Georgia’s historic sites need funds

By Tiya Miles

As one of the original 13 colonies, Georgia is studded with rare, historic architectural gems. Since a year ago this summer, however, that treasure trove has been in jeopardy as Georgia’s historic sites have come under siege.

Because of Georgia’s budget crisis, the Division of State Parks & Historic Sites at the Department of Natural Resources cut funding to historic sites by more than 39 percent — reducing the number of staff and cutting their hours.

The Chieftain’s Trail, a cluster of Native American sites in northwest Georgia that features the 19th century plantation home of Cherokee leaders James and Joseph Vann, the Cherokee capital town of New Echota from the same historical period, and the ancient Etowah Mounds built by ancestors of southern Indians, have been especially hard hit, with their staff numbers reduced by half.

The Chief Vann House site, which includes a manor house, a restored Cherokee farmer’s cabin, an exhibit on African- American life, and award-winning formal gardens, is by far the most fully interpreted Native American historic site of its kind in the nation.

Besides the Chief Vann House, only one other restored Cherokee plantation home exists for public viewing — the Murrell House in Oklahoma. Despite its beauty, educational value, high visitation rates, and absolute rarity in the nation as a whole, the Chief Vann House, like other priceless sites on the Chieftain’s Trail, has seen drastic cuts in staff, hours and operating budget.

Local citizens groups and the Cherokee Nations of Oklahoma and North Carolina have organized to protect these Indian sites, but to no avail.

And now there is talk of removing remaining staff members and providing visitors with pre-recorded self-guided tours of historic sites — an insult to the worth and weight of these special places.

Although I am a resident of Michigan, I have been a regular visitor to Georgia most summers for the past decade while researching my book: “The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story.” I come for the history and the pleasure of engaging with passionate and knowledgeable historic site employees.

On July 24, nearly 100 descendants of Cherokee Chief James Vann will come for the history, too, gathering in Atlanta and Chatsworth during the annual Vann House Days celebration to learn about their famous ancestors from people who know and care, not from a lifeless audio tape.

When the state Legislature formed the Georgia Historical Commission in 1951, the Chief Vann House was the very first site the commission chose to acquire and restore.

In 1968, William Murtagh, executive secretary of the Georgia Historical Commission, wrote a letter to the U.S. Keeper of the National Register describing the Vann House as “one of the most important structures in the state of Georgia” and declaring that he could not “take any chance at all of having anything happen to it.” This letter is preserved in the Vann House file of the Georgia Historical Commission records at the Georgia State Archives.

Surely the politicians in Atlanta can see the wisdom of their predecessors’ vision, maintain the great tradition of respecting state history, and find creative ways to restore the integrity of this and other rare, historic gems.

Tiya Miles teaches at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich.