More Ramblin' 'round Northwest Georgia

Gray's Mill before its destruction by fire. Graysville, Georgia.

Here are a few more of my favorite photographs from northwest Georgia.

From 1970 to 1987 we lived just a few miles from the old Gray's Mill at Graysville in Catoosa County and visited the site often by car or on our bicycles. We were saddened when we learned that the mill had burned, either by vandals or careless campers. It was a beautiful and peaceful place. Some years ago a three-story house was built on the mill ruins.

Ricky's Trees. Daugherty Gap Road, McLemore Cove.

For the last several years we lived on Deer Run Farm, an older man named Ricky Smith lived on our property and helped with maintenance. We learned that when he was a young man he had helped plant these trees that line the road through Mountain Cove Farm in McLemore Cove.

 

 Lula Falls. Rock Creek Canyon on Lookout Mountain, Walker County.

 On the east side of Lookout Mountain, just a few miles south of the Tennessee-Georgia line and the city of Chattanooga, magnificent Lula Falls thunders down 120 feet into Rock Creek Canyon. 

The falls and Lula Lake and Cascade, just a few hundred yards upstream, are now part of the Lula Lake Land Trust, a non-profit organization which seeks to preserve and protect approximately 8,000 contiguous acres on Lookout Mountain.

1941 (I think) Ford pickup. Keith Road, Catoosa County.

 When I lived in northwest Georgia's Catoosa County, I frequently took a camera or two and went on a Sunday afternoon ramble. I found this old truck on Keith Road in the southeastern part of the county. It's always been one of my favorite old car photos.

 

Boynton Beauty Salon. Old Georgia Highway 2, Catoosa County.

 Another of my Sunday afternoon ramble photos. This is my favorite not-so-subtle visual pun and clearly speaks for itself. As the late, great Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a whole lot just by lookin'." (Did you know that he is the most quoted person in the English language?)

Bottom's Up! Berry College campus, Floyd County.

 I was working on a book about Rome, Georgia for their Chamber of Commerce in 1980 when I found these bottom-feeding swans in a pond on the Berry College campus.

The book project was ultimately scrapped, but I got paid. And I also came out with this and several other photos worth keeping.

About the equipment: Four of these photographs were made on film. Gray's Mill was photographed on Kodak Ektachrome with a Rolliecord of Yashica twin-lens reflex. An Olympus OM camera was used for the Old Ford Pickup and Bottoms Up!; Kodachrome film for the truck and Ektachrome for the swans. Ricky's Trees were photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Classic and Canon EF 70-200mm f4L lens, and Lula Falls with a Fuji X-Pro1 and Fujicron XF 27mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    Georgia    northwest Georgia     digital photography     Canon EOS 5D camera     Nikkormat film camera      Canon EF 70-200mm f4Llens     Kodachrome film      Yashica twin-lens reflex camera     Rolleicord twin-lens reflex camera   Film photography     Olympus OM film camera     Fujicron XF 27mm lens    Catoosa County     Lula Falls     film photography     Rome, Georgia     Berry College

Ramblin' 'round northwest Georgia

Abandoned tractor, Georgia Highway 337, Chattooga County.

After writing that I considered northeast Georgia my favorite place to ramble around looking for pictures, it occurred to me that I might have been unfair to my own northwest Georgia, the area where I lived for 33 years and actually did the majority of my ramblin' and picture-taking. There are lots of things to see and photograph in northwest Georgia -- these pictures are just a skim-the-surface sampling.

For example, you can see that we have abandoned tractors here too, although I have to admit that this one is not quite as photogenic as the one near Dahlonega. But I like it, and we have many more interesting things to see.

Andrews Lane in northwest Georgia's McLemore Cove.

Andrews Lane traverses McLemore Cove from east to west, joining Hog Jowl Road (no kiddin') with West Cove Road. That's Lookout Mountain in the background, one of the two mountains that join to create the Cove. The other is Pigeon Mountain, which is behind me as I make this photo.

The Andrews-Guthrie House, Andrews Lane, McLemore Cove.

This is the white house you can see in the distance as you look down Andrews Lane. It was built in the 1890s by Otey Andrews for his new bride. A modified plantation-plain design, it, like many Cove houses, has a lowered second story.

