Georgia Natural Wonder #212 - Watson Springs - Greene County (Part 3). 745

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Georgia Natural Wonder #212 - Watson Springs - Greene County (Part 3)

A Roaring 20’s Resort with Curative Waters

We are digging for Natural Wonders in Greene County so we can tangent one last time on Historical Markers, Cities, and notable people of Greene County. Not far outside the city of Greensboro is Watson Springs, named for the US scout who purchased the property in 1786. I remembered the Historical Marker passing by years ago and I found the spring but lost my images. This is our 10th Spring Wonder.


Traveled 150 miles there and back for this panoramic. Snaky like I remembered from 1990's.

The natural springs located there were believed to have curative powers.


Marker no longer listed. (Not There)
   
In 1920, the Watson Springs Hotel opened and quickly became a popular risqué spot for folks who liked bootleg whiskey and racy entertainment. Sally Rand and her fan dancers once performed there. Watson Springs was so popular that special trains ran from Atlanta to Greensboro.


Sally.

One of Greensboro’s beloved residents, Edgar Harvey Armor, once provided insight into the appearance and life of the hotel. His father operated the livery stable that took visitors from the train station to Watson Springs.  Mr. Armor took E.H. to the springs to help heal a broken arm. 


Edgar Harvey.

E.H. remembered that the hotel stood on a bluff.  It was 2-stories with a restaurant on the first floor and rooms on the second floor. The restaurant had waiters with white cloths over their arms. Musicians playing mandolins and fiddles entertained the diners.  On the creek below was a springhouse with floors and walls covered with hexagonal tiles. Two brass faucets controlled water flow into the bath. Lamps mounted on brick pedestals lit the way from the hotel to the springhouse. A pavilion for dancing was located just upstream from the springhouse.  A few fishing cabins stood further upstream.


I found the Spring but could not find anything else.

Watson Springs Hotel burned to the ground in October, 1930. The hotel was seriously underinsured and the owner never rebuilt. The University of Georgia School of Forest Resources now owns the land. The ruins have long been covered  by thick underbrush but the memories remain.



Watson Springs Forest covers approximately 606 acres in Greene County, Georgia. The property is located 12 miles north of Greensboro, Ga and 15 miles south of Watkinsville, Ga on Georgia Highway 15. It is bounded on the west by the Oconee River, on the south by the Oconee National Forest, and on the north and east by private ownerships. The forest is composed of natural pine, planted pine, pine hardwood, upland hardwood, and bottomland hardwood. The property was deeded to the University of Georgia Board of Regents on December 12, 1933 by Colonel James Dala Watson. Watson Springs Forest is managed for teaching, research, demonstration, service and outreach, and to generate revenue that supports the school and its programs.


Man Made Rock Dam.

Athens Banner Herald

In the early 20th century, there was a popular vacation and spa resort built around a mineral springs in northern Greene County.


Creek and pond side by side.

Today, only the ruins remain for Watson Springs. The tiled spa used for soaking in the healing waters is precariously protected by a deteriorating shelter. The crumbling steps that led to the porch of the three-story hotel now lead nowhere. Old concrete foundations for a dance pavilion and other structures grip the earth. An old pond with a rock dam is slowly filling with forest debris.


Panoramic Dam and Pond.

The Watson Springs Hotel once was a summer retreat for those drawn to the allegedly therapeutic powers of the water and the entertainment the hotel afforded.


Small falls and big trees.

Even during Roaring 20s Prohibition era, a strong drink could be had at this secluded garden spot about 24 miles south of Athens. Entertainment came in the form of dance and parties. Sally Rand, a famous burlesque star from the 1920s and 1930s known for her fan dancing, once performed there, according to an article from Downtown Greensboro, a web publication by the city of Greensboro.


Sally Sally Backstage Sally.

The hotel was located in a community known as Wrayswood. The three-story hotel burned on the night of Oct. 19, 1930. Only the owner, retired Lt. Col. James D. Watson, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and World War I, and his wife, Daisy, were present when the fire engulfed the building, according to a news report in the Athens Banner-Herald. The cause was undetermined and nothing was saved, the newspaper reported.


Man, I trudged all through the woods looking for resort ruins. Through burned pine and up gully's.

Three years later, the 606-acre property was deeded to the University of Georgia. The university still owns the property and uses it for research and student projects, according to Mike Hunter, director of land and facilities for the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, which oversees the property.


