By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

Georgia > Atlanta Metro > Fulton County > Atlanta

The 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta is the subject of just one of the many historical exhibits you will see at the Atlanta History Center. 

The Atlanta History Center, one of the largest history museums in the nation, is a place you can visit time and time again and always have a different experience. If you are interested in the Civil War, there is “Turning Point: The American Civil War,” one of the nation’s largest and most complete Civil War exhibitions with over 1,500 Union and Confederate artifacts, including the flag that flew over Atlanta at the time of its surrender and a Union supply wagon used by Sherman’s army.

“Metropolitan Frontiers” is the largest and most comprehensive exploration of urban history in the Southeast, telling the story of Atlanta’s emergence as a major city after the Civil War. Vintage film footage documents the 1939 premiere of Gone With the Wind, and the city’s primary role in the Civil Rights Movement.

The Centennial Olympic Games Museum at the Atlanta History Center guides you through the history of the Olympic movement, shows highlights from the Games on a large screen, and has America’s only complete collection of Olympic torches and medals. (more…)

By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

Georgia > East Central Georgia > Wilkes County > Washington

This late 18th-century log cabin represents the home of Job Callaway and is one of several historical buildings that you can see at Callaway Plantation in Washington. 

As late as the early 1770s, Georgia’s boundaries were mostly within the coastal region. In only a confined area beyond Augusta were the Piedmont’s heavier soils and hardwood forests included within Georgia’s boundary. Frontiersmen were trickling down into this area from their homes in Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas. Self-reliant, with few slaves and little love for coastal aristocrats, they brought a new way of life centered around the cultivation of tobacco and corn.

As the population grew, Georgia needed more of this Piedmont land — land inhabited by the Creek and Cherokee Indians. In 1773, Georgia’s Royal Governor, James Wright, purchased two tracts of land from the Cherokees and Creeks; one strip of coastal plain, stretching between the Ogeechee and Altamaha rivers, which made way for the cultivation of rice; the other on the Piedmont, stretching north to Hart County on the Savannah River and almost to Athens on the west. Out of these Piedmont “ceded lands,” Wilkes County was formed along with the first Constitution of Georgia in 1777.

Settlers flooded into the new area via the Piedmont route from the north. Most of these families were non-slaveholders who took farm-size tracts of 200 acres or less, thus blending well with the tobacco and corn growing frontiersmen who had preceded them into the Piedmont a few years earlier. (more…)

By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

Georgia > Coastal Georgia > Chatham County > Savannah

Any railroad enthusiast will find a lot to explore at the Central of Georgia Railroad Shops and Terminal, a National Historic Landmark in Savannah.

Huge transportation complexes with shops and necessary services are not a modern concept. To understand that, just step back in time in Savannah and visit the Central Georgia Railroad Shops and Terminal.

This 32.5-acre complex, a National Historic Landmark, was begun in 1835. It is dominated by the Central of Georgia Depot and Trainshed, which were begun in 1860, before the Civil War broke out. Other notable structures, including a cotton yard and a blacksmith shop.

According to the Coastal Heritage Society:

“The Central Railroad and Canal Company was chartered in 1833. The purpose of the railroad was to bring products of Georgia to Savannah for export, especially cotton. The idea of a canal was soon dismissed, but the railroad grew rapidly. Two years later, this facility was built for the construction and maintenance of the growing fleet of steam locomotives and rail cars. By 1843, the Central Railroad & Banking Company of Georgia had constructed 190 miles of rail forming the longest continuous railroad under one management in the world. The Central also increased their rolling stock to over 50 locomotives and 500 cars, making it the second largest holding in the pre-civil war South. (more…)

By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

Georgia > West Central Georgia > Troup County > LaGrange

Built by Benjamin Harvey Hill in the early 1850s, Bellevue in LaGrange is a National Historic Landmark and one of Georgia’s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture.  

There are numerous lovely antebellum homes across Georgia. Bellevue, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in 1973, is one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the state.

Sitting atop a gently sloping hill, the beautifully restored home originally presided over a 1200-acre plantation owned by Georgia orator and statesman Benjamin Harvey Hill. It was built from 1853 to 1855 for his wife, Caroline Holt Hill. Ionic columns grace the wide porticos on three sides of the home. Inside, massive wood cornices around the doorways and large windows were hand carved by slaves. All of the original fireplaces were made of Italian black marble. There are original heart pine floors, carved pediments, and plaster ceiling medallions

The home is furnished in the style of the 1850s. Many donated antiques of the period are on display, including a half-tester bed in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The rosewood piano Hill gave his wife as a wedding present is the only piece of original furniture now in the mansion. Portraits of Hill and Caroline hang in the main drawing room. In the main entry, there is a large oil portrait of the Senator as well. (more…)

By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

The removal of the Cherokee Indians from the North Georgia Mountain region is just one of the historical stories relayed at the Bartow History Museum.

If you want to get a glimpse into the history of Bartow County, the state of Georgia and the Southeastern United States, spend an afternoon at the Bartow History Museum. Located in Cartersville in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, this county museum tells the story of this historic and scenic area. The museum’s permanent, interactive exhibits span more than 200 years — Cherokee Indian life, the first white settlers, the establishment of Bartow County in 1832, Cherokee removal, Civil War, and the impact of national and global events on a northwest Georgia county and its people.

Hands-on history summer day camps for children are offered at the museum as well as lectures, featuring local and regional historians, authors and experts in various fields. The Lunch & Learn Lecture Series takes place the third Wednesday of each month while the Thursday Evening Lecture Series takes place the last Thursday of each month. (more…)

By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

The suffering of Union prisoners at Andersonville and of POWs in all American wars is the story told at Andersonville National Historic Site.

Where the small stream named Stockade Branch merges with Sweetwater Creek, just six miles west of the Flint River, once stood the most notorious war prison in the Confederacy—Andersonville. From 1864 to 1865, Confederate guards interred 45,000 Union prisoners of war (POW) over a period of 14 months. Of these, 12,914 died from disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, overcrowding or exposure to the elements. Stockade Branch ran through this 26.5-acre area, surrounded by a 15-foot high stockade of hewed pine logs. When it entered the pen, it carried fresh water; when it exited, it carried human filth and suffering of men living an extremely harsh and miserable existence.

Andersonville, or Camp Sumter as it was officially known, was one of the largest of the many Confederate military prisons established during the Civil War. Today, Andersonville National Historic Site is one of the most moving Civil War shrines in all the South. The white cross Union graves lie in rows in the Andersonville National Cemetery, and the prison site itself stands as a stark reminder of the horrors of that war. (more…)

By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

Fort Pulaski National Monument on Georgia’s Coast is a place where kids can experience cannon firings, musket and soldering demonstrations and learn something about the history of the Civil War as well. 

If you want to coax a little history on children, one of the best ways to do it is to visit a fort. I love to take kids to forts. They can run around, make noise, and are usually fascinated by the cannons, drawbridges, and moats, as well as the idea that people (soldiers) actually once lived in this place.

Fort Pulaski National Monument is a good introduction to forts for any family. Fifteen miles east of Savannah, it stood guard over the Savannah River for over 150 years. The Battle of Fort Pulaski in April 1862 marked a turning point in this country’s military history because it signaled the end of the masonry fortifications that had guarded the coastline. Those new rifled cannons belonging to the Union Army shattered the fort’s walls from over a mile away, and Confederate troops at the fort eventually surrendered. (more…)