The Old Mill at the Foxfire Museum

 The Grist Mill at Foxfire

Hidden away in the northeastern-most county in Georgia is one of the most remarkable places in the state -- the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center.

Foxfire began in 1966, when Eliot Wigginton, an English teacher at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, seeking to arouse the interest of mountain young people, many of whom were not especially enthusiastic about education, initiated a project with his students. They began interviewing older residents of the area, learning about the pioneer culture of the Southern Appalachians and collecting old tools and artifacts. That led to publishing a magazine which they named Foxfire, which led eventually to the best-selling series of Foxfire Books.

With income from the books, the students began to expand their program, acquiring some property on the side of Black Rock Mountain and collecting old log cabins and outbuildings and moving them to the site. The oldest is a one-room log cabin built in the 1820s in which four generations of one family grew up. The museum now includes more than 20 cabins, a chapel, barn, blacksmith shop, and working gristmill, and a wagon built in the 1790s that was used on the Trail of Tears - the only one known to be still in existence. 

The grist mill was built by Charles William Bell near Otto, North Carolina in the late 1930s. The Foxfire students found it abandoned and deteriorating, moved it the the Foxfire property, and restored it as a fully-functioning mill in 1972 -- the first of many old buildings to be reconstructed at the Foxfire Museum.

There are many interesting things to see in Rabun County, but don't miss the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center. It's open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday.  

Photo made with a Fuji X-H1 camera and a Fujichrom XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OIS-II lens.)

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Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

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