The Bailey-Coulter-Shaw House on West Cove Road in McLemore Cove.

The Bailey-Coulter-Shaw House was built by Wiley Bailey around 1850 at what was then known as Bailey's Crossroads. Today, it's the intersection of GA 193 and West Cove Road. William Michael Coulter bought the house in 1874, and it is currently occupied by the fifth generation of his descendants. The double front porch is an unusual feature for a plantation-plain style house in the North Georgia mountains.

Cove Methodist Church, Georgia Highway 341, Walker County.

Erected in 1894 to replace an earlier structure from 1872, the architecture is New England Colonial. Although it has not had a congregation for many years, the church is kept alive largely through the efforts of Mrs. Mary Agnes Fine and her son Lamar. The annual Fall Revival and Christmas Service are standing-room-only occasions. It is also a popular wedding venue.

Lee and Gordon's Mill, Chickamauga Creek, Chickamauga, Georgia.

 Built by James Gordon on Chickamauga Creek in 1836, the mill was in operation until 1967. After being dormant for years, Frank Pierce, long-time mayor of Chickamauga, bought the property in 1995 and began a six-year process of restoring the building and the dam. Now fully operational, the mill and general store are a fascinating museum of an earlier century.

 The Gordon Lee Mansion, centerpiece of the town of Chickamauga.

 The Gordon Lee mansion in Chickamauga was built between 1840 and 1847 by James Gordon, who had earlier built the grist mill. During the Battle of Chickamauga it was used as a hospital.

After the death of James Gordon, the property was purchased by James Lee, who was one of the principal organizers of the nearby Elizabeth Lee Memorial Methodist Church, named after his wife. After her death, the property was acquired by her son Gordon Lee, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 20 years. 

 

Across the street from the Gordon Lee Mansion is Crawfish Spring, a large spring in a natural amphitheatre. It is a lovely and peaceful place.

 

About the equipment: The old tractor, the Andrews-Guthrie House, and the Bailey-Coulter-Shaw House were all photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Classic digital camera and the EF24-85mm lens. Cove Methodist Church was photographed with a Canon EOS 6D and the EF28-105mm lens.

An Olympus E-PL1 digital camera with a Zuiko 14-42mm lens was used for the photo of Andrews Lane; an Olympus E-M5 with the Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 14-140mm lens for Lee and Gordon's Mill, and a Fuji X-T20 with a Fujicron XC16-50mm lens for the photograph of the Gordon Lee Mansion.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    Georgia    northwest Georgia     digital photography     Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 6D camera      Canon EF 24-85mm lens     Canon EF 28-105mm lens      Olympus E-M5 camera     Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 14-140mm lens    Olympus Zuiko 14-42mm lens  Fuji X-T20 camera     Olympus E-P:1 camera     Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens    Chickamauga     Gordon Lee Mansion

The Backroads Traveler: Eatonton

 

The Eagle Tavern, also known as the Bronson House, was built in 1816.

Eatonton is another east-central Georgia small town with many interesting things to see in the city and in the area. There's also some unusual cultural history in the form of a pair of museums.

Founded in 1807 to be the seat of the newly-formed Putnam County, Eatonton has an historic courthouse and many fine old buildings. I especially liked the Bronson House at 114 North Madison, which began life in 1816 as the Eagle Tavern. In 1852, the columns were added and other changes made to convert the house into a Greek Revival mansion. It is now the headquarters of the Eatonton-Putnam County Historical Society. 

The population of Eatonton in 2020 was about 6,300 people.

The First United Methodist Church was built in 1857.

The First United Methodist Church was partially destroyed by fire in 1979, but was restored and reopened in 1981. It is directly across the street from the Plaza Arts Center and Tourist Information Office, where you can pick up a brochure for the self-guided tour of Eatonton’s more than one hundred historic buildings. 

 

The Brer Rabbit statue in front of the Putnam County Courthouse.

 

Chief among those historic buildings is the impressive Neoclassical Revival Putnam County Courthouse, built in 1824. It's the third oldest courthouse in Georgia and the oldest still in use as a courthouse. It occupies what is said to be the largest public square in Georgia. On the front lawn is a statue of the ubiquitous (in Eatonton, anyway) Joel Chandler Harris character Brer Rabbit.

