The September 2024 newsletter contains a brief history of the Dillard House and the generations of the Dillard Family that created and sustained it. Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format. 2024 Sept Vintage Rabun
Highway 441 has gone through five iterations in its long history. It started as a centuries-old Indian trail that ran the length of what became Rabun County. The trail was “improved” into a single lane dirt road following the county’s founding in 1819 and then converted into a toll road later in the 1800s. 441
His daughter recalled a late-night visit from the sheriff when she was a little girl. “Sit on these quilts,” her father ordered, “and don’t move!” The child obediently sat on the quilt and never moved when the sheriff walked through her room. Hidden under the quilt were Mason jars filled with daddy’s hard work.
The Anglo-Cherokee War of 1759-1761 is unique in military history, since it was fought as a war within a war…the French and Indian War from 1756 to 1763. The Anglo-Cherokee War also is unique on a purely regional level. Unlike the Civil War in which no blood was spilled in northeast Georgia, two major battles
The June 2024 newsletter contains photographs of some of the buildings and facilities in Rabun County that were constructed by the Works Projects Administration (WPA) in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format. 2024 June Vintage Rabun
Stashing cash in a mattress or burying it in the backyard were two ways Rabun County’s people could “save” money during the 1800s. It was not until the early twentieth century that a third option became available. In January 1904, a group of citizens invited W. S. Witham, president of Georgia’s Witham Banking, to discuss
The March 2024 newsletter contains photographs and a bit of history about the grist mills of Rabun County, both past and present. Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format. 2024 March Vintage Rabun
It was a decade of surging economic growth, booming consumerism and the flouting of Prohibition by Jazz Age flappers in speakeasies. Both economically and socially, America was undergoing rapid and fundamental change during the Roaring Twenties. A measure of prosperity made its way to Rabun County’s towns during the 1920s. But with the exception of
One of the oldest existing structures in Rabun County, a home and later an inn dating from1850, was not originally built in this county. How it was constructed and how it ended up in Dillard is the story of the Whitehall Inn, later known as Rabun Manor. The story begins in 1817 when John White
The December 2023 newsletter highlights some of the books available for sale in our museum and on our website. We also include photos and a bit of history on three of the important river crossings in the county and show how the bridges have evolved to keep pace with the progress of transportation. 2023 Dec
Long before Tallulah Falls became a tourist mecca in the 1880s, Tallulah Gorge and its raging waterfalls was the domain of what Indians claimed was a race of ferocious “little people.” Hernando de Soto may have passed nearby in the 1540s. European traders were frequenting the area by the early 1700s, and a few hermits
Clayton has been around a long time, probably longer than many people think. The town’s history begins with the Cherokees and ends, at least for now, with tourism and a Main Street lined with boutiques. A good deal has transpired in between. As the homeland of the Cherokees for hundreds of years, northeast Georgia was
The September 2023 newsletter contains photos and a bit of history of many of the gas stations that once lined Main Street in Clayton. Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format. 2023 Sept Vintage Rabun
One of the largest national forests east of the Mississippi owes its birth to an environmental disaster. The history of the Chattahoochee National Forest, which takes its name from the river whose headwaters rise in the north Georgia mountains, is the story of a phoenix rising, not from ashes but from a rubble-strewn landscape left
The history of the Tallulah Falls Railroad is part and parcel of the schemes of southern railroad builders in the nineteenth century to link the port city of Charleston with midwestern markets at Cincinnati. In 1835, South Carolinian John C. Calhoun, former U.S. vice president and staunch defender of slavery, was among the first to
The June 2023 Vintage Rabun Quarterly features photographs and a short history of a few of the many summer camps for children that have operated in Rabun County since the early twentieth century. Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format. 2023 June Vintage Rabun
Disputes over Georgia’s borders flared up periodically during the state’s early history. Most involved the 35th parallel north, which commonly was accepted as the shared boundary between Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee by the late 1700s. However, it was one thing to declare the 35th parallel a legal boundary, while it was altogether something else
The March 2023 Vintage Rabun Quarterly contains photographs and a history of the Bynum House previously located on US 76 West. The newsletter also includes a brief history of the Georgia/North Carolina state boundary marker that was placed in 1819 and will be on display at the Rabun County Historical Society museum beginning in April.
A fire in a mechanic’s garage sparked a conflagration that burned the resort town of Tallulah Falls to the ground on a December night in 1921. The village had no fire department. Neither did any other town in Rabun County. If your house caught fire, it helped to have friendly neighbors, because that was the
There could have been a settlement of Seminole Indians atop Black Rock Mountain as a tourist attraction. There also could have been a bust of Franklin Roosevelt gazing down over Rabun County from the heights of the 3,640 foot mountain. Instead of these, the county became home to the highest state park in Georgia, Black
© 2020 Rabun County Historical Society.
All Rights Reserved.
The Society publishes a newsletter four times per year. Enter your email address below to get notified when a new edition is available.
81 North Church Street
Clayton, Georgia 30525
(706) 782-5292