This historic depot has been used as a business for many years. I hope the City of Demorest or Piedmont College will consider restoring it if that is an option. It was built by master local carpenter George H. Cason, who also built the Methodist Episcopal Church South (Demorest Women’s Club).
This house, originally a saddlebag and later expanded, was built by John Henry Loudermilk, the maternal grandfather of Johnny Mize. It is a private residence and the house nor the grounds are open to the public. The historic marker placed at the edge of the property by Piedmont College in 2000 notes: National Baseball Hall of Fame member John Robert Mize was born in this house in 1913. While only 15 years old and still in high school, Mize launched his distinguished baseball career playing for Piedmont College. He began his major league career with the St. Louis Cardinals (1936-41) and played for the New York Giants (1942-43 and 1946-49) with a three year interruption for service in the Navy during World War II. In 1949, he joined the New York Yankees, helping the team win five straight World Series titles. Mize was the 1952 Series MVP after hitting homers in three straight games. Johnny Mize was called “The Big Cat” for his sure-handed glove work at first base and his smooth swing. A 10-time All-Star player, he led the National League three years in total bases and four times in slugging percentage. In 1947, he hit 50 home runs while striking out only 42 times, a record that stands today (2000). His ML battling average was .312 with 359 home runs, 1,337 RBIs and 2,011 hits in 1,884 games. Mize was inducted into the Georgia Hall of Fame in 1973 and the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981. Mize returned to live in his family home in 1974 and died in 1993. He is buried in nearby Yonah Cemetery.
Completely surrounded today by the beautiful campus of Piedmont College, this Folk Victorian house with Queen Anne elements, built by C. R. Pyle, is one of the last surviving relics of a planned prohibition community that never completely materialized. In 1889, a corporation called the Demorest Home, Mining and Improvement Company acquired the vast estate of Henry A. Rosignol for the purpose of creating a model town free from alcohol and vice. The community was to be named Demorest, for prominent prohibitionist and philanthropist William Jennings Demorest of New York. A depression in the 1890s eventually led to the bankruptcy of the corporation but the town grew in spite of it.
After C. R. Pyle sold the house to L. H. Laughton in 1899, a procession of owners followed until it was purchased by Ross Davis in 1939. As early as 1896, during the Pyle’s ownership, rooms were rented in the house by students and faculty at the Demorest Normal School and the J. S. Green Collegiate Institute (now Piedmont College). This tradition continued into the late 20th century. The Davis family always made the house a welcoming space to students and to the community for a host of events and it remains one of the most beloved landmarks in Demorest.
National Register of Historic Places
The wonderful old Mount Airy School has been restored and now houses the offices of the Mount Airy Police Department and the Georgia Crime Information Center. An auditorium on the upper level served as the entertainment center for the area and hosted traveling shows, including many early stars of the Grand Ole Opry. The school closed in 1955.
Mount Airy Presbyterian Church was organized with ten members in 1906 and the chapel was completed in 1907. It never had a large membership, as most congregants were transient summer residents in the resort community and the grand Monterey Hotel. In 1979 Mount Airy merged with Cornelia Presbyterian but the historic chapel is still maintained and used for special events.
Alexander Robert Lawton built this as a summer home [christened ‘Seventh Heaven’] between 1884-1885 and his boosterism helped make Mt. Airy a popular resort area. Lawton was a Confederate general and attorney who later served as president of the Augusta & Savannah Railroad. Upon General Lawton’s death in 1898, the family’s holdings in Mt. Airy were sold and the house came into the possession of Caroline Thompson, who owned it until 1911.
Mrs. Gene Keen-Knight of Vicksburg, Mississippi, apparently didn’t live in the house but maintained it as a rental property. It was during her ownership that baseball legend Ty Cobb lived here. He was having a house built on a large piece of property nearby and called the Lawton place home for a few years, in the 1950s. After Mrs. Keen-Knight’s death the house was sold yet again and several owners have followed. Most recently, it served as an event space known as Lawton Place Manor.
National Register of Historic Places
This view of Lake Russell (not to be confused with Richard B. Russell Lake on the Savannah River) can be seen just past the parking area for the Chenocetah Mountain Fire Tower. The man-made lake is a favorite recreation spot in Habersham County and is part of the Chattahoochee National Forest.
Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Cornelia Kiwanis Club with Tudor influences, the Cornelia Community House is one of the largest such gathering places I’ve encountered in Georgia.
David S. Cuttino, Jr., was the architect. It is the centerpiece of a 33-acre public park and was formally dedicated in May 1937.
It’s unusual in that the rear of the building holds much more architectural interest than the front.
National Register of Historic Places
This fire tower was built atop Chenocetah Mountain (1830′) by the WPA Resettlement Administration for use by rangers in the Chattahoochee National Forest. The 54′ granite tower was dedicated on 7 June 1938. Later, a plaque was added to the tower in memory of three forest workers who died in World War II: William A. Crossland, Robert C. Fuller, and Edward W. Simpson. Use of the tower was discontinued in 1975 and its fate was unsure, but the Georgia Forest Service began restaffing it during fire season in 1989. It is a favorite landmark of travelers to Habersham County.
