Table of Contents Page 4 Cherokee County: Historical Society Page 6 Towne Lake: Candi Hannigan Page 7 Ball Ground: Rebecca Johnston Page 8 Canton: Rebecca Johnston Page 10 City of Holly Springs Page 11 Waleska: Rebecca Johnston Page 12 Woodstock: Preservation Woodstock Page 14 Woodstock Mural: AnnaLysa Kimball Cover photo: Roscoe Spears and Griffin Roberts are ready to greet the public in the parts department of the one-story red brick commercial building they built on East Marietta Street in 1917 for a Ford dealership. Acknowledgments Cherokee County Historical Society: Stefanie Joyner, Rebecca Johnston Preservation Woodstock: Samantha Daugherty, president Woodstock Artist AnnaLysa Kimball City of Holly Springs: Erin Honea Aroundabout Local Media: Candi Hannigan www.aroundaboutlocalmedia.com www.rockbarn.org 770-516-7105 770-345-3288 © Copyright AroundaboutLocal Media 2020 The Story of CHEROKEE COUNTY And Its Cities roundabout Local Media recently celebrated 24 years of serving ACherokee County by bringing uplifting and local news to our neighbors while supporting local businesses. The time we spent looking through magazines dating back to 1996 left us feeling nostalgic. We started to realize that many of our newer residents — and some not-so-new — may not know the county’s history, so we created a lengthy feature in our July issues. With the help of Stefanie Joyner and Rebecca Johnston of the Cherokee County Historical Society, Samantha Daugherty of Preservation Woodstock, Erin Honea of Holly Springs, and artist AnnaLysa Kimball, we pulled together a multi-page history lesson in each magazine, focusing on the localities specific to those distribution areas. Now, we want to share that with you, all in one PDF that you can access online, for reading or printing. Feel free to study it, and impress friends and relatives with your knowledge. Or, maybe you’d like to incorporate it into your home-school curriculum. Among the fun facts you’ll learn: • Where was Thousand Acre Woods, and what major swim/tennis community was built on it? • Which city was home to a former U.S. secretary of state, and a renowned physicist and member of the Manhattan Project team that developed the atomic bomb? • What area was best known for gold mining, long before the Discovery Channel made it popular? • A descendent of George Washington became an influential leader — as a lawyer, physician, preacher and farmer — in which city? • Which local university once was known by the name Normal College? CHEROKEE COUNTY HISTORY 3 The story of CHEROKEEPROVIDED BY THE CHEROKEE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY COUNTY Native Americans have inhabited the place we call Cherokee County for thousands of years; numerous archaeological investigations reveal Cherokee County was occupied 11,000 years ago by the Paleo- Indians and then by the Cherokee Nation. During the 1700s, the Cherokee towns were self-sufficient and self-governing, and each person was a member of one of the Seven Clans of Cherokee. Continuing their efforts to adapt to white culture and keep their lands, the Cherokee established a government with the capital at nearby New Echota. Despite the national unease over who controlled the Cherokee territory, the white settlers began moving to the area in the mid-1700s and, by 1831, the new Cherokee County was created, which originally encompassed all territory west of the Chattahoochee River and north of Carroll County. Soon after A train in front of Roberts Marble Company in Ball Ground is loaded and ready to go. the formation of the county, this area was dotted with gold mines creating legislation that took their many as 10 grist mills, 14 sawmills, and encampments of miners. land and forced them out. In 1837, seven flour mills, and 12 distilleries Most miners did “placer mining,” local removal forts were built at Fort and a population of about 12,000. which included surface mining or Buffington and Sixes. In 1838, soldiers The years leading up to the Civil panning for gold in the many rivers forcibly evicted the Cherokee and War were prosperous for Cherokee and tributaries. Larger operations sent them to the forts. In Cherokee County. Agriculture was the main concentrated on mining vein County, 950 were sent from Sixes industry in the area and small farms deposits. and 450 from Fort Buffington. They dotted the landscape. As in the The best-known mines were the joined more than 15,000 on the rest of the South, whites purchased Franklin, Pascoe, and Sixes mines, Trail of Tears and estimates say that blacks and forced them into labor. which yielded gold and other approximately 4,000 did not survive The slaves in Cherokee County minerals for decades. As the gold the journey west. made up 9% of the population and supply dwindled, many people During the mid-1800s, the of the 150 residents who owned from Cherokee County left for the Etowah Valley became the slaves, most owned fewer than four. west