 

As the birthplace of Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus--Brer Rabbit stories, and Alice Walker, whose best-known novel is The Color Purple, Eatonton is a natural home for the Georgia Writers Museum. Located at 109 South Jefferson Street, the museum hosts frequent lectures and workshops by well-known writers. 

 

The Uncle Remus museum is built of logs from two old slave cabins.
 

Another, and perhaps better-known museum in Eatonton is the Uncle Remus museum. A log cabin made from two old slave cabins from Putnam County, the museum is similar to the cabin lived in by Uncle Remus, the character made famous by author Joel Chandler Harris. Scenes and mementos depict antebellum plantation life. Turner Park, where the museum is located, was part of the original home place of Joseph Sidney Turner, the "Little Boy" in the Uncle Remus stories. 

 

(This post was adapted from my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia.) 

 

About the photos: The Eagle Tavern and the Methodist Church were photographed with an Olympus E-M5 and the Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 12-32mm lens. The Uncle Remus Museum was photographed with the same camera, but with a Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 14-140mm lens. The courthouse was photographed with a Fuji X-H1 camera and the Fujicron XC16-50mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    Georgia    Eatonton     digital photography   Olympus E-M5 camera     Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 12-32mm lens    Panasonic Lumix Vario-G 14-140mm lens  Fuji X-H1 camera     Fujicron X-H1 camera     Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens     Brer Rabbit     Uncle Remus     Joel Chandler Harris

Ramblin' 'round northeast Georgia

Abandoned tractor in soybean field, Georgia Highway 75 ALT, White County.

As I've said before, even though I lived in the northwest corner of Georgia, I usually found more interesting things to photograph in northeast Georgia. 

This tractor was parked in a field beside Georgia 75 ALT in White County. It's obviously really old. Growing up on a farm in the 1940s and '50s as I did, I can say it's older than anything I saw in our area. On the other hand, it has rubber tires, so it's not as old as the tractors with metal lug wheels. I'm guessing it's from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s. There's no way to tell how long it's been sitting in that field, but it's been long enough for the front tires to have rotted away.

       Ford 8N tractor in shed, U.S. Hwy. 19, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

The Ford 8N is one of the most popular tractors every made. Manufactured from 1947 to 1952, 530,000 of the distinctive grey and red machines were sold around the world. In the U.S., many thousands of them are still in use, probably most of them performing light duty on small farms. A full range of parts is still available to keep them running.

Cudzu, the plant that ate the South. U.S. Hwy. 19, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

 

Cudzu, also spelled Kudzu, was imported from Japan in the late 19th century for erosion control and as a cattle feed. My Dad, always a visionary, planted some on our property in southern Indiana for that purpose around 1950. It didn't work out. Years later, two of my brothers, who bought the property from our Dad, leased some acreage to a farmer who finally managed to root out the pesty vine. In the South, as any traveler knows, the evil weed still covers large areas. 

Skeenah Creek Mill, Georgia Highway 60, Fannin County.

The drive from Dahlonega to Blue Ridge via Georgia 60 is only 31 miles, but the twisting, winding highway makes it seem much further. Around the half way point is the Skeenah Creek Mill, located at the rear of the Skeenah Creek Campground. The mill is still operational, but not currently in use. If you're a mill buff, it makes the trip worthwhile.

Johnson Mill, Cooley Woods Road, Cleveland, Georgia.

Dating from the early 1800s, Johnson Mill, on the edge of Cleveland, is well-preserved and fully operational. The owners have taken a great deal of care with the landscaping, making this one of the loveliest settings I have seen for a mill. The mill property also includes a very nicely restored log cabin with rocking chairs on the porch. Across the street is a log double-pen barn and a covered bridge spanning the mill creek. This is altogether an idyllic place and well worth a visit.

About the photos: The Abandoned Tractor, Ford Tractor in Shed, and Cudzu were photographed with a Canon EOS 5D camera with an EF 24-85mm lens. The Skeenah Creek Mill and Johnson Mill were photographed with a Canon EOS 6D camera with an EF 28-105mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    Georgia    digital photography   Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 6 D camera    Canon EF 24-85mm lens   Canon EF 28-105mm lens

Commonplace

Abandoned one-room school (or possibly a church) near Cleveland, Georgia.