National Register of Historic Places
The following history, by Dr. David Greene and John Kollock, is shared from the church website: Grace-Calvary Episcopal Church was established in 1838 as Grace Protestant Episcopal Church. It was the sixth Episcopal parish to be established in Georgia. The church building, virtually unchanged today, is the second oldest Episcopal Church building in Georgia; and is believed to be the oldest church building of any denomination still in use in north Georgia.
Clarkesville was the first major resort town in north Georgia. The town was founded in 1823 shortly after a treaty with the Cherokees that placed the area outside Indian Territory. It quickly became a village of hotels and boarding houses for prosperous coastal and lowland families, who began coming to the mountains during the summer to escape yellow fever and other diseases rampant in “low country” communities like Savannah and Charleston. These families often combined a profession like medicine or the law with the ownership of large coastal plantations. They came to the North Georgia Mountains for the summer with their slaves— whom they called “servants”— on a journey that took at least a week. They often stayed in the mountains for as long as six months, and some built permanent summer homes in the area. Most of these “summer folk” were either Presbyterian or Episcopalian. Although an “Old School” Presbyterian church had been established in Clarkesville in 1832, many Presbyterians attended church with the Episcopalians until 1849 when the Clarkesville Presbyterian Church building was completed. 1847 church records show that one individual was both a member of the Grace Episcopal vestry and a trustee of the Presbyterian Church. Grace Protestant Episcopal Church held its first service as an Episcopal mission on October 28, 1838. The Rev. Ezra B. Kellogg, the first rector, came from New York State as a missionary. He held Episcopal services twice monthly in the Methodist Church building, which stood where the old Clarkesville Cemetery is today.
An acre lot for the present church building was purchased in 1839, and construction of the building began that year. Subscriptions were called for, and $1,335 was raised to fund the construction. Unfortunately, construction was slowed by lawsuits and drought. Records show that the rivers were so low that year that the water-powered saw mill on the Soque River could not function. In 1840, the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia met in Clarkesville at the Methodist Church, and elected Stephen Elliott as their first bishop. Rev. Ezra Kellogg left Clarkesville in 1841 to become rector of a church in South Carolina. He was succeeded at Grace Church by the Rev. John Bernard Gallagher, who was also a New Yorker. Rev. Gallagher spent half the year in Clarkesville, and the other half as assistant rector at the newly created parish of St. John’s in Savannah. Under Gallagher’s leadership, the Grace church building was completed and dedicated in 1842, by the new bishop of Georgia. Bishop Elliott called it “a very neat wooden building, with a tower and bell, prettily located, and a credit to the village.”
The original Grace Church building – the frame structure that survives essentially unaltered today – is a superb example of Greek-Revival architecture, characterized in front by tall pillars and a portico. It is the second oldest Episcopal Church building in Georgia; Christ Church in Savannah is one year older. Grace Church survives practically unchanged, which is not true of the Savannah church. The building retains its original box pews (or slips) with doors to shut out drafts. The tall windows have most of their original glass, which was shipped in cylinders from Augusta or Athens; the twelve window sashes each contain 48 panes. The upstairs gallery, where the choir sits today, originally had benches for the “servants.”
One of the church’s main treasures is the pipe organ in the gallery, built for the church by Henry Erben of New York City in 1848. Erben is considered the outstanding organ builder of the period, despite his irascible personality—he once pushed the organist at New York City’s Trinity Church down the front steps of that church when they didn’t see eye to eye over the organ Erben was building. It is the oldest working pipe organ in Georgia, and it retains its baroque tone and nineteenth-century pitch. It arrived unassembled, with directions for erecting it. It turned out to be one foot too tall, so a pit was created for the organ in the middle of the gallery. The organ was completely restored in 1988, and is still played every Sunday. The church’s high pulpit is typical of the period when southern Episcopal Churches stressed the spoken message over the Eucharist and liturgy. Eucharist was usually celebrated no more than once a month.
The Civil War almost brought about the end of Grace Church, whose supporting families were now destitute, and no longer able to come to the mountains for the summer. The church was reduced from parish status to that of a mission, and at one time it reported only six communicants. Fortunately a few parishioners did move from the coast and settle permanently in their summer homes near Clarkesville. Chief among them were the Kollocks. George Jones Kollock completed construction of his summer home, which he named Woodlands, on New Liberty Road in 1850. This house remains in the Kollock family today. George Kollock served as senior warden at Grace Church from the 1860s until his death in 1894. Well-known artist, John Kollock, who provided all of the artwork for Let Us Say Grace, is the great-grandson of George Kollock. The Rev. William Eston Eppes, a member of the Kollock family, served as minister of Grace Church three times between 1852 and 1895. His home, Sunnyside, still stands today near the site of the Holy Cross Chapel. In 1853, the Chapel of the Holy Cross on New Liberty Road was built on Kollock land. This chapel was used for monthly services for Grace Church members who were unable to make the four mile trip over primitive roads into Clarkesville. Holy Cross Chapel was torn down in the early 1900s due to deterioration and lack of use.
From the Civil War until the mid-1900s, services at Grace Church were conducted irregularly. The coming of the railroad to north Georgia spurred the development of new resort areas and new mission churches along the rail line which by-passed Clarkesville. Calvary Episcopal Church was founded in 1882 in the resort town of Mt. Airy, the highest point on the Southern Railroad between New Orleans and Washington, DC. Mt. Airy was a significant vacation destination during this time, when a new hotel across from the station was considered “the finest hotel north of Atlanta”.
National Register of Historic Places