TRD and the big trees.

Watson Springs borders the Oconee National Forest. Back in the hotel days, the highway ran near the Oconee River and its vestiges remain.


Exhausted, I collapsed at this spot for like twenty minutes, thinking how much y'all would be cussing me in real life getting lost out here.


Stopped feeling sorry for myself and started focusing on being aware of wonder all around me. Oconee Forest.



A 1999 article in North Georgia History Magazine by Daniel Roper said the hotel was a popular spot for patrons favoring bootleg whiskey and racy entertainment. But entertainment also came in milder forms as local bands often played for the dance parties, according to "Oconee to Ogeechee: 200 Years," an oral history published in Greene County.


UGA Forest.


Look for this sign and good luck hunting.





This will remain a post under construction as I communicate further with Mr. Hunter on where I went wrong and hopefully go back to find the resort ruins. Also hope he or UGA can find some vintage images of resort as I stopped by the Greensboro Library and they were no help. The Welcome Center, Chamber of Commerce, Lake Oconee Visitor Center, all are no help. Google has not been my friend on this one. Hopefully UGA will come through so I hope I can get something to show, to justify my imagination on what a neat spot this was back in the day.

Stay tuned for edits. Now we are back where we left off on Greene County.

Historical Markers in Greene County, Georgia

Bethany Presbyterian Church




Bethany Presbyterian Church and Cemetery. Graves date to the early days of the church

Bethesda Baptist Church





Bishop George Foster Pierce



Confederate Wayside Home 1862-64



William C. Dawson



Episcopal Church of The Redeemer





First Commissioner of Agriculture



First Regimental Reunion of Confederate Veterans

 

Fort Mathews



Governor Peter Early







Great Buffalo Lick



There are four possible locations for the "Great Buffalo Lick" described by William Bartram from his travels in Georgia in 1773. There appears to be convincing evidence that this site, determined by Col. T. G. MacFie in 1934, is not the actual site.

Greene County


Greene in Statuary Hall for Rhode Island.

Historic Springfield Baptist Church



Liberty Chapel




Liberty Chapel Marker Liberty United Methodist Church is the current name for Liberty Chapel.

Old Greene County "Gaol"



“Old Mercer”




“Old Mercer” Chapel, built in 1840.

Sheriff L. L. Wyatt





Stagecoach Road





The Burning of Greensborough




The marker stands in front of the Greensboro Post Office.

There is also a United States Post Office mural located inside the Greensboro Post Office. This oil on canvas titled “The Burning of Greensborough” was completed by Carson Davenport in 1939. The work was funded through the United States Treasury Department, Section on Painting and Sculpture.



The Creek Indians prized this region for its abundant game. The Georgia legislature created Greene county in hopes of attracting white settlers to the region and dislodging the Creeks. Although the state attempted to maintain a facade of legality in taking Indian lands, tensions ran high between white newcomers and Native Americans. In 1787 Indians attacked Greensboro, burning 20 homes and killing as many residents.



The Two Committees





Unknown Confederate Dead



White Plains Baptist Church




White Plains Baptist Church Marker and the Church.

Cities and Towns

There are 8 communities in Greene County.

Greensboro

Greensboro is the main town and the county seat of Greene County. Its population was 3,648 as of the 2020 census. The city is located approximately halfway between Atlanta and Augusta on Interstate 20.


Davis House on left.

History

Greensboro was founded circa 1780; in 1787, it was designated seat of the newly formed Greene County. It was incorporated as a town on December 10, 1803 and as a city in 1855. The City along with the County was named for Major General Nathanael Greene, commander of the rebel American forces at the Battle of Guilford Court House on March 15, 1781.



Greene County’s seat is Greensboro, laid out near the center of the county along Richland Creek and chartered in 1786. Originally spelled “Greensborough” it became the seat on December 1, 1802.



The phenomenal rise of the cotton economy facilitated the growth of Greensboro as the commercial center of Greene County. Fifty years after its founding, Greene became Georgia’s largest cotton-producing county. In 1838, responding to the need to transport the region’s ever-growing crop, the Georgia Railroad reached Greensboro, cementing the city’s status as the county’s commercial center. By 1854 the town had its own cotton mill, the Greenesboro Manufacturing Company. The merchant class that profited from this commerce became the town’s elite.



