A self-guided walking tour of a remarkable Georgia river town on the banks of the Chattahoochee River including an INTERACTIVE MAP.
By JAMES EDGAR COLEMAN
Fort Gaines, Georgia, sits on the southern end of Lake Walter F. George, high on a bluff overlooking the Chattahoochee River. This prominent position on the
river has contributed to the interesting history of the town.
Artifacts place a large prehistoric Indian village on the site between 900 and 1400 AD, and more than two centuries ago the Creek Indians had a town of some size here. After the first Creek War in 1814, General Edmund Pendleton Gaines established a frontier fort on the site. Gaines was later noted for arguing against Indian removal. Built in 1816, the 100-square-foot fort was enclosed by a stockade eight feet high and garrisoned by Federal troops under General John Dill, who would later build a large home in the town. In 1836 a second fort was constructed to provide settlers with protection from Indian attacks. (A third fort, built in 1863, was intended to keep Union troops from going upriver to Columbus, an important city to the Confederacy for its shipbuilding, iron works and textile plants).
In the 1830s, Fort Gaines was chartered as a town and its real heyday began. One historical marker calls the town “Queen City of the Chattahoochee.” And so it was. A shipping point for cotton planters for many miles on both sides of the river, it was one of the most important points between Apalachicola and Columbus until the railroads arrived in 1858. Huge warehouses along the river held thousands of bales of cotton for shipping on large steamboats. Traces of the old cotton slide, leading down to the river warehouses still can be seen down the bluff. Boom times came again after the Civil War, as merchants came from Alabama and all around to sell their cotton. The town boasted several hotels, two newspapers and saloons everywhere. The decline set in with the ominous boll weevil depression of the 1910s.
Today Fort Gaines is a little worn at the heels. It is the county seat of Clay County, which is one of the poorest counties in Georgia. Much of the downtown and houses built in the 1870s and 1880s are still there. Because of the economy, it
is the least changed of the river towns – which can be good for visitors who want to experience a Chattahoochee river town as it once looked.
The best place to start any tour of Fort Gaines is on Bluff Street where the town’s history began. To follow all of the tour points below use this INTERACTIVE MAP.
THE BLUFF (1) overlooking the river is at this point about 130 feet above the Chattahoochee. Standing on this bluff and looking at the magnificent view brings a startling revelation as to why the Indian sites and forts were built on bluffs in the first place. The river view extends in both directions. This site is the perfect place from which to guard the river, the standard means of transportation for friend and foe alike. Walking along this bluff brings Georgia and American history to life.
CORNELIA CLUB HOUSE (2), erected in 1927, is at the site where the three forts prominent in the town’s early history were located.
THIS CONFEDERATE CANNON (3) is in its original position. From this spot above the river, Confederate artillerymen had a commanding view. A second cannon was a few yards to the south, and a third was below the bluff in a bend of the river.
TOLL HOUSE (4), the white two-story building with the single chimney rising from the center of its roof is where in the 1820’s people paid tolls for the ferry across the Chattahoochee to Indian Territory (now Alabama). Later, a covered bridge was built. It was the first home of fort commander John Dill.
THE LOG HOUSE (5) was built by the Boy Scouts in the early 1930s and was Fort Gaines’ first community library. Today, it is used for civic events.Go south on Bluff Street to the road down the hill.
THE STATUE (6) facing the river commemorates Otis Micco, a Creek leader. In 1816, by order of General Andrew Jackson, Micco and his people abandoned their village here, and fled to Spanish Florida. The statue was carved by local artist Philip Andrews from a tree section measuring three feet around and 10-to-12 feet long. Much of the work was done with a chain saw. It is illuminated at night and makes an imposing sight from GA 37 far below.
FRONTIER VILLAGE (7), a collection of authentic frontier structures, is a part of an ambitious project to re-create Fort Gaines as it might have looked during the town’s earliest days, using only original buildings. There are log houses, a syrup cooker and a cane press.Go back up the hill and then turn right onto the traffic circle, then right again onto Carroll Street. Go down Carroll, crossing Jackson.
