(Adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.)
John D. Gray, the English-born contractor who built the Western and Atlantic Railroad, including digging the tunnel at Tunnel Hill, liked the Northwest Georgia area so much that he bought 4,000 acres on Chickamauga Creek and laid out the town of Graysville in the late 1840s.
Gray also built a mill dam on the creek, which still stands, and a large grist mill, which was burned during the Civil War. It was rebuilt in 1869 and operated into the 1950s.
In 1883, Dr. William T. Blackford, a Chattanooga physician, built a Queen Anne-style house and moved his practice to Graysville. In 1916 a member of the Gray family bought the house from Dr. Blackford's daughters. It has had numerous owners in the intervening years and was at one time a restaurant, The Graysville House.
The village of Graysville is just across the state line from Chattanooga and easy to get to. Just take East Brainerd Road, then Graysville Road into Georgia.
If you enjoy my photographs, you can see more of them in my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/ Looking is free, and, who knows? You might find something you want to keep.
The second edition of my book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia will be released in June, 2023.
Photograph and text copyright 2022 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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