When Rabun County was founded in 1819, the local supermarket was the family farm. People ate the vegetables they grew, the animals they raised, the game they hunted and the fish they caught. Surviving in the isolated mountains of northeast Georgia was no easy task. Pork, squirrel and venison were favorite meats. Vegetables were eaten
Geography is a key factor shaping the development of a country or region. As an island nation, England turned to the ocean and became the world’s greatest maritime power by the eighteenth century. American pioneers saw the endless flat expanses of the Great Plains and turned it into the country’s breadbasket. On a still smaller
Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the U.S. presidency in 1933 at the depth of the Great Depression. National unemployment stood at a staggering 25%. FDR’s landslide election was a plea for help from a desperate and demoralized nation. Upon being sworn into office on March 4, 1933, FDR launched what became known as “The Hundred Days,”
Rabun County built four courthouses between 1824 and 1908 even though the county was sparsely populated, poor and isolated from the world. One more went up in the mid-1960s. This total does not include the oak tree that served as the county’s first hall of justice. When Rabun was established in 1819, the population of
The topics in the June 2021 edition of the Rabun County Historical Society’s Vintage Rabun newsletter are: Clayton’s Vintage Hotels Museum Re-opening Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format: 2021 June Vintage Rabun
Rabun County was remote and isolated, populated by subsistence farmers scratching out a living on hardscrabble mountain land. The Tallulah Falls Railroad opened Rabun and the surrounding region to the outside world. The TF also brought badly needed jobs. Working on the TF involved backbreaking labor for paltry wages, typically about one dollar per day.
Corn has been the main crop of Rabun County farmers since the first white settlers arrived over 200 years ago. Gristmills were built by Rabun farmers to grind the county’s corn harvests into meal for bread, grits and hominy. The output from gristmills also was used for something more potent than Johnnycakes. Virtually every Rabun
The earliest white settlers, Scots-Irish from Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina, arrived in northeast Georgia in the late eighteenth century. They farmed the land to survive, but those settlers were not the first to raise crops in the fertile valleys and river bottomlands of what would become Rabun County. Already living in the north Georgia
Rabun County is host to four houses on the National Register of Historic Places. Two became inns, or boardinghouses as they once were called, as a direct result of the Tallulah Falls Railroad. One is a farmhouse, serving as a vivid reminder of how poor, subsistence farmers lived in the Georgia mountains in the late
Clayton was barely a speck on the map. The few roads that existed were no more than old Cherokee trails. People caught vast numbers of jumping fish in baskets. An encyclopedic work published in 1849 provides a detailed snapshot of life in a rugged, remote and sparsely populated Rabun County within 30 years of its
Impassable roads (where roads even existed) and isolated communities shaped the development of Rabun County’s postal system in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the absence of decent roads, post offices had to be located within easy reach of the county’s many small communities. A round trip by horse and buggy from Rabun Gap
It was illegal to allow cattle to run loose through Clayton. Dumping chicken coops on streets also was strictly prohibited. These two laws from the 1930s, among many others, provide a glimpse into the life of a country village nine decades ago. During the Depression 30’s, Clayton was a tiny farming town. Poverty was the
One said he could hear a rattling noise in his head. The other claimed he killed in self-defense. These two men were the only convicted murderers ever hung in Rabun County. Both hangings took place in Clayton more than a century ago. The first was held in the privacy of the jail. The second was
A Rabun County slaveholder who voted against Georgia’s secession from the Union…but then didn’t. A rebellion against Georgia’s government by disaffected Confederate soldiers and Union sympathizers. 300 Rabun County men who fought for the Confederacy, including one at Appomattox with Robert E. Lee at the surrender in 1865. These facts would seem to illustrate a
Rabun County turns 200 years old on December 21, 2019. From its beginnings as a remote and sparsely populated frontier in 1819, the county has developed into a growing magnet for mountain tourists…with a thriving downtown in its county seat…and elegant homes dotting the shores of pristine lakes. To find out how this transformation happened,
Museum Exhibit Life in Early Rabun County Rabun County’s early settlers in the late 1700s and early 1800s were predominantly Scots-Irish, who brought with them their traditions, music, language and methods of survival. The county was isolated, sparsely populated and poor. Life in the mountains was harsh. Roads, if they existed at all, were treacherous
The topic of the December 2019 edition of the Rabun County Historical Society’s Vintage Rabun newsletter is: The Origins of Rabun’s Library: Women, The “Judge”, Panel Trucks, The WPA Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format 2019 Dec Vintage Rabun (PDF)
The topic of the June 2019 edition of the Rabun County Historical Society’s Vintage Rabun newsletter is: Tallulah Falls Railroad: The History and The Legacy Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format 2019 June Vintage Rabun (PDF)
The topic of the March 2019 edition of the Rabun County Historical Society’s Vintage Rabun newsletter is: Rabun County Roads: 200 Years in the Making Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format 2019 March Vintage Rabun (PDF)
The topic of the December 2018 edition of the Rabun County Historical Society’s Vintage Rabun newsletter is: Rabun’s Origins: A Land Lottery Use the link below to download the newsletter in PDF format 2018 Dec Vintage Rabun (PDF)
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81 North Church Street
Clayton, Georgia 30525
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