A Hotel, Archer, Arson, and Court.
- Christopher Feldt
- Aug 16
- 6 min read
Many newcomers to Jasper drive past Church Street and Burnt Mountain Road, look at the Walgreens without giving it a second thought. Some residents likely remember when Greystone Village had been there - a series of small shops and a restaurant known as the Yellow Bird. A few elders who lived their whole lives here might remember the Greystone as a reincarnation of the Archer Tourist Court. Fewer still remember the Archer Hotel which burned down at the site back in 1947. And certainly, no one was around when the McHan Hotel changed proprietors changed hands and was renamed the Archer Hotel in 1922.
This story is about the rise and fall of the buildings on that small corner of the world.
The McHan Family
The McHans were some of the first settlers to Pickens County, arriving in Cherokee County before Pickens County was created on Dec 5, 1853. Alonson McHan, Jr. was born in Cherokee (now Pickens) in District 15 in 1852.
Alonson McHan, Jr. is first visible in the 1860 Census as an eight year old living in the Town area of Pickens County. In Luke E. Tate's the History of Pickens County, the McHan family is the very first family listed in the section about the earliest residents of Jasper.
In 1879, when Alonson was seventeen, he married Sarah in Pickens County. He was the owner of the McHan Merchandise store, one of the earliest stores operating in downtown Jasper. The building was owned by Charles McHan until his death in 1920 and was bought by John Poole. The McHan Building can be seen below and still stands on Main Street today.
How the Railroad Changed Jasper - Hotels and Liveries
The Marietta and North Georgia Railroad arrived in Jasper in 1883 and consequently the need for tourist accommodations rose rapidly. The Republican and Pickens Progress newspapers frequently featured articles in the 1890s complaining that Jasper, even though it had a hotel, needed a place with far more rooms. Talking Rock had the Warlick Hotel, Ellijay the Teem Hotel, and White Path the Hotel at located at White Path Springs. In essence, there was a void of quality hotel locations between Canton and and Talking Rock - not much later as Talking Rock's population dropped, they were found as close as Ellijay. Sound familiar?
F.C. Richards opened a hotel in the 1890s equipped with a livery. Why a livery? Because the Model-T wouldn't be produced until 1908. Many hotels would offer people who traveled by horse a place to keep them as an amenity (in the same way modern ones offer parking garages.
The McHan Hotel
The McHan Hotel was a very large wooden building with two stories, a vaulted roof, and many windows which looked out into the countryside. It was in business between the years of 1883 and 1922. When Alonson died in 1919, Mrs. Sarah Catherine McHan moved to Atlanta.
The Archer Hotel
The Archer Hotel was opened in 1922 when Roxie Archer from Atlanta moved up to take over the old McHan Hotel.
The Archer Hotel operated for nearly three decades. The Pickens Progress describes various events and guests happening at the hotel over those years. And then.
The Burning of the Archer Hotel
The Archer Hotel burned down on May 30, 1947. The cause was identified as arson. And like the Pickens County Courthouse, which burned down two months earlier on February 4, 1947, the arsonist was never caught.
Paul VanSant, a dentist from Jasper, filmed the burning with his personal camera. You can see the video below:
- Note - In a future article I'll discuss all of the crazy arsons and fires that have happened in Pickens County, with a serious number of them happening between the years of 1946-1947.
Old Pictures and Maps
This picture provided by historian Robert Scott Davis, Jr. was taken during the mid 1880s from the vantage point of the second Courthouse of Pickens County. From the photo you can see the old Rock Jail, straight left, the railroad tracks (laid in 1883) that curve toward Burnt Mountain Road, and the large wooden building in the far-right corner of the picture. If you look closely enough you can actually make out Sharptop Mountain in the background.
