How to Experience Historical Places in North Georgia

Begin your trip on Interstate 75 in Calhoun, Ga., exit 317, at the New Echota site in Gordon County.

In the entrance of New Echota State Historical Site, a volunteer guide asks the children to imagine that they are children playing in their yards and policemen order them to gather whatever they can carry and start walking to a new home--many miles away in a new state. You have no choice, the government told you to go and you must go. The Park Service guide explains that this is what happened to the children of the Cherokee Indian community of New Echota in 1830. This was the beginning of the "Trail of Tears."

The residents of this planned community that included a council house, supreme court, tavern, bilingual newspaper, ferry and a mission station in the outskirts of town and homes. Council meetings would bring several hundred Cherokees town -- some on stylish carriages.

Enter the now-empty New Echota and reflect on this dark portion of American history as the Cherokee capital was evacuated and the residents forced west.

Continue south on Interstate 75 to the Cassville-White exit, 297, and exit right on Cass-White Road. Continue on this road until the road ends in the old town of Cassville. What once was a thriving town, with the county seat with two colleges, is now a three-way stop to somewhere else. You might miss this town if you do not see the old general store; the once-oldest operating post office in Georgia remains in the center of what used to be the bustling town of Cassville.

Cassville was created in 1832 by the Georgia Legislature. It was the cultural center of north Georgia with wooden sidewalks, the county courthouse, post office, four hotels, a newspaper and both a male and female college. The legal fights with the Cherokee Nation were held at the Cassville Courthouse in the center of town. Georgia's first Supreme Court decision was delivered at the Cassville Court House in 1846.

Cassville was destroyed in 1864 as the Civil War raged in north Georgia. Residents were given 20 minutes' notice the town was being burned. No images of the town, or official records of her citizens survived. All that remains is three homes, two churches and a Confederate Cemetery.

The fate of the town was actually sealed in the 1840s, when the residents opposed the railroad coming through town. The Western & Atlantic Railroad moved through Cartersville. When Cassville was burned and left full of soot from the Union fires, there was little reason to rebuild. The town with the railroad, Cartersville, was flourishing just a few miles south of Cassville. The county seat was moved to Cartersville. Cassville quietly disappeared as a footnote in history.

Cassville, though little known in Georgia history, was given one of the five Atlanta Campaign Pocket Parks built by the WPA. The old Cassville Post Office--once the oldest operating Post Office in Georgia, is now the Cassville History Museum of the Cassville Heritage Society. The Confederate Cemetery is the location of the yearly Confederate Memorial Day, which honors the 300 soldiers buried there.

Return to Interstate 75 and exit on Cartersville Main Street, exit 288. Turn right onto Main and go through Cartersville. Follow the signs to the Etowah Indian Mound.
Etowah Indian Mounds are a mystery and a mystical place. Naturalist William Bartram in 1775 said of these mounds: "It is altogether unknown to us what could have induced the Indians to raise such a heap of earth in this place.... It is reasonable to suppose, however, that they were to serve some important purpose in those days, as they were public works, and would have required the united labour and attention of a whole nation."

The chief priests of this ancient civilization lived in temples atop the mounds. Once the priest died, the mounds were destroyed. Your social status in this culture was measured by how close your home was to the mounds.

The Etowah Indian Mounds were built between the years 950 and 1450 and are surrounded by a deep moat on three sides and the Etowah River on the fourth. The largest mound, the Great Temple Mound, rose 67 feet. This mound was probed with radar at one time, but nothing was found, and the mound was never fully excavated. Other mounds, such as the Funeral Mound, have been excavated, and those findings help to explain this civilization.

Return to Main Street Cartersville and turn right on U.S. Highway 41 (also named Joe Frank Harris Parkway). Follow Highway 41 south to River Road; follow the signs to Cooper's Furnace.

All that remains of the industrial town of Etowah is the Iron Works furnace, built by Jacob Stroup in the 1830s. Mark Cooper, a politician, bought the foundry from Stroup in 1844. He used proceeds from the sale of half of the furnace to build the Etowah Railroad to service the foundry. During the Civil War, the Confederate government operated Cooper's Furnace. A battle was fought here, and the Iron Works was nearly destroyed by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's troops on May 22, 1864.

Etowah was flooded in 1940 when the Corps of Engineers created Lake Allatoona. The furnace is still visible on River Road, but Etowah is lost beneath the lake.

Another lost city is the town of Allatoona. Leave Coopers Furnace and return to Highway 41 and go south to Red Top Mountain State Park. At the park you are now just north of the old gold rush town of Allatoona. Allatoona was the site of gold mining mining in the early 1840s, years before the California gold rush. One hundred years later, the town was destroyed when Lake Allatoona flooded it.