Although cotton made a few men extremely wealthy and underwrote the proliferation of stores, banks, and civic buildings in Greensboro, it also created an underclass in the form of enslaved Blacks and poor whites. Despite the social and economic system that kept a majority of the county’s citizens enslaved and impoverished, there was little question of which side county leaders would support in the secession crisis leading to the Civil War (1861-65). All three of Greene County’s representatives to the Georgia Secession Convention voted to secede, and Greensboro men organized the Greene Rifles to fight for the South. Of the men that Greene County sent to war, one-third would not return and another third would come back maimed or wounded. A portion of Union general William T. Sherman’s troops briefly occupied Greensboro in November 1864 in a diversionary tactic meant to convince the Confederates that the Union troops were headed for Augusta, not Savannah, on their march to the sea.


March To Sea.

The end of the Civil War unleashed pent-up social forces in Greensboro and Greene County. Many newly freed African Americans, looking for lost relatives or for a better life in the city, migrated to Greensboro and formed a community known as Canaan, which became a center of Black activism in the following years. With the votes of the newly enfranchised African Americans, Greene County elected a slate of Republican candidates in 1868. But whites moved quickly to return African Americas to their subordinate civic and socioeconomic positions. Through a series of beatings, home burnings, and murders, the Ku Klux Klan thwarted the promise of Reconstruction. Greensboro’s Black community formed an equal-rights association and a militia, but despite their relative militancy, excellent leadership, and strong solidarity, they were unable to stem the tide. Greene County was officially “redeemed” in 1874.



Despite a short-lived attempt to turn toward increased food production, Greene County quickly returned to its dependence on cotton and suffered the attendant consequences. With the demise of the old plantation system, sharecropping and tenancy rose to take its place. The elite of Greensboro prospered, though. Many who formerly had only sold goods became moneylenders in the furnishing system, which arose after the demise of the old cotton-factory system. The proliferation of sharecropping contracts also led to a rise in the number of prosperous lawyers in town.



Despite a brief flirtation with Populism in the 1890s, the status quo held in Greensboro into the 1930s. The fortunes of the town and the surrounding area rose and fell with the vagaries of the international cotton market. As the boll weevil began to devastate much of Georgia’s crop, Greene County turned more heavily toward cotton after developing a reputation for being “weevil proof.” Prosperity before World War I (1917-18) led to a proliferation of automobiles and other luxury consumer goods in Greensboro and even allowed many tenants to become landowners. But in 1922 the weevil finally devastated Greene County’s cotton production, ending the boom time in Greensboro and undermining land values. Both of the city’s banks closed, the Georgia Railroad stopped making scheduled stops, and Greensboro languished until the innovations of the New Deal.



Greensboro benefited greatly from the try-anything attitude of the New Deal years. The offices of the Greene County Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration were located in the city. The roads to and from Greensboro became more heavily traveled by farmers looking to pick up checks from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration or to get information on the latest programs being offered by the federal government. The town’s merchants undoubtedly weathered the Great Depression much better because of the money pumped into the local economy. As in the rest of the South, the federal largess was not distributed equally. Despite Greene County’s majority Black population, relief mostly benefited its white residents, with those in Greensboro disproportionately assisted.



Whatever temporary relief New Deal programs may have provided, Greensboro and Greene County could not truly prosper until there were enough industrial jobs to absorb the surplus agricultural population.



Following the lead of the rest of the South in the early twentieth century, the county attempted to entice industry to the area through its Greene County Development Company.



Greensboro recorded its first such success in 1899, when the Mary-Leila Cotton Mill opened. World War II (1941-45) proved a boon to the cotton mill, though it would achieve a certain amount of adverse notoriety when its workers went on strike for higher wages in 1941.


Mary-Leila Cotton Mill

The number of farms and farm workers continued to decline in the aftermath of the war. Greensboro struggled to provide enough jobs for those who no longer wanted to farm or, having been pushed off the land, no longer could. In 1974 the town could claim some 918 manufacturing jobs (most of these in the garment industry) at a time when its population was 2,583 and that of the county as a whole stood at roughly 10,000. Today Greensboro and the surrounding area lag behind state and national averages in such areas as poverty and education. The industrial jobs offered in years past by large-scale operations, which could often provide an entree for workers into the middle class, have largely evaporated, and the city still struggles to attract much-needed jobs to the area. Greensboro’s largest employers provide service-sector jobs catering to the well-to-do who come to live or vacation on the shores of Lake Oconee.



