By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | One of Georgia’s most peaceful and scenic spots is just south of Helen, off Georgia Highway 75. It’s the Sautee-Nacoochee valley, highlighted by the cupola atop an Indian Mound close to the roadway, in White County, just after the road crosses the Chattahoochee River.
One person maintained that the cupola and Indian mound form the second most recognizable tourist feature of Georgia, outranked only by Stone Mountain.
Emory Jones. (Click image to see larger photo.)
The Sautee valley area is particularly popular with tourists, a destination spot for many because of its many activities. It is also a vibrant Art and Community Center, with galleries, a folk pottery museum, performing arts center, history museum, and other activities that keep Sautee jumping.
Someone who has written extensively about the area is Emory Jones, a native who lives on nearby Yonah Mountain. A retired advertising and public relations person who once lived in Gwinnett, he has written an historical book on the valley, penned a novel with the valley as its setting, and produced a DVD of the area. All are still in print except the DVD, a 62 minutes production which has different admirers discussing the valley in all its splendor.
The history book, released in 2009, is entitled Distant Voices, the story of the Nacoochee Valley Indian Mound. The novel, The Valley Where They Danced, came in 2013, and centers on the 1920s era in the valley. Both books are available on Amazon. The DVD also was released in 2013, but is no longer available.
Emory Jones, in retirement, operates Yonah Mountain Treasures north of Cleveland. He began writing about the area, including 101 Things to do in White County, and Zipping through Georgia with the late Ludlow Porch. He also did a travel guide for North Georgia, edited a Habersham EMC history, and soon found he had a lot of history of the Nacoochee valley.
He had an interest in the Indian Mound, and considered making a coffee table book of a year at the Mound, using one photograph a day. But in talking to people about the mound, the stories that many of them had were fascinating. Instead, he decided to encase that information in a book, using images that locals could provide, too. Distant Voices is 9×11 inches, with full-page stunning photos of the Indian mound and valley.
During the 1920s, a scientific group excavated part of the mound, finding many treasures in the mound. Those artifacts eventually landed at the Smithsonian Institute. Jones sought to use some of those photographs of these findings in the book, but the long-and-drawn out correspondence did not produce the items in time for publication. (However, shortly after the book went to press, all the photos from this “dig” was acquired by the White County Historical Society, where they can be seen now.)
Several years ago, the Hardman family (Lamartine Hardman was governor of Georgia from 1927-31), donated the gingerbread family-owned home and acreage across from the mound, to the State of Georgia. They also gave 160 acres around the mound to the state, which now operates these properties as a state park. Today 150-200 Holstein heifers graze on the land around the mound. (These are young dry heifers, not milkers, who get sold as breeding cows to dairies all across the country.)
These days Emory Jones is contemplating more stories on the Sautee-Nacoochee area, perhaps two more novels from different periods, and maybe another historical book, anticipated to be about the Tallulah Falls Railroad, which ran from Cornelia to Franklin, N.C. Emory’s retirement has been productive. We look forward to more from this gifted writer and historian.
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