I asked Robert Scott Davis, Jr. if he thought my assessment of the McHan Hotel being in picture from the mid 1880s was correct. In his typical fashion, rather than offering explicit confirmation, he shared another picture taken from a different angle which showed the same wooden building far in the background but from farther away. Another difference was the presence of the Jasper Train Depot. This means the second photograph was taken between 1905 and 1947. Notice the older wooden church on the right, it is the wooden church of Jasper First Baptist before it was remade of brick.
The Sanborn Fire Map of Jasper, 1924
The Sanborn Fire Map of Jasper, 1924 shows a hotel that matches the shape of the Archer Hotel, the train depot, the second courthouse of Pickens County and the Rock Jail. Church Street on the old map is indicated as Tate Street and that makes perfect sense. I suspect Church Street took its name after the construction of Jasper Baptist Church.
This map was recreated 58 years later in the Pickens Progress and listed over 70 places with their business names in 1924 and in 1982. Among the old names are the courthouse, the "old jail" and the Archer Hotel.
In this 1945 aerial picture taken by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) you can see the Archer Hotel, the Jasper Train Depot, the second Courthouse, and the Rock Jail.
In this still image, taken from a video recorded on May 7, 1947, the day the Archer Hotel burned down, you can see the same pitch. Beneath the pitch in front two windows are visible - a small one directly below the peak and a three paneled window above the door. To the left, facing away from the entrance, you see two vertical windows on the second floor, before the building expands into another section.
This image was cropped from the 1880s image above. Notice the sharp-pitched roofline of the two-story building with a porch and a large window above the door and two vertical windows immediately under the peak on the left side of the second-floor (as facing away from the entrance). The expanded sections of the house are barely visible in this picture.
REBIRTH
In December 1948, the Pickens Progress announced the Archer Tourist Court was nearly completed on the former site of the Archer Hotel. Rumor has it the manual labor was done by convict labor ordered by Commissioner Grady Jones.
The tourist court was owned by Grady Jones and Mrs. Archer. Mrs. Archer operated the facility and its 27 rooms with private baths, hot water, and white pine interior paneling. The exterior walls were made of native flagstone. The design was inspired by a hotel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The article mentioned being built on the knoll where the Archer Hotel burned two years prior.
The Archer Tourist Court had a cafe managed by Charlie Mosley. It boasted good food, modern equipment, and courteous service!
That summer Tourists arrived from places as far away as California, Nebraska, Ohio, Maryland, New York, and Florida. There was even a cafe on site ran by a Mr. Charlie Mosley.
REBRANDING AND RENOVATION
In 1973, the place was leased by J.L. White and his wife. They renovated the outside and turned the old Archer Court into a series of shops. Among them were florists, a cafe, a real estate office, and a place to have your haircut. The Archer Tourist Court Cafe ran by Mr. Mosely was reopened as the Yellow Bird Cafe.
The businesses at the Greystone Village Grand Opening on October 18-20, 1973 were:
Jasper Florist and Craft Shop
Village Beauty Nook
Greystone Village Record Shop
Village Cheese Shop
Fashion Fabrics
Red Mushroom Gift Shop
Woodward's Antiques
Charmelis Boutique
Electrolysis Shop
Yellowbird Cafe
Later, the Bent Tree welcome center for prospective buyers was opened at the site. Years later Estes Real Estate ran an office there before moving to the corner of Bent Tree Drive and Cove Road. A Century 21 Real Estate Office was there too. The Yellow Bird Cafe changed ownership and became the Greystone Cafe in 1978 and later still the Olympian Greek Restaurant. Owners came and went. Boutiques, crafts, plants, insulation companies, and office supplies, furniture shops, and even a chiropractic clinic came and went.
By the 1990s the shops began to fall into disrepair. Mexicans had moved into the old shops. Buy then the floors of the shops were dirt and trash was everywhere. There was a fire in one of the buildings and it was torn down to build our Walgreens on the corner of Hwy 53 and Burnt Mountain Road.
Personally, I'd much rather have the McHan Hotel or Archer Tourist Court than any of the modern incarnations. Our modern "Progress" often comes at the expense of quality.
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