after gold was discovered in industrial hub of north Georgia. In Although soldiers fought no California in 1848. addition to gold, other minerals major battles in Cherokee County, During that time, Georgia and mined in Cherokee County included they did frequently forage in the the federal government continually iron ore, copper, titanium, quartz, area for supplies, and there were pressured the Cherokee Indians mica, granite and marble. During many skirmishes between the to give up their lands, until finally this time, Cherokee County had as armies. The order to burn Canton 4 CHEROKEE COUNTY HISTORY was issued in October 1864 and at cotton to larger markets and mills least half of the town was burned, flourished. Trains also made it including the courthouse and the possible for marble finishing plants bridge over the Etowah River. in Ball Ground, Nelson and Canton The order may have been issued to flourish using marble quarried because Georgia Gov. Joseph E. from Pickens County. Brown had lived in Canton. Cherokee County continued For Cherokee County’s enslaved to prosper, and in the 1920s blacks, the end of the Civil War experienced a surge of growth. in 1865 brought freedom and During this decade, the population citizenship. Many former slaves grew to more than 20,000 and new worked as sharecroppers, some on construction flourished throughout the same farms they worked before the county. The new buildings the war. New black communities in Canton included the marble were settled, including Hickory Log courthouse, a post office, Canton near Canton. Some of the land in High School, and Baptist and this area was given to the freed Methodist churches. slaves by their former owners, the After the Great Depression, Keith family. which Cherokee County withstood Life was hard, though, for better on average than the rest almost everyone in Cherokee of the country, the economy County — the gold rush was over, slowly began to improve. After boomtown Atlanta was attracting the attack on Pearl Harbor, men talented people and investment from Cherokee County enlisted dollars from Cherokee County, in the service and in May 1942, and the wounds of the Civil War women could join the Women’s were still fresh. When the railroad Army Corps. While the soldiers rolled into Cherokee County, it were away, the families at home opened new markets to farmers dealt with the stringent rationing and industrialists. In May 1879, of goods; others planted victory the railroad linked Woodstock gardens to supplement their food to Canton and two years later it supply. Numerous women also Construction of the county's marble courthouse. extended to Ball Ground, where went to work to support the war the first train arrived in May effort and their families. Cherokee County was given another 1882. Farmers began to send their The poultry industry that began opportunity for growth with the during the Great Depression grew federal government’s construction dramatically during World War II. of Interstate 575. In 1979, the This continued through the 1950s first stage of I-575 was completed and 1960s, bringing prosperity to Highway 92 in Woodstock and to Cherokee County. During the opened to traffic the following year. late 1950s, Cherokee County was The next section to Highway 20 was known as the “Poultry Capital opened in 1985 and the last section of the World” and billboards to Pickens County was completed proclaiming this fact greeted later. The interstate let Cherokee everyone as they entered Cherokee County residents work in Atlanta, County. The surge of the poultry and made Cherokee County part of industry created much needed the Atlanta metropolis. More and job opportunities in hatcheries, more people moved to Cherokee feed stores, rendering plants, County, by the early 2000s at a rate processing plants and equipment of one new resident every hour. manufacturers. Home to 100,000 people in the year After the turbulent 1960s 2000, Cherokee County currently during the Civil Rights Movement, During the late 1950s, Cherokee County was has more than 250,000 residents. known as the Poultry Capital of the World. CHEROKEE COUNTY HISTORY 5 The story of TOWNE LAKE BY CANDI HANNIGAN Up until the mid-1980s, Cherokee County was a quiet, rural community of rolling hills and a few scattered subdivisions of 50 to 100 homes. Most of its 50,000 residents lived around Canton, the county seat and historic mill town. Southern Cherokee featured a few subdivisions, mostly surrounding Woodstock, and a scant few restaurants and shops. For the most part, the area was dominated by a rolling expanse of heavily wooded acres, close to a large lake, with good road access. If someone was looking to build a large master-planned community featuring golf courses, swimming pools and tennis courts, they would have a hard time finding a better location, only 30 miles MCCULLOCH MICHELLE BY PHOTOS The view from the crest of Eagle Drive at Putnam Ford Road.