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From the publisher...
An early 1900s view of Rabun Gap Valley from the vantage of the Dickerson House shows the area’s agrarian roots. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
Ridges&Reflections
Michael Leonard, Publisher
About the cover ...
Students and staff of the one-room Camp Creek School pose for the photographer circa 1900. Photo courtesy of Rabun County Historical Society.
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Wolf Creek/Camp Creek defined by old time religion and hospitality........................ 4 Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School founder was larger than life......................................... 8 The fire-watchers of Rabun Bald.................................................................................... 12 Germany community home to rich soils and even richer history.............................. 14 Sky Valley was America’s southernmost ski resort..................................................... 18 Wiley brothers remember the old days......................................................................... 24 Chechero still a close-knit community.......................................................................... 26
Welcome to Ridges & Reflections, the community magazine of The Clayton Tribune written for and about the people of Rabun County. This is our fourth edition of the magazine, and it may be the best one yet. This issue of Ridges & Reflections continues the theme begun in June and October 2013 of looking into the histories of Rabun County’s varied and unique communities. We are telling their stories in the words of those who live there — the people of the place. Last year we showcased the stories of Dillard, Pine Mountain/Satolah, Tiger, Tate City, Tallulah Falls, Taylor’s Chapel/ Black Rock, the now submerged town of Burton, Wolffork, Clayton, Mountain City, Warwoman, Lakemont, Betty’s Creek and Persimmon. The Ridges & Reflections staff writes this time about the Chechero, Rabun Gap, Wolf Creek/Camp Creek, Sky Valley, Wiley, Rabun Bald and Germany communities. As before, our focus is on the historical nature of these places we call home, each community’s beginnings, founding families, significant events and qualities that make them one-of-a-kind. Read with pride about events and times long ago, when this land was much different than today. Thank you for reading Ridges & Reflections, and a special thank you for shopping with the advertisers on these pages.
June 2014 • Ridges & Reflections
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Students and teachers stand on the grounds of Wolf Creek School circa 1904. In the following years, the Rabun County Board of Education bought Wolf Creek Baptist Church and used it as a school during the week. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
Wolf Creek/Camp Creek defined by old time religion and hospitality By Mat Payne, Staff Writer
I
n the 163 years since Wolf Creek Baptist Church was chartered, its buildings have been used as a school, its sanctuary has served as a concert hall and its steeple a beacon. But beyond its uses as a physical space, the spirit of the church has been something generations of Wolf Creek residents could take to heart. For the better part of 200 years, members of Pat Isom’s family lived in the Wolf Creek community. Though he has never lived there, Isom spent countless hours learning the peoples history of the area through word of mouth stories and church records. He said from the beginning, the church has been the central focus of the community. Isom said the early settlers of Wolf Creek were defined by a fierce sense of independence and a staunch interpretation of the Bible. 4
“They all lived right by that church,” he said. “It was kind of like a community and that was the highlight of their lives ... their church life.” Though the North Georgia mountains are still part of the Bible Belt, Isom said the strict adherence to the Bible observed by the early settlers in Wolf Creek was a far cry from what is common today. “It was a way of life,” Isom said. “It wasn’t just a ‘Put a Sunday suit on and go to church.’ Everybody knew what everybody was doing and they weren’t hesitant to report it.” “They didn’t have tolerance for people that didn’t strictly adhere to what the Bible says,” she added. Strict as they may have been, Isom said the community was forgiving of most things. “My great-great-great-grandfather made moonshine and liked Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
to drink it,” Isom said. “He was churched, but they were easy to forgive and the next week he would be back.” As strict as the congregation may have been, the formative years of Wolf Creek Baptist Church were not without their fair share of humor. A story that appeared in the August 1971 issue of “Georgia Magazine” quotes Mrs. James A. Birmingham recounting the story her grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Kerby Woodall, told her about a time when a Cherokee chief visited the church. In the magazine, James said her great-grandmother, Fannie Picklesimer Kerby Smith, attempted to convince Chief Grey Eagle to attend a church service numerous times. Her persistence eventually led the chief to see what all of the fuss was about. Camp Creek School, According to the article, circa 1913, was one after witnessing the preacher of the many smaller transition from speaking schools spread joyfully about the kingdom of throughout the county heaven to the damning tirade during the early part of of a fire and brimstone sermon, the 20th century. Photo/ Grey Eagle stood up. Believing Rabun County Historical the preacher was drunk, the Society chief said, “Whiskey ... too much. Whiskey ... too much,” and left. Violet Smith, one of Fannie’s descendants and a longtime Wolf Creek resident, said the story of Grey Eagle visiting the
church had been passed down in her family for generations and was one of many that involved her great-greatgrandmother. During the second half of the 19th century, Fannie gained notoriety for operating one of the premier boarding houses in the region, called Sinking Mountain, located off Camp Creek Road. Smith said Fannie capitalized on Tallulah Falls’ status as a booming tourist destination and had guests from all over the world stay at the boarding house. Mary Franklin, Fannie’s great-granddaughter, grew up hearing stories about her great-grandmother’s boarding house from her father. Of all the stories, her culinary expertise and sly wit stood out. “She used to always talk about her cooking,” Franklin said. “I don’t know if it was really that good or if she was just hungry.” Regardless of her abilities in the kitchen, Fannie’s clever problem solving and sense with money are a large part of her legacy. “Back then, money was a lot of it in gold coins,” Franklin said. “She would stick her coins in the bee gums and the bees would cover them in wax.” continued...
