History was all over the place — down the street, on the banks of the creek. John and Cathy Phelan took a tour of their Peachtree Battle neighborhood to learn more about the Civil War fight that gave their community its name.
Things went fine, too, until they neared Green Bone Creek, a small tributary running parallel to Peachtree Battle Avenue NW. The Phelans looked for the big aluminum marker explaining what happened at the creek in the days leading up to the Battle of Atlanta, 150 years earlier.
They’re still looking, too. The sign, possibly knocked over by a truck, is MIA.
“It was a reminder that something happened here,” said Cathy Phelan, a volunteer at the Atlanta History Center. “If no one pays, it’ll never be replaced, right?”
Right, say state officials. The marker at Green Bone Creek is one of scores across Georgia that are damaged or missing. The cash to properly look after the markers isn’t there.
And that’s for markers erected by the state. In 1998, the Georgia Historical Society took over the job of putting up the markers. Now, say society members, some of those signs are beginning to show the signs of age; some are damaged, others missing. It operates a statewide marker program on less than $8,000 a year.
The society has to cooperate with other civic or historic organizations to maintain them. Like the state, it is hard-pressed to come up with the cash such roadside markers need.
This is no small thing. Georgia has about 3,000 historic markers, denoting everything from stops in Sherman’s March to the Sea to the first headquarters of the Girl Scouts, in Savannah. Only Texas has more markers.
That’s a lot of signs and not much money to care for them, said David Crass, director of the state Historic Preservation Division, the agency assigned to look after the markers. “There’s no way to sugar-coat it,” he said.
The division is part of the state Department of Natural Resources. Like other state departments, DNR suffered deep budget cuts during the Great Recession. A DNR memo, written a year ago, is succinct.
“There have been no appropriations by the General Assembly in recent years for the repair or replacement of historic markers erected by the Department of Natural Resources or the earlier Georgia Historical Commission,” read the memo, written by Homer Bryson, DNR’s deputy commissioner.
Cutbacks date to former Gov. Sonny Perdue, whose administration sliced marker funding for the 2003 fiscal year. Only signs that are on land managed by DNR qualify for replacement or maintenance.
That leaves a lot of signs untended, said Josh Headlee, a DNR preservation technician who keeps a database of the state signs. Often, he said, state officials work with other organizations to make sure signs are still legible; other times, locals just take it upon themselves to look after signs, not bothering to check with the state.
“I have no problem with that,” Headlee said. “The short answer is: There’s no money.”
Reading for a centennial
The marker program dates to the 1950s when the Georgia Historical Commission began erecting signs all over the state, many detailing events in the Civil War. Workers hustled to get them up in time for the war’s 1961 centennial. When the commission disbanded, in 1973, DNR took over the state markers.
The state stepped out of the marker business in 1998, when the Georgia Historical Society took over. The society, based in Savannah, has put up about 200 markers since then, said Christy Crisp, the organization’s programs director.
The older signs, put up by the state, are green with gold lettering. Markers the society has erected have black backgrounds and silver lettering. Replacing a sign costs $3,000 or more, she said.
The society receives about $50,000 annually from the state. It allocates about 15 percent of that to the marker program — roughly $7,500. The rest of the money helps support the society’s research center. That means the Savannah group has to work with others to make sure the markers are kept intact and legible, she said.
The older signs, put up by the state, are green with gold lettering. More recent markers that the society has erected have black backgrounds and silver lettering.
Regardless of their color schemes, the aluminum markers are tough, Crisp said.
“The great thing about historical markers is their longevity,” said Crisp. Aluminum is lightweight and can withstand Georgia’s climate swings.
But aluminum, she noted, cannot be welded. When a truck cracks one in two, or a passing car knocks off a sign’s corner, the marker has to be re-cast — a process that costs thousands. And, yes, some are missing. Crisp recalls a log truck knocking one over along a rural highway; it’s never been found.
The society, she said, works with local groups to make sure a church marker, for example, remains legible to passersby.
Now, said Crisp, some of the society’s signs are beginning to age. Maintenance, she said, “is beginning to come into play.”
Meantime, said Cathy Phelan, the signs that showcase Georgia go missing, get knocked down, need repair — from the coast to the mountains, and on a roadside near Green Bone Creek.
“This (battle) happened in my back yard. Oh, that is so cool!” she said. “But there’s only a pole there.”