The current courthouse was built in 1849 and remodeled in 1938; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.



Several museums, including the Greene County Historic Museum and the Calvin Barber Museum and African-American Resource Center, are also located in Greensboro.



Greensboro is steeped in Southern history and tradition, and rich with elegant antebellum homes and churches.



The historical buildings in the downtown area are filled with enticing wares, featuring antiques, clothing, gifts and jewelry. Its lively and historic downtown area offers a variety of shops and services, as well as historic tours.


Shopping Greensboro goes way back.

Penfield

Another community, no longer independent but still notable, was Penfield. Penfield was named after Josiah Penfield of Savannah, who bequeathed $2,500 to the Georgia Baptist Convention in 1829 to help fund education. Using Penfield’s donation, the church purchased 450 acres of land north of Greensboro and in 1833 founded a literary and theological school, which was named Mercer Institute after a prominent Baptist pastor, Jesse Mercer.


Jesse and Statute on campus in Macon.

In 1837 the school began calling itself Mercer University, and the following year its trustees were granted the authority to govern the village surrounding the school.



Penfield became a center of culture in Greene County, vying with Greensboro for social dominance. But when Mercer University moved from Penfield to Macon in 1871, Penfield gradually lost its population, ultimately being subsumed by Union Point.



A few of the old university buildings and a residence remain on the town’s original site.

Ruth

Ruth, a post-hamlet in the southern part of Greene county, is about six miles west of White Plains, which is the nearest railroad station.



Siloam

Siloam is a town in Greene County, Georgia



The population was 282 at the 2010 census, down from 331 in 2000.

History

Siloam was originally called "Smyrna", and under the latter name permanent settlement was first made in the 1840s. A post office called Siloam was established in 1871. The present name is after the ancient Siloam tunnel, a place mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.



Siloam, settled during the 1840s, was first called Smyrna but, given that there was another Georgia town with that name, took its current name a few years later. Siloam is home to a private college-preparatory school, the Nathanael Greene Academy, which makes use of the town’s original red-brick high school building, which was constructed in 1929 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. The town’s historic district was listed on the register in 2001.



Siloam, a town of Greene county, is on a branch of the Georgia railroad, about five miles northwest of White Plains. The population in 1900 was 210. It has a money order post office, with rural free delivery, express office, mercantile and shipping interests, schools, churches, etc.

Union Point

Union Point is a city in Greene County, Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 1,597.

History

Union Point was laid out in 1834, when the railroad was extended to that point. The name "Union Point" reflects the fact a railroad junction ("union" of rails) met at the site.



The Georgia General Assembly incorporated Union Point as a city in 1904.Union Point, first settled in the 1770s as Thornton’s Cross Road and incorporated in 1901, is located at and takes its current name from the site at which the Georgia Railroad runs two dissecting lines. Much of the town (the “historic district”) was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Union Point has undergone extreme financial exigency, and a large hosiery plant was auctioned in August 2004. The town’s Bethesda Baptist Church was organized in 1785, and the remains of an original gallery for enslaved worshipers can be seen in its sanctuary, which dates back to 1818.



Union Point, a town of Greene county, is located at the junction of two lines of the Georgia railway system, one running from Augusta to Atlanta, and the other from White Plains to Athens. It was long known merely as the station where the branch road left the main line. Now it is quite a thriving town with money order post office and rural free delivery routes, two banks, several stores enjoying a good trade, express and telegraph offices, an electric light plant, several manufactures, including a planing mill, a knitting mill and a cotton seed oil mill. There is also an iron and copper mine, not at this time operated. There are good school and church buildings, both in the town and neighboring country. The population by the census of 1900 was 700, but recent estimates place it at 1,000.



Thornton House is a historic house in Stone Mountain Park, Georgia. Thomas Redman Thornton (1769–1826) constructed the house around 1790 at Union Point, Georgia. The house was moved in the late 1960s by the Atlanta Art Association to a location behind the High Museum of Art in Midtown Atlanta. Then the house was moved again in 1968 for final reconstruction in Stone Mountain Park.



Jefferson Hall is a historic home located in Greene County, Georgia, just east of the city of Union Point, at 6041 Union Point Highway (a road also known as Georgia 12 and US Highway 278). Since 1989 the property has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house is easily visible from the road, but is currently in private hands and is not open or accessible to the public.