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Fannie Picklesimer Kerby Smith stands outside of her home in the Camp Creek community. Starting around 1870 Smith took in boarders at her home, also referred to as Sinking Mountain. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
“She was afraid her sons in-law were going to take them,” she explained. Though not as well known, Fannie also housed members of Grey Eagle’s tribe during the winter months when the tourism and traveler trade dropped off. Smith said Fannie’s relationship to the Cherokee went deeper than that of a landlord-tenant, as it was a familial one. “She was Indian herself and they counted on her,” Smith said. “She would lodge them and feed them through the winter and stuff. “I don’t know how much Cherokee she was, but she looked the part.” A small group of people congregate outside of Camp Creek Smith said she suspected Baptist Church, circa 1910. Like many other small communities Fannie kept her relationship to the church played a central role for many residents. Photo/ Rabun County Historical Society the Cherokee largely unknown to avoid persecution from racist community members. remaining parts of the boarding house were moved to another “You didn’t dare say you was related to the Indian,” Smith location. said. In the absence of the boarding house, the Wolf Creek Baptist Years after Fannie died, the property Sinking Mountain had Church once again became the primary landmark in the occupied was sold to the United States government and the community. However, during the first half of the 20th century its 6
Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
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role transformed from being solely a sanctuary to doubling as a school. Church secretary Jane Thomason said the Rabun County Board of Education bought the building in 1909 after the church ran into financial difficulties. Like many other communities throughout the Rabun County and the nation, Wolf Creek residents were hit hard by the Great Depression that followed 20 years later. Thomason said the church was forced to close for lack of attendance. In 1954, the school board gave the deed back to the church and within a few years it was again the heart of the community. Thomason said about 40 years ago the church would hold singings once a month. People would come and sing traditional gospel songs that had been transcribed using shapes rather than the standard lines and staff, sometimes referred to as sacred harp singing. “That was in the ‘70s when they were coming down to the church on Friday nights,” Smith said. “You’d meet and learn to sing the shape notes and round notes. “Everyone who wanted to could lead a song. It was fun to lead other people.” Thomason said the tradition of Friday night singing has lived on and is now celebrated with a yearly festival in Tiger, and it was even featured once in an article published in “National Geographic” magazine. Thomason said the community surrounding the church has ebbed and flowed in the 51 years she’s lived there, and the faces in the pews change about every 10 years. But regardless of who moves in or leaves, she said, the church has remained the heart of the community. ◆
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Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School founder was larger than life By Mat Payne, Staff Writer
W
hen Andrew Jackson Ritchie arrived on the campus of Harvard University the 1800s were winding down and big plans for the 20th century were being dreamed everywhere. Ritchie appeared on the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus wearing a handmade suit but with little more to his name than the few dollars in his pocket, a suitcase and an undeniable charisma. He also was lacking an acceptance letter, the ability to take no for an answer and any inkling he would found a school. Nannette Curran, Ritchie’s granddaughter, remembers hearing Ritchie speak with a passion about education and its importance to the future of those in Appalachia. That passion culminated in 1903 when he and his wife, Addie Corn Ritchie, founded Rabun Gap Industrial School, the forerunner of Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School. Growing up in poverty as the son of a former prospector, Ritchie attended the Hiawassee Academy in Towns County and was urged by the school’s founder, George Truett, to buck the trend of dropping out to work the fields and to continue his education. “He got a law degree from the University of Georgia (1897) then practiced until one of his clients stabbed him in the back after he defended him,” Curran said. “It was then that he decided law wasn’t for him.” After his brief law career ended, Andrews returned to academia at Harvard where his larger than life personality earned him the respect of his peers and professors. Curran said many of those he impressed would go on to provide the funds needed to start Rabun Gap Industrial School. His 1899 diploma from Harvard in hand, Andrew took a position as the head of the English department at Baylor University, where Truett had assumed the president’s role. 8
A portrait of founder Andrew Jackson Ritchie hangs at Rabun GapNacoochee School to commemorate his dedication to educating the children of Rabun County. Photo/Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School
During the summers the Ritchies would return to Rabun County and visit friends and family while escaping the Texas heat. It was during this time something moved within the couple and they realized it was time to return to the mountains they once called home.
