attention and resulted in an Academy Award-winning French documentary, Murder on a Sunday Morning, on the arrest and acquittal of the original suspect.



And finally, if you’ve come all this way and done the mountain and the museums, drive five more minutes to Toccoa Falls College and take the very short walk to a most impressive sight, Toccoa Falls. A revisit to GNW #19.



The short walk to Toccoa Falls will cost you $2 (per person), unless you’re a veteran. I have been to hundreds of waterfalls and Toccoa Falls ranks highly among them.



Today’s GNW is a female Paul Anderson.