John Cagle

I remember growing up in Jasper, listening to my parents talk about important things happening in our community growing up.

 Sometimes my grandparents told stories about their childhood and adult life too, which for them began in the late eighteenth century.  For those of us who have lost our parents and grandparents, it seems we have lost access to so much history.  I often catch myself trying to remember the name of a person or event my mother told me about years ago.

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Chris Feldt’s articles and books help me fill in the blanks I thought were gone forever.  His attention to detail and desire to “get it right” when researching our community and the surrounding areas remind me of the stories I listened to as a child.  Now, some of the history he writes about is part of my memory of growing up in these mountains.

We are lucky to live in an area rich with so much history many folks could never imagine.  Thanks to Chris for keeping the stories and memories alive.

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Former GBI Agent, author of Those Days in January

Robert Scott Davis

What we know and love as Pickens County was a magical place, literally from its physical beginnings. Located between chains of the oldest mountains in the world, some scenes there have changed little in many thousands of years, even when sabretooth tigers roamed this land. The land is a mineral-rich plateau of aquamarines, graphite, marble, and mica that can be seen for twenty miles before the visitor
arrives. Here Georgia’s hill country meets the mountains, a land always where different peoples came together with important highways that connect not only places but also the past, present, and future.

Since its creation in 1853, Pickens usually was near the bottom of Georgia’s 161 counties in physical size and population. Yet, because of its geography many different people arrived; far more cosmopolitan their numbers might imply. With different ambitions, dreams, and realities, their stories sometimes even impacted the nation.  The past of this land and its people, however, became as lost as its gold and silver mines, its prehistoric past, or even the origins of its most colorful names like Long Swamp, Price Creek, and Talking Rock.

The late Reverend Charles O. Walker (1929-2010), once a newcomer to the area, began the recovery of that legacy in the 1960s and it is now carried on by people inspired by his work. Chris Feldt now continues this great adventure in ways Charles would have loved. Be prepared on these pages to be amazed as well as entertained! But also, so much
more.

Too many places have a history that exists only on paper in archives and books, beyond what can be physically experienced or felt. Chris not only reveals the heritage of this special place, but shows that in Pickens County, William Faulkner’s claim, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” is very true!  Please take the time to savor the incredible amount of work done here in your own armchair journey to this incredible
crossroads of times that have been, are, and will be! Pickens County is always worth any journey!

Robert Scott Davis has more than 2,000 publications dealing with
genealogy, history, records, and research, most of which deal with the state of Georgia (USA) in some form or fashion. He has been widely quoted by or appeared in CNN, Time, Smithsonian, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.

Alexander Kirchenbauer

I am thankful to Chris Feldt, whose North Georgia History archive, deep regional scholarship, and generous partnership contributed greatly to this book. I am also deeply indebted to Whit Wright Sr., whose decades of patient work to keep the history of Tate alive, including his 1992
community history of the place, gave this book its closest local source and preserved the resort years in the community’s own voice when most of those who had walked the fairways were no
longer available to tell it themselves.

Author of Above the Clouds