“They would always say they saw the mountain children not getting educated and they grieved for them,” Curran said. “They thought this was a shame because they were bright children that just needed a chance.” Curran said Andrew’s immense Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
charisma allowed him to solicit enough donations to open and operate the school throughout its early years. “I think that was one of the ways he was able to raise as much money as he did from the Carnegie Foundation and his Harvard classmates,” Curran said. “It was that appeal that got them.” “My father told me my granddaddy could walk into Robert Woodruff’s (owner of The Coca-Cola Company) office and Robert Woodruff was almost frightened of him. He was such a strong personality,” she added. But Ritchie’s passion for the school and the difficulties of funding it did not come without a cost. Curran said her grandfather suffered bouts of depression and was occasionally forced to take some time away from his work. During these periods of withdrawal, Curran said her grandmother assumed control of the school. “In the minutes, the board of trustees said, ‘Well if something happens to Mr. Ritchie, then Mrs. Ritchie can run the school,’” Curran said. “She did everything.”
Rabun Gap-Nachoochee School teachers gather for a photo circa 1905. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
continued...
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The school in 1912 initiated the Farm Family Settlement Plan. It was a program designed to help educate farmers to apply more effective and environmentallyconscious practices while also providing adults the opportunity to learn to read. The program lasted well into the 1970s when interest in agriculture had lessened to a point that made the program unnecessary. Morris Robinson, president of 10
the Farm Family Association, clearly remembers the moment his family found out they had been selected for the program. “There was a waiting list to get in,” Robinson said. “You had to have a good background and you came up and applied. They could only choose so many.” “It was December 1958 and Mr. H.L. Fry, who was head of the farm family
at the time, came to our house and told us that we had been chosen to have a house on the school farm,” Robinson remembered. “We actually moved into the school farm house December 24, 1958. “Oh, we were so excited and to have been chosen to be able to move in. It made it a very special Christmas.” As the program evolved, Robinson said a spirit of community spread Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
Rabun Gap-Nachoochee agriculture students learn with the hands-on approach. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
Top, sheep graze below Hodgson Hall on the campus of Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School. Farming has always been a part of the school’s history. Bottom, two people involved in the family Farm Program drive tractors past the Addie Corn Ritchie Dining Hall. Photos/Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School
throughout the families that worked and lived on the school’s land. “It was unique on the farm,” Robinson said. “If we were cutting hay, a couple farm families would come up and help us get our hay. Then when it was time for their hay to be cut, we would help them.” Dess Oliver taught industrial arts at the school for 43 years and said he believes the farm program was one of the most important contributions the school June 2014 • Ridges & Reflections
made to the community. He said that the farm program helped connect the school with the community and ensured a positive relationship. “The people up there are very friendly, they’re very normal, natural, hard working,” Oliver said. “They’re smart and giving.” Ritchie died in 1948, about 12 years after he retired from the school. Despite having founded and operated
a successful boarding school, Curran said he left the job nearly penniless because he had invested the vast majority of his savings back into the school. Now, after more than a century, the Ritchies’ dream of providing a quality education to mountain children is still alive as students from Rabun County and around the world reap the rewards of their work. ◆ 11
The fire tower on Rabun Bald helped fire lookouts spot blazes up to 100 miles away. The structure was built in the 1930s by Ranger “Nick” Nicholson, Georgia’s first forest ranger, along with men from the Civilian Conservation Corps. The tower was the first of its kind in the area and was in operation until the 1970s. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
The fire-watchers of Rabun Bald By Megan Studdard, Staff Writer
O
ne of the area’s first fire towers sits atop Rabun Bald, Georgia’s second-highest peak. Though now used as a resting place to view mountain vistas, the tower was once home to those who sacrificed their time gazing for blazes across the national forest land. The stone and glass structure was built in the 1930s by Civilian Conservation Corps workers and Ranger Nick Nicholson, Georgia’s first forest ranger. The U.S. Forest Service operated the structure as a fire tower until the 1970s.