In 1974, noted photographer David Plowden published Commonplace, his eighth book of photographs. It was described as "a careful and affectionate look at small-town and back-road America in the 1960s and '70s." Just commonplace things and scenes. The book is still available at Amazon if you're interested.

Like the photographs in Plowden's book, very few of my photographs are outstanding or spectacular. Mostly, they depict the ordinary, everyday things or scenes we pass by with little or no notice. My hope is to impart some significance to commonplace things by seeing and photographing them in a fresh way.  

Monument. (Oglethorpe County, Georgia.)

 

Abandoned hayrake. Southwest Georgia.

 

Cogdell Store. South Georgia.

 Brown-eyed Susans. U.S. Highway 41 near Valdosta, Georgia.

I apologize for the imprecise location data for some of these pictures. Several years ago I lost my travel notebook covering the time span during which they were taken. If you're serious about photography, keep a notebook of when and where you make your pictures. You will never regret it.

Main Street, Pavo, Georgia.

About the photos: The picture of the abandoned school was made with a Fuji X-H1 camera fitted with the Fujicron XC 16-50mm lens. "Monument" was photographed with a Canon EOS 20D and the Canon EF 24-85mm lens. All the other photos were made with a Canon EOS 5D Classic, also with the 24-85mm lens.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    Georgia    digital photography   Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 20D camera    Fuji X-H1 camera   Fujicron XC16-50mm lens

Ramblin' 'round Georgia

South Georgia dirt road.

My favorite place to ramble was northeast, Georgia. But in the process of working on books and just general ramblin' 'round, I've managed to cover much of the state at one time or another and have seen many things that were of interest to me. I hope you will find them interesting also. These are more of what I call my "second tier" pictures.

As I've written before, the things that catch my eye are the old, the abandoned, the beautiful. The strange, the unusual. The off-beat, the quirky. I am a visual historian of mid-twentieth-century America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life.

City Hall, Hahira, Georgia.

 

Green doors on abandoned store, west central Georgia.

 

 Thunderbird for sale, southwest Georgia.

 

 Chattooga Trading Post, Chattooga County, Georgia.

Log shed and wagon, southeast Georgia.

 

Outhouse, south Georgia.

 

Georgian cottage, Barnesville, Georgia.

 

 

Yellow house, Sunbury, Georgia.

 

About the photos: These pictures were mostly made with a Canon EOS 5D Classic. One or two were made with a Canon EOS 20D, and one, the Chattooga Trading Post, was made on Fujichrome 100 film with a Canon EOS A2.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     travel    film photography    digital photography   Georgia    Canon EOS 5D camera     Canon EOS 20D camera    Canon EOS A2 camera   McLemore Cove    Fujichrome film

Why I Blog

 Cloudfall over brow of Lookout Mountain, McLemore Cove, Walker County, Georgia.

 

There are several reasons I blog. I like to share my life and experiences, I like to write about the art of photography, the tools we use, and about techniques that will help us make better pictures.  

Another reason I blog is to give my pictures life. You see, I feel that in order to have life, a picture needs to be seen. Not all my photographs have been published, so there are many that are not quite the right fit for publication, or they may be good, but not as good as another for a particular use.

But I love my pictures and enjoy them. That doesn't mean I think they are great, or that I'm a great photographer, but I think they deserve to be seen, to have life. So I publish them in books and magazines, and I blog. 

This is a group of what I would call second-tier photographs. They aren't my best ones, but they also deserve to be seen and enjoyed. I hope you will enjoy them too.

 

VW Karmann Ghia, west central Georgia.

 

Karma Newland, my all-time best assistant.

 

Confederate reenactor, Point Park, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

 

Man with hat, Dayton, Tennessee.

 

Little girl at playground, Greenville, South Carolina.

 

Red chair, Chickamauga Battlefield, Walker County, Georgia.

 

Lulu and Dancer, Deer Run Farm, McLemore Cove, Georgia.

Peekaboo! Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

 Photos: The photos were made at many different times in many different places with many different cameras. However, all were photographed on film except for the Karmann Ghia.

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  Looking is free, and you might find something you like.

Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     film photography     Georgia    Tennessee     South Carolina    North Carolina   McLemore Cove    Volkswagen Karmann Ghia     Lookout Mountain