Historical photos from North Georgia, in the path of the 2017 eclipse

News

Flashback photos: A century in Georgia’s path of totality, 1890s-1990s

On Aug. 21, 2017, a solar eclipse makes its way across Georgia. See some historical photos from the relatively small portion of the state in that path.

Trainees run up Currahee Mountain in preparation for D-Day.

A fallen trunk of a chestnut tree spans across a creek in the mountains near Dillard, GA. A blight came through the forst in the 1930s and wiped out the population of old growth chestnut trees, leaving the dead trees to topple over in the forest. Some were logged off after they died. (AJC Staff Photo/Kimberly Smith) 10/96

971222 Cleveland, Georgia - Raven Cliffs Wilderness Area and DeSoto Falls Scenic Area in the north Georgia mountains. (AJC Staff Photo/Rich Addicks)

971222. Cleveland, Georgia - Dodd's Creek along the Raven Cliffs Trail in the north Georgia mountains. (AJC Staff Photo/Rich Addicks)

Along a dirt road, Coleman Freeman's house is situated at the foot of Mt. Yonah, Ga., in this photo from the 1940s. "Yonah" is the Cherokee word for bear. AJC file

Mary Ruth Duckett of Cornelia, Ga picking apples.

030930 - CLAYTON, GEORGIA -- Main Street in Historic Clayton, Georgia with Black Rock Mountain in the background, which rests on the Eastern Continental Divide at an altitude of 3,640 feet. (PARKER C. SMITH/SPECIAL)

1930s - Rabun County, Ga - Bridge above Tallulah Falls toward Clayton in the north Georgia mountains

Fire of Inspiration - Blairsville, Nov. 2. - Curling his long frame into a ladder-back chair before the fireplace, young Byron Herbert Reece writes his thoughts onto paper. As his feet lies the Bible.

COPY OF B&W PHOTO: mountain cane-grinding, 1938 style. Blairsville, Ga. Patient old Beck, who switched her tail, bobbed her head and plodded around and around the cane grinder, has given away to this hybrid mechanism as syrup-making time comes to the north Georgia hills. Built of odds and ends from several old automobiles, the contraption powers a home-made grinder on the farm of J.R. and G.H. Self. The upright barrel is the engine's cooling system. Journal photo. (NO PHOTO CREDIT PROVIDED)

Cider time in Georgia - Miss Eva Hood is pouring in the apples as Miss Christine Wood operates the mill to produce sweet, sparkling cider, which turns into the finest pickle vinegar in the world. This picture was made in a large orchard near Cornelia, Ga.

Young Ty Cobb (left, first row) is photographed with other members of the Royston Baseball Club in the 1890s. AJC file

July 5, 1936 - Currahee Mountain - This road, near Toccoa, Ga., leads to a new dirt road completed to the peak of Currahee Mountain in the background.

Duke's Creek Falls, near Helen, Ga., in the Nacoochee Valley. The limbs in the foreground are mountain laurel and rhodendron. (Staff Photo by Victor Barron) 1936

980718 McCAYSVILLE, GA.: The Blue Ridge Scenic Railway train leaves Mccaysville, Ga., (downtown McCaysville is in the background). The Blue Ridge Scenic Railway runs an excursion train, a 12-mile trip, between Blue Ridge, Ga. and Copperhill/McCaysville, Saturdays & Sundays. (JOEY IVANSCO/staff photo).

980827 MINERAL BLUFF, GA.: Wendell Cross (CQ), has been given the gift of sight TWICE in his life: he was blinded in an accident at 11, and had his sight restored at 20; then lost it again and got it back at 60. He didn't learn to read till he was 67. Today, he's 75 and a literacy advocate. Photographed here at his farm in Mineral Bluff, Ga., he walks past one of his smaller corn fields, with corn 15-foot tall. (JOEY IVANSCO/staff photo).

Mr. & Mrs Evald Kivivare, and Mare and Aita-Helen (Estonians from a displaced persons camp, see a new life opening out for them in Georgia.

Aug. 7, 1985 - An overview photo of the midway area of the Georgia Mountain Fair, with mountain range in the background. (Andy Sharp/AJC staff) 1985

July 30, 1990 - Delores Cobb of Smyrna works to get the teddy bears in her booth prepared for today's opening of the Georgia Mountain Fair. The fair has evelved into a $1.2 million non-profit business. (Patrick Schneider/AJC staff) 1990

Georgia mountain family in Rabun County. (File)

The state paved the road to Clarkesville's American Legion Club. The governor's political crony negotiated the project. (Tommy Beatty/AJC staff) 1958

980602-LAKE CHATUGE, GA: The sun sets behind the mountains as a car waits for a traffic light in the town of Young Harris, Georgia. (PHIL SKINNER /AJC staff)