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Parker Holified, of Tiger, said his father, Leonard Holifield, worked as a fire lookout in the 1930s. Holified said he traveled up the mountain alone, often spending long periods of time in the tower. “Every once and a while, especially during the winter, this guy that lived in Scaly, (North Carolina), would actually walk up the backside of the mountain to bring Daddy some(food),” Holifield said. “He used to say he didn’t want my dad to starve to death. Dad enjoyed the company because he was up there all alone.” Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
Holifield said the tower contained Residents gather at the old school house in 1908 for the cooking and living space, and the Hale Ridge homecoming. The Hale Ridge community, Scaly man brought “some cornbread near Rabun Bald, is among the highest in Georgia. and some streak o’ lean fat,” for Photo/Rabun County Historical Society Holifield’s father to prepare in the tower. Holifield described the process his father and others used to track fires. “They had a fire watch on Glassy Mountain and they had one on Rabun Bald,” he said. “They’d shoot points where they saw the smoke, and they’d cross strings across the points. Where those strings crossed is where the coordinates would be for the fire.” Linda James has been living in the community surrounding Rabun Bald for 50 years, and she also had relatives that served as fire lookouts. James said one of her female relatives used to watch for fires in the tower with her husband, Lawton James. “Sometimes she’d stay up there a week at a time,” James said. “It’s a good community and the people. A lot of them are She said the tower, surrounded by glass, was eventually related by marriage or otherwise,” she said. “We kinda tend to vandalized. stick to the old time things. We like to garden and a lot of people “Some boys went up there and they broke the glass out and keep bees. Kinda like we used to.” all,” said James. Today, you won’t find fire lookouts at Rabun Bald, but the James spoke highly of the community around Rabun Bald. memories of their work lives on atop the mountain. ◆
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The timber industry provided work for the people of Germany community in the 1920s. Photo/ Rabun County Historical Society
Germany community home to rich soils and even richer history By Megan Studdard, Staff Writer
D
eep in the heart of Germany valley lies the legacies of pioneers, planters and pragmatic people. The Justus family has a deep-rooted history in the valley as one of the first groups to settle there. Bob Justus, 82, said his early ancestors moved to Germany valley from North Carolina and settled on the divide in the valley. “My great-great-great-grandfather and mother built a house there, on the upper end of (the present Heaven’s Landing) runway,” he said. Then Indian land, the area had to be modified to accommodate the newcomers, according to Justus. “The Indian trace was too small for wagons and they had
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to widen it for him to get up there,” he said. Justus said his great-grandfather, who grew up around Little Creek, started buying land in 1871, ending up with almost 2,000 acres. “He would go up to Tennessee and buy horses and mules. The Indian land down here was being sold off,” Justus said. “They would go and get horses, ... sell them and he’d buy land. That’s how the Justuses got down in Germany.” Decades later, Justus was born, narrowly missing a tornado that wiped out most of the valley three weeks before his birth in 1932. He said his mother, who was staying with her parents, narrowly escaped the devastating storm. Justus spent his childhood among the mountains in Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
The Mountain Grove Church in Germany community doubled as a school during the 1930s and ‘40s. Bob Justus, 82, said he attended five years in the one-room schoolhouse. “I learned more American history there than I did in college,” he said. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
Germany, exploring the trails that went over the ridge and working with his grandfather on the farm. He said farmers like his father and grandfather developed crop innovations long before modern technology. “He had terraces on the hillside so the water wouldn’t rush and cause gullies,” Justus said. “That was where the pastures were. That’s before these environmentalists thought of all of that.” Justus said when he was growing up, there were no tractors or machines used to farm, but they used horsedrawn plows. “Your bottom land would be filled with corn, beans, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins,” he said. “They grew everything. We ate a lot of cornbread and they made a lot of moonshine.” One of the moonshiners was Justus’ third cousin, Ike Justus, who also ran a general store in Germany selling everything from food to farm tools. “Oh, it was a wonderful place to go,” Justus said. “Water came down out of the holler into a big ole horse trough and
they would put your drinks in there. You’d reach up to your elbows to get a Pepsi.” According to Justus, Ike had a corn mill in the valley, where he sold the corn and made moonshine. “Normally the local sheriffs went real easy on moonshiners,” he said. “One of my uncles said one time a federal guy come up here and he rode a mule in one of the hollers and found a still. He called the sheriff and then the sheriff had to bust them.” Another use for the abundance of corn crops was for “corn huskin’,” Justus said. He remembered one of the last ones he attended. continued...