FRONTIER CEMETERY (8), on a slight rise shaded by moss-draped trees, is the final resting place of many early Fort Gaines settlers. John Dill is buried here, as well as John Brown, second president of Franklin College (now University of Georgia). The earliest legible date on a gravestone is 1830s.Continue down Carroll to Troup and turn left. Go one block to Commerce Street and turn right to the northeast corner of Commerce and Troup.
JOHN FOSTER HOUSE (9), built in the 1800s, presents the same facades on both Commerce and Troup streets. It’s built in an L shape: to go from one corner room to the other, you have to go through every room in the house or use an outside porch.
IRON HOUSE (10) was built by a young man who moved to Fort Gaines in the late 1800s and established a bar. Each afternoon after sampling his own products, he wove his way down the street to check on the progress of his house. Each day, it seemed to him the house was leaning, so he urged the carpenters to use more nails. When the house was finished, it contained so many nails folks started calling it the Iron House.
In the early 1800s MILLER’S TAVERN (11) occupied this site where the Fort Gaines Police Department and City Hall now stand. When Fort Gaines was a rough-and-ready frontier town, a fight broke out one night at the tavern and one of the kerosene lamps fell over, starting a fire. The fire station, with water and a hand-pulled cart, was only a block away; but excited drunks don’t make good firemen. They instead settled in across the street to watch the blaze. As the fire burned over to the whiskey barrels lined up behind the bar, they expected a humongous explosion. However, as the flames burned closer to the barrels, they flickered and died! The next morning, the fire marshal examined the scene, finding that proprietor Miller watered his whiskey so much it wouldn’t burn. Miller, it is said, was so humiliated he moved his business to another town.
Cross Hancock Street.
COLEMAN’S OPERA HOUSE (12) was built in 1880 when New York show troops spent summers in Fort Gaines fine-tuning performances to carry back to Broadway. Events held here included dances, concerts and cockfights. Later, the building became a movie theater. Today, it’s an auto parts store.
WAYSIDE INN (13), located immediately behind the Opera House, was established in 1863 by the city to care for sick and wounded soldiers.Go to the end of the street and cross Washington Street.
THE BROWN HOUSE (14), to the left, was built around the 1830s as a private dwelling. It has served as a hotel and as an annex to the Dill House next door.
DILL HOUSE (15), the many-gabled pink house to the right, has a romantic history. In late November 1817, at the beginning of hostilities later called the First Seminole War, a boat carrying some 40 soldiers and the wives and children of other soldiers was making its way from Mobile up the Apalachicola to Fort Scott, at the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, when it was attached by a band of Seminoles. Everyone was killed, except two soldiers who escaped into the water, and a military wife named Elizabeth Stuart. The white woman was taken prisoner and made the servant of an Indian named Yellow Hair. Yellow hair had been nursed through an illness by a white woman near St. Marys, so he felt it his duty to take the woman and treat her kindly. Five months later, she was rescued in Florida by Creek Indians under the Creek chief General William McIntosh, who was fighting on the side of General Andrew Jackson. According to legend, she noticed that Indians returning from raids kept coins and threw paper money away, so she quietly gathered the bills and pinned them to her petticoats with briars and pine needles. Conducted to safety at Fort Gaines, where she learned her husband had been killed, Elizabeth married General John Dill, commander of the fort. The elaborate Dill House, with its carved cypress wainscoting and Italian mantels, is said to have been built with her petticoat money. At one time the house was a tavern and after the Civil War it was a hotel. Today, the 11,000-square-foot house has been restored as a bed and breakfast inn.
Continue south on Washington, noting the Coca Cola sign on a corner building along the way, restored to its original condition by local residents.
The legend about GRIMSLEY HOUSE (16) begins with two young swains courting the same girl. The loser in this contest for love vowed to wait and marry the couple’s first daughter, and that’s just what he did! Many years later, his widow came to Fort Gaines, ordered this house from Sears and Roebuck and lived there with her children.
SUTLIVE HOUSE (17), with its black iron fence, was built in 1820 by John Sutlive, a business partner of John Dill. Sutlive (called Chafee by his Indian friends, meaning “white rabbit”) operated a ferry across the Chattahoochee until the first bridge was built in 1841.
CLAY COUNTY COURTHOUSE (18) has been in continuous use since its completion in 1873. Why isn’t it on a square? Because Fort Gaines was already an old settlement by the time the courthouse was built, and there was no land available!Continue to Highway 37 and turn right (west). Just beyond the nursing home, turn left onto New Park Road.
Looking straight ahead from the entrance to the cemetery is a gazebo. It sits atop NEW PARK CEMETERY INDIAN MOUND (19) dating to 200 AD.
Return to Highway 37. Go to Highway 39 (Hancock Street) and proceed to the Fowler house on the left.
FOWLER HOUSE (20) was built early in the 19th century by an elderly one-legged sea captain. He ordered the high-pitched roof to prevent the accumulation of snow – betraying his New England roots and calling into question his knowledge of the local climate. Even a light snowfall is a rarity in Fort Gaines.
GRIST HOUSE (21) with its green roof was constructed in the 1880s by Colonel Frederick Grist, an internationally known game rooster breeder.Turn right onto Jefferson Street.
B.C. BROWN HOUSE (22) is actually two houses pulled together to make a single dwelling.
COLEMAN HOUSE (23), built in 1880 after a pond on the site was drained, remains occupied by fifth-generation descendants of the original builder.
MCRAE HOUSE (24), a two-story structure on the right, served as barracks for Confederate officers stationed at Fort Gaines during the Civil War.
MCALISTER HOUSE (25), like many houses of its era, has a detached kitchen, which protected the main house if the kitchen caught fire. The kitchen was the courthouse for this area before 1850. During the Civil War, Union prisoners were brought here from Andersonville and placed under guard.
BROWN COTTAGE (26), across the street from the McAlister House, was the home of James Mason Brown, who left Fort Gaines at the tender age of 14 to fight with the Confederacy. Five years later, he caught a train from Virginia to Atlanta, and from there walked 180 miles home to Fort Gaines. Arriving exhausted late at night, he curled up on the porch and went to sleep. His excited family found him there the next morning, but he refused to let them touch him for fear of exposing them to lice. They put a wash pot of water on to boil in the back yard, constructed a screen of blankets, and gave him soap, clothes and a razor. He burned his discarded clothes, shaved all the hair from his body, bathed and dressed in his father’s clothes. Only then was there a joyous family reunion.
Continue down Jefferson, crossing Troup Street.
WALTER RAY HOUSE (27). The first owner of this house was a man who refused to let minor problems interfere with life’s pleasures. The house originally faced Commerce Street, a dusty, noisy thoroughfare between downtown Fort Gaines and the river steamboat landing. The commotion interfered with his relaxation, so he turned the house to face Jefferson.
GRIMSLEY HOUSE (28) served as a Presbyterian church from 1847 until 1904, when it was converted to a private dwelling.Continue across Jackson Street, to the tennis courts and an historic market on the right.
Former site of FORT GAINES FEMALE COLLEGE (29). In 1857 the Georgia Legislature authorized a lottery to complete this college. But all the money was spent on construction, leaving nothing to pay off the winners. A fellow named William Cheshire drew the winning ticket and when he couldn’t collect, two commissioners gave Cheshire their individual notes, hoping future sales would raise enough to retire their debt. However, the Fort Gaines citizenry grew disillusioned with the lottery and abolished it. A jury ordered the commissioners to pay $1,400, plus interest, to compensate Cheshire. During the Civil War, the building was used as a “tax-in-kind” depot for wool and food to support the war. At war’s end, Confederate soldiers distributed the contents to local families before Union troops arrived. The school resumed operation but closed following a typhoid epidemic.Turn back east on Jefferson and go to Hancock Street. Turn right and stop at the Clay County Library.
CLAY COUNTY LIBRARY (30) has, in its excellent genealogy department, a collection of artifacts from the area. Hours are Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm, Sat 9am-5pm. 229-768-2248.
Links:
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