980602-LAKE CHATUGE, GA: A pontoon boat motors around Lake Chatuge(Georgia) with the Mountain vistas in the background. (PHIL SKINNER /AJC staff)

990413 - CARNESVILLE, GA.: The picturesque Franklin County courthouse in Carnesville has been the site of a dispute among the people who work there. (PHOTO BY CELINE BUFKIN/STAFF)

High Falls along Moccasin Creek trail at Kelly Ridge; photo for editorial column 07/10/00; photo by KATHRYN KOLB/Special

971114 A FEW MILES SOUTH OF CLEVELAND, GEORGIA IN NORTH GEORGIA : FOR USE AS A POSSIBLE END OF THE YEAR PHOTO (THIS PHOTO HAS NOT BEEN PUBLISHED). On November 14, 1997, we had a full moon over our skies. During the day, however, clouds threatened to obscure the shining moon. As dark rolled in over Georgia Highway 115 outside Cleveland, Georgia, however, the skies began to clear and the clouds did some quite interesting things as the moon came into and out of view. (AJC Staff Photo/Andy Sharp) 12/97

People enjoy the cool waters of the Toccoa River near Blue Ridge, Georgia. (Special to the AJC/Ben Baxter) 8/96

Charles Smithgall Jr. stands near a trout stream at dukes creek woods, part of the 5.562 acres he sold to the state for half its 21.6 million value.Aug. 4, 1994 credit: Jean Shifrin

HAYING TIME IN GEORGIA. Miss Lou Ella Meaders, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. H. W. Meaders, of Toccoa, busy with her pitchfork in a hay field near her home. (Staff Photo by Winn) 1934

Young Truman Owenby and his sister Ann plow bean field near Hiawassee. They work after school on their father's farm at foot of the Blue Ridge Range.

Model cottage at Rabun Gap school. (Special)Undated photo

Jan. 30, 1966 - Rabun Gap, Ga - Snow covers the campus of Rabun Gap School near Clayton. Storm dumped up to 7 inches of snow over north Georgia. (Marion Crowe) 1966

Rabun Gap, Ga., Sept. 2 - City families are polishing up their youngsters and packing them off to school, but up in the North Georgia mountains the whole family be be going along, including the family cow. The family of Mr. & Mrs. Julius R. York is one of 18 ambitious tenant farmer families now sharecropping on the extensive lands of the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee school, an institution devoted to the betterment of Blue Ridge Mountain folk. Mr. York was a WPA stone quarry worker when he applied for admission as tenant or 'student farmer.' He said he wanted to return to the soil, and also give his seven children an education. This is the scene as the Yorks arrived at Rabun Gap.

"Byron Herbert Reece earned a Pulitzer nomination but never left his farm near Blairsville, where, despite acclaim for his lyric poetry, he continued to grow potatoes and corn, partly from economic necessity and partly from inclination."

Nov. 6, 1977 - Toccoa Falls dam burst and flood. Aerial view of damage. (Jerome McClendon/AJC staff) 1977

010904 B/W COPY PHOTO: WWII Easy Company of 506th Regiment, Parachute Infantry, training in Toccoa. (SPECIAL PHOTO). For Bill Hendrick story, News.

The 16-room Glen Ella Springs Inn in North Georgia is on the National Register of Historic Places. Rocking chair porches and excellent dining are highlights.Credit: Reagan Walker/staff

Covered bridge across the Tugalo River near Lavonia, Ga.

Twin Hollies is the name of the Vandiver home near Lavonia which was built in 1895.

WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO STAY HERE? Aileen Collison (left) and Alice Rose Lance, both students at Young Harris College, pause in the midst of a hike through the park to see one of the new log cabins which Georgians may rent for a vacation in the mountains. (Walter Sparks/Journal Magazine) 1938

A group of Young Harris students on the wharf below the new log boat house at Vogel State Park. 1938

Mrs. T. W. Nalls, the farmer's wife, shows her refugee guest, a displaced person from Estonia, Mrs. Kivivare (left), how to do American washing.

Young Harris College nestles in the rolling countryside of the Blue Ridge Mountains in north Georgia.

NORTH GEORGIA: Scenic of barns and horses surrounded by snow on Blue Ridge Highway just outside Blairsville, GA, on December 29, 1997. (AJC Staff Photo/Charlotte B. Teagle)

Coin-toss game in the general store, Young Harris, Georgia, January 1947. Carolyn Harris/AJC

Three young women at the general store, Young Harris, Georgia, January 1947. Carolyn Harris/AJC

Bryson Family living in a farmhouse, Rabun Gap, Georgia, ca. 1930s. AJC file.

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Trainees run up Currahee Mountain in preparation for D-Day.

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