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Ike Justus’ general store sold everything from food to farming supplies. Justus also owned a corn mill in Germany valley. Bob Justus, Ike’s third cousin, said he frequented the store regularly as a child. “Water came down out of the holler into a big ole horse trough and they would put your drinks in there. You’d reach up to your elbows to get a Pepsi,” he said. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
“We were playing on the floor there and two young men got to fighting. They’d been drinking,” Justus explained. “One of ‘em was chasing the other, hitting him over the head with an ear of corn. Corn was flying everywhere.” Germany valley was not only a place for people, but was also home to wildlife unseen in this region for scores of years. “The original tree stands weren’t for deer hunters,” Justus said. He explained that in his grandfather’s day, people hunted wolves on platforms in the trees. “They built tree stands and they’d shoot ‘em. They wiped them out,” he said. “I’ve heard old people talk about they had a few of those panthers around. According to the histories I’ve read, when the early settlers were here, they still had a few woods buffalo and elk.” Above all of his family history, Justus said the really special thing about Germany, in his time, was the people. “Back then, most people were poor, but they looked out for one another,” he said. “Every house then had a front porch.” He added that neighbors helped each other out, reminiscing about a neighbor caring for one of his siblings for over a year when the neighbor’s mother had typhoid fever. “Neighbors were like that,” he said. “(If) someone’s sick, if it was a man, they’d go milk his cows and water his crops.” Justus also said the morality of people in Germany back then was much higher. “People then, most all of them, went to church. Even the 16
people who didn’t go respected the church,” he said. Mountain Grove Church, which also doubled as the local school, held fond memories for Justus. “My grandfather, Jesse Justus, led the singing all those years. He had a beautiful tenor voice,” he said. Andy Hunter, 60, has lived in Germany for the past 30 years. He said the community’s reputation for natural beauty and good neighbors still lives on. “I’ve lived there 30 years, and I’ve never had an item missing,” he said. “I think honesty and good neighbors make Germany a really good place.” Hunter remembered encountering all types of residents when raising his three children in Germany. “(One day) me and my wife and three kids were on our way home from church and there was a man walking out in the road in his underwear,” Hunter said. “From that day forward, my daughters named him the Underwear Man. He was a good fella.” He also noted that the serenity of Germany is the same as it was centuries ago. “The best thing...you can still walk out on the porch and hear the katydids and everything and creeks running,” Hunter said. “We’re very lucky to live in a quiet place. I wouldn’t trade it for nothing.” Justus now lives in Clarkesville, but said his heart and history still belongs to the Germany valley. “I really saw part of the horse and buggy age,” he said. “I love that valley. This is beautiful country.” ◆ Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
James Justus, Bob Justus’s great grandfather, built this house in Germany valley in 1871. Photo/Bob Justus
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Skiers schuss down machine-made snow in 1973. Two ski slopes were developed, one for novice skiers and the other for intermediate skiers. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
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An early Sunday morning fire caused extensive damage to the Sky Valley lodge in 1983. Firefighters from all over Rabun County responded, as well as departments from North Carolina and the Georgia Industrial Institute at Alto. Firefighters pumped water from a pond, used to provide water to snow guns, and a nearby creek to fight the fire. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
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arry McClure was a guy who aimed for the stars and dreamed big dreams, one of them being the enduring resort and now Georgia’s highest city, Sky Valley. A Pine Mountain native, McClure grew up in Clayton, was a sports star and graduate of Rabun County High School and World War II veteran. After the war years, he went to Atlanta and made good. Real good. In the 1960s, McClure owned a hotel and par 3 golf course in DeKalb County where now sits Atlanta’s infamous “Spaghetti Junction,” the confluence of Interstates 85 and 285 along with several access roads. When the government bought that land for its future highway project, he parlayed
June 2014 • Ridges & Reflections
the profit into another golf amenity in Duluth, Berkeley Hills County Club. It also did well. Finally, it was time to come back home. McClure turned his attention to Rabun County and the old King property along Highway 76 east. It soon became Kingwood Resort, with the first nine holes opening in 1967 and the final nine and dining room debuting one year later. Golf was good for the warm weather months, but how to get his Atlanta customers to Rabun County in the winter was another issue. McClure struck on the idea of a ski resort in what became Sky Valley as the solution. McClure had Dr. Miles Mason continued...