Built in 1818 or 1830 (county and historical records differ on this point), Jefferson Hall is an example of Greek Revival architecture.

Veazey

Veazey, a post-hamlet of Greene county, is on Stewart's creek, six miles south of Greensboro.


Stewart Creek and creative Bus extension Master Bedroom. 

The nearest railroad station is Siloam.



White Plains

White Plains is a city in Greene County, Georgia.



The population was 284 at the 2010 census.



History

The Georgia General Assembly incorporated White Plains in 1834. According to tradition, White Plains was so named on account of their white sandy soil. White Plains, incorporated in 1856, was originally called Fort Nell. Its name refers to the surrounding sandy soil, which is quite light in color.


White Plains 1939 and Plains Logging Company today.

White Plains was the birthplace of noted educator and college president William Heard Kilpatrick.



Woodville

Woodville is a city in Greene County, Georgia. The population was 321 at the 2010 census, down from 400 at the 2000 census.



What the HOTD would have looked like in 1939. Can see Ty Ty in there somewhere.

History

According to tradition Woodville was so named from the fact it was a shipping point of wood. The Georgia General Assembly incorporated Woodville as a city in 1911. Woodville, first known as Beeman, was incorporated in 1911. Its name is said to have come from the regular loading of wood onto trains at its site along the rail line, several miles above Union Point.



Woodville was home to Major Robert McWhorter (CSA) who represented Greene County in the Georgia General Assembly for most of the period 1847–1884.



McWhorter is noted as being the first Republican Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives (1868-1870) under the Reconstruction era government. McWhorter is buried in Woodville Cemetery.

Notable people

Thomas Willis Cobb, former U.S. representative and senator, and judge of the superior court of Georgia; namesake of Cobb County, Georgia.



William Crosby Dawson, former congressman and U.S. senator from Georgia; born, died, and buried in Greensboro.



Peter Early; lawyer, statesman, Georgia governor.



Foogiano, American rapper who is signed to 1017 Records, born in Greensboro.



Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, lawyer and early American humorist writer. He lived here for several years while serving first as a representative to the state legislature in 1821 and then as a superior court judge; state legislator and supreme court justice.



Longstreet's good-natured narrators paint a lively picture of the Georgia frontier - hilariously contrasting rural and village life and the clash of the vernacular and genteel cultures.





Mickey Mantle, center fielder for the New York Yankees, member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, lived in Greensboro during his final years after retiring from the Yankees.



During the final years of his life, Mantle purchased a condominium on Lake Oconee near Greensboro, Georgia, near Greer Johnson's home, and frequently stayed there for months at a time. He occasionally attended the local Methodist church, and sometimes ate Sunday dinner with members of the congregation. He was well-liked by the citizens of Greensboro, and seemed to like them in return. The town respected Mantle's privacy, refusing either to talk about him to outsiders or to direct fans to his home. In one interview, Mantle stated that the people of Greensboro had "gone out of their way to make me feel welcome, and I've found something there I haven't enjoyed since I was a kid."



Joshua Nesbitt, former starting quarterback for the Georgia Tech football team.



Eugenius Aristides Nisbet; politician.



William  Jonathan Northen Governor of Georgia and Men of Mark author. Men of Mark is a complete and elaborate history of the state from its settlement to the present time, chiefly told in biographies and ... Georgia's progress and development.



Joseph Parker Jr., last surviving U.S. Navy physician who participated in the Allied invasion of Omaha Beach.



George Foster Pierce Methodist bishop.



John Perkins Ralls, Confederate congressman from Alabama, born in Greensboro.


Ralls and family and grave.

Tim Simpson, professional golfer, lives in Greensboro.



Sonny Terry, blues and folk musician known for his energetic harmonica style, born in Greensboro.



[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLKvn6WRwQM[/video]

Adam Daniels Williams, grandfather of Martin Luther King Jr. and pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.



Elizabeth Wilson, First African American mayor of the city of Decatur, Georgia.



Alright, look for this post to have a further and final edit as mentioned. Greene County is pretty neat, we have featured 25 Georgia Natural Wonders off 1-20 on way to Augusta. Lot more interesting drive knowing all these places are there. The thing I will miss most about Greene County is googling Gals in Green.