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Left, Sky Valley recruited ski instructors from Austria who also had musical talents. The instructors taught skiing all day and performed in the club at night with authentic alpine music and dancing. The 1972-73 season instructors are shown in this photograph. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
as his business partner for the development of what became Sky Valley Resort. They bought the property from the Dyer family, operators of a cattle ranch there since the 1950s, according to Carole Law Turner of the Rabun County Historical Society. The current golf course
was then pasture. The trial run winter of skiing as America’s southernmost ski resort was 1969-70, using the hill behind the current Sky Valley Chapel. It was after that season that Helen Kleiber, a Sky Valley resident since 1970, met McClure. “I first visited the property in April 1970 with my first husband, Dieter Baer, after meeting Larry McClure,” she recalled. “Dieter and I were at a small ski area, Renegade Resort, in Crossville, Tennessee. We had met Larry at Sapphire Valley in Cashiers (North Carolina) at what was then the annual Southeast Ski Areas Association meeting.” Dieter, an Austrian, had been hired to be ski director at Renegade Resort, and was asked by McClure to advise him on his Rabun County venture. He and Kleiber detoured through Sky Valley on their way back to Tennessee. “When we drove into the property there was a man that everybody in Rabun County knows, Frank Rickman, on a bulldozer clearing land for what became a ski slope,” Kleiber said. “They were trying to decide exactly where to site the lodge, so I actually saw the property before the lodge was started.” Baer was hired and he and Kleiber moved to Rabun County in October 1970. “Amazingly, the lodge was almost finished when we moved here,” she said. The winter of 1970-71 was the first full scale ski operation, with the lodge complete, a chair lift and ski tow rope. “It was a great place for people to learn to ski,” Kleiber said. “I was an instructor, primarily for children and beginners. Atlanta was our biggest market for sure. A lot of people would come to Sky Valley and continued...
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learn, then go on to the larger resorts.” Within a year lots and houses began to be developed, with many local builders cashing in on the resort. She said a number of original buyers had a German background, perhaps because Baer got his real estate license and became part of the sales team as well as ski director. “He also would go back to Austria each summer and hire young, single Austrians who could not only instruct skiing but were musically capable,” Kleiber said. “At nighttime they would entertain upstairs at the lodge, and that was very popular.” David Spears bought Sky Valley in 1991 after coming there a year earlier. He owned Club Management Associates, a company providing management services to clubs like Sky Valley. The resort was in foreclosure at the time, a victim of changes to the IRS code affecting how second homes were treated, and the bank hired his firm to run things. - David “Very quickly I could see that it was a real jewel and I moved from being a manager for the bank to a buyer of the property,” he said. “We ended up moving here and pretty much raised my family here.” Spears for many years also kept another home in Atlanta, but now lives in Sky Valley year round. “It’s in our DNA now,” he said.
“I sold to Harrison Merrill in 2005. Harrison shut the ski area down right away, but he came in here and made significant improvements to the golf course and invested several million into a new clubhouse,” Spears said. Spears said the Merrill Trust acquired the undeveloped property and the resort amenities, including the golf course. The clubhouse was about 80 percent complete when the real estate bubble bust hit Sky Valley in 2008. He said Merrill, who had several properties affected by the nationwide real estate troubles, decided Sky Valley was one he could not protect. The resort again came under bank ownership. This time a group of property owners purchased the golf course and amenities in 2012, but Merrill remains the biggest property owner in the community. Money was raised to finish the new clubhouse “and now with 300-plus members, Sky Valley is in a very stable position,” according to Spears. Spears Talks are underway between the City of Sky Valley and Merrill Trust to tear down the old lodge, part of the property Merrill still owns and an eyesore in the community. When that is accomplished, all that will remain of Sky Valley’s ski resort roots will be the cleared hillsides that once featured warmlyclad families enjoying the convenience of a ski slope in Georgia, now grown up in grass. ◆
“Very quickly I could see that it was a real jewel and I moved from being a manager for the bank to a buyer of the property.”
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Shown is an undated photo of Ches McCartney, also known as the Goat Man, at the Wiley post office. McCartney, who lived near Macon, traveled all over the Southeast with his goats during the mid-20th century. Longtime Wiley residents Joe and Bill Crumley say they remember McCartney. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
Wiley brothers remember the old days By Kimberly Brown, CNI News Service
“J
ust a little old mountain community” is how Joe Crumley, 82, describes Wiley, the small unincorporated town located “exactly five miles north of the bridge across the gorge in Tallulah Falls.” Joe Crumley and his brother, Bill Crumley, 78, have lived in the community since 1941, when Bill was about five years old. Joe Crumley said he has “most definitely” seen a lot of changes in Wiley in the years he’s been here. “We have local folks and we have move-ins from other places,” he said. “We get along [with the move-ins] pretty well.” It was ever thus with locals and “move-ins” in small communities. Joe Crumley said when he was growing up, “Lakemont and Wiley were kind of a community together, except the lake people. They were all separate. We just knew everybody at that time, except for the lake people, and I knew a few of them.” According to Carol Law Turner of the Rabun County Historical Society, Wiley was named for Horace Wiley Cannon,
24
one of the first settlers in the Wiley community. Cannon and Col. Sam Beck were delegates to the 1860 Georgia Convention from Rabun County. They first voted not to secede from the Union. However, they were convinced by their fellow delegates and voted for secession in the second round of voting, Turner said. In 1914, Camp Dixie for Boys was established in Wiley. Both Crumleys remember the camp well, because their parents, Lloyd and Virginia Crumley, worked there, and the Crumley brothers attended as campers. Dixie Camp for Girls was established in 1919 on Germany Mountain, and that camp, now co-ed, still exists and will celebrate its centennial anniversary this August. The site of Camp Dixie for Boys was sold and one of those purchasers was the Atlanta Braves. The Braves bought the land in January 1970 and ran the All-Sports Camp for boys for several years, Turner said. Now the Spruce Creek subdivision is on the property. Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
A wagon train is shown crossing the Tallulah River at Craneís Ford near Wiley in 1890. Photo/ Rabun County Historical Society
The Crumleys attended school at Lakemont Consolidated High School between Wiley and Lakemont, though the elder brother, Joe, said he spent his first three grades in school in Clarkesville. The last graduating class at the school was 1950, Joe Crumley said, then the school became a grammar school. Bill Crumley attended the school for nine years, then finished high school at Rabun County High. “We moved to Wiley in 1941, when I was about five years old,” Bill Crumley said. “The railroad ran through Wiley then, and it was a stop on the old TF Railroad. It had a depot, about where the new highway (441) is now.” Both Crumleys remember Big Cannon Trestle, which was the longest trestle on the Tallulah Falls Railway. “We used to play on the big trestle when I was growing up,” Bill Crumley said. “We were on the top and everywhere. We were a little big dangerous, but we played there. Sometimes June 2014 • Ridges & Reflections
The Big Cannon Trestle at Wiley, the longest trestle on the Tallulah Falls Railway, is shown in 1941. Wiley resident Bill Crumley said he remembers playing on the trestle when he was a child. About the old car parked beneath the trestle, Joe Crumley says with a laugh, “That might have been a whiskey-running car.” Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
we’d get out on it and a train would come and we’d have to run. We were just kids and we were daring.” Wiley has changed over the years, as have most other places, with the addition of subdivisions and four-lane highways. But in many ways, it’s still “just a little old mountain community.” ◆ 25
Shown is the King home in 1940. The Kings, who owned King Hardware in Atlanta, built the estate in 1910. The estate was subsequently became Kingwood Resort. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
Chechero still a close-knit community By Kimberly Brown, CNI News Service
T
ucked off of U.S. Highway 76 East out of Clayton is an area known as the Chechero Community. Carol Law Turner of the Rabun County Historical Society said there was a Cherokee village very near the Chattooga River named Chi-Chi-Ro-e, and this is how the area got its name. About Chechero, Turner said, “It doesn’t really have any official parameters, but it would be along [U.S. Highway] 76 East from the river all the 26
way to Clayton.” Lillie Mae Wall Peeples, 85, was born and raised in Chechero, and has
two-room Chechero School, which went to seventh grade. After that, she was a boarding student at Tallulah Falls School, then she attended Middle Georgia College in Cochran and Piedmont College. Peeples said she believes the original white settlers to the area came across the Chattooga River from South Carolina. Family names of those first residents include Smith, Williams, Singleton, Carver, McCracken, Price, Ramey, Bleckley and Cannon. Later,
“A lot of people who were born and raised here are still living in the community” - Lillie Mae Wall Peeples lived there except for the short time she spent at college. She is the last surviving member of eight children. As a child Peeples attended the little
continued...
Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
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Daily Lunch Specials Author Lillian Smith talks to campers at her Laurel Falls Camp, date unknown. Located off Old Chechero Road, the camp was founded by Smith’s parents, and she was first a counselor, then director of the camp. The Lillian Smith Center is now owned by Piedmont College and offers a residency program for artists and scholars. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society June 2014 • Ridges & Reflections
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there was George King, who built an estate in 1910 off U.S. Highway 76 East. Peeples said the Kings owned King Hardware in Atlanta, and they spent summers in Chechero. “[The Kings] used to have ice-cream suppers and a lot of social things for the community,” she said. “That was back before I was born, 85 or 90 years ago.” 28
Now Kingwood Resort stands on the former King property. Chechero native Randy Speed said his relative, Larry McClure, and Dr. Miles Mason developed the Kingwood Country Club back in the 1960s, when Speed was growing up. “The old King home...was torn down whenever [the land] was developed,” Speed said. “There were two or three owners, and it was torn down during
one of the other ownerships. It set idle for about 16 years, and a guy named J.T. Williams came in and redid the golf course and redid the clubhouse.” Kingwood Country Club is a golf and vacation resort which has a 48unit hotel and an 18-hole golf course, indoor and outdoor pool, spa center, restaurant, a pro shop, and a housing development, Speed said. Peeples said Chechero has Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
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“changed some,” but she still considers it a close-knit community. “A lot of people who were born and raised here are still living in the community,” she said. Peeples remembers the days when the highway was just a dirt road. “You had to ford a creek by the little Methodist Church to go to town,” she said. “If the creek was up, you didn’t go.” continued...
June 2014 • Ridges & Reflections
Above, in this undated picture, an iron bridge spans the Chattooga River. Photo/ Rabun County Historical Society
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Peeple’s parents, Effie and Charlie Wall, owned a farm and grist mill, as well as a little grocery store and gas pump. She said they didn’t have electricity until the mid1940s, and the highway was not paved until then. “I always say we had the first electricity in Chechero because we had a generator to grind corn at the mill,” she said. “They hooked up some kind of light but you couldn’t see with it.” Peeples said there were three telephones in the community, put in by the forest service so people could call in case of fires. “So there was one at our home, one where Rainey Mountain Boy Scout Camp is today, and one at the Carvers,” she said. Just off Old Chechero Road is the Lillian Smith Center, now owned by Piedmont College. Smith was the author of two novels, the controversial “Strange Fruit” and “One Hour,” as well as many non-fiction works, according to piedmont.edu. Peeples remembers Smith’s Laurel Falls Camp for girls, established by Smith’s parents in the 1920s, but said she never met Smith. According to piedmont.edu, Smith was first a counselor at the camp then its director for many years. The current facility offers residency programs for artists and scholars, and Piedmont College conducts classes at the center. ◆ 30
30 Chechero St., Suite 2 Clayton, Ga 30525
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Shown above is Chechero School in 1938. Chechero resident Lillie Mae Peeples, 85, attended the school until she was in seventh grade, when she became a boarding student at Tallulah Falls School. Photo/Rabun County Historical Society
Ridges & Reflections • June 2014
Index of Advertisers Adams Hearing Aids..................................... 19
Insuring America.......................................... 29
Beck Funeral Home...................................... 15
Lake Rabun Hotel.......................................... 23
Bethel & Co................................................... 23
Malone Foot Care......................................... 13
Blalock Insurance......................................... 22 Blalock Meat Processing................................ 9 Clayton Pharmacy......................................... 27 Carolyn’s Fine Jewelry................................. 23
Nails One....................................................... 23 Northeast Georgia Heating & Air............... 21 Northeast Georgia Medical Center............... 2
Country Boy Sports........................................ 9
Smitty’s Fine Spirits...................................... 23
Deal’s Appliance Service................................ 9
Rabun County Golf Club.............................. 13
Development Authority of Rabun County..... 31
Rabun County Historical Society................. 17
Dillard House.................................................. 7
Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School..................... 32
Dosher Physical Therapy............................. 17 Dr. Carl Lynn................................................. 22 Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center.............. 5 Georgia Farm Bureau................................... 13
Reeves Furniture............................................. 7 Reeves Hardware.......................................... 22 Richardson Insurance................................... 30
Hayes Automotive......................................... 20
Valley Pharmacy.............................................. 3
Hillside Orchard Farms............................... 29
Wiley Tire & Automotive............................... 7
Hunter Funeral Home.................................. 23
Joel A. Wise................................................... 19
Staff Michael Leonard Publisher Mat Payne Staff Writer Megan Studdard Staff Writer Debbie Martin Sales Associate Brooke Wooley Sales Associate Heidi Cook Customer Service/ Accounting Jeri McCall Customer Service Circulation Don Calhoun Distribution
; redundant fiber
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June 2014 • Ridges & Reflections
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