I’ve been updating my Wayne County photographs and discovered this 2012 photo of a cabin near the entrance to Paradise Park, on the Altamaha River. It’s probably the oldest structure still standing at the site.
Wishing everyone a safe and happy 2025! It’s been another great year traveling around Georgia, looking for the obscure, as well as the well-known places and people that make our state so interesting. As always, I’m grateful to you all for coming along with me. From murder and mayhem (always popular for some reason) to soul food and some preservation success stories, I think I covered a lot this year.
#1- The 1937 Murders That Shocked Quitman
#2- Georgia State Prison, 1937, Reidsville
#3- Snow-Wasden House Saved from Demolition
#4- Jimmie’s Hot Dogs, 1947, Albany
#5- Maryland Fried Chicken, 1968, Albany
#6- Paradise Park Fishing Camp, Wayne County
#7- Sugar Ray Robinson Childhood Home, Circa 1910s, Ailey
#8- Boatright House, Washington County: An Update
#9- Harris-Turner House, Circa 1836 + 1903, Covington
#10- Savannah’s Last Historic African-American Theatre Faces Uncertain Future
As the Upson County government website notes: Sprewell Bluff Park is one of Georgia’s best kept secrets and is known by locals as the hidden gem.
Historically, this natural feature of the Flint River was important to the Creek Indians. When they were forced to cede all their lands between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers to the United States in 1825, it was opened to settlement.
It was named for Jeptha Simeon Spruiell (1784-1873), a native of Abbeville County, South Carolina, who came to Georgia’s western frontier sometime before 1850, in what was then part of Talbot County. Spruiell was a successful farmer who understood the economic potential of the bluff area, which was a busy crossing on the Old Alabama Road.
Straddling the Fall Line and providing a mountain-like environment in west central Georgia, Sprewell Bluff is one of the most interesting natural areas in the Piedmont region. The Flint River here is quite different than at its southern extremes in Georgia, characterized by rocky shoals and sheer rock walls along its banks.
Located about 10 miles west of Thomaston [take Georgia Highway 74 to Old Alabama Road, then turn onto Sprewell Bluff Road], the site has been as popular a landmark in the modern era as it was to the indigenous people who lived here for centuries before White settlers arrived.
As Atlanta’s population exploded in the early 1970s, the Army Corps of Engineers sought to build a dam at Sprewell Bluff, but thanks to strong local opposition and the personal intervention of Governor Jimmy Carter, the proposal was officially tabled in 1974.
Georgia Power has owned the site for many years and in the early 1990s leased it to the state of Georgia as a day-use state park. This arrangement didn’t prove too popular as there were no employees on-site full time, and beginning in 2013, Upson County assumed responsibility for managing the property. A trading post is located on Sprewell Bluff Road, and is the check-in point for the park. An amazing overlook deck is located there. Sprewell Bluff Park is a truly magical place for fishermen [especially with its population of Shoal Bass], paddlers, swimmers, hikers, campers, or anyone wanting to take in the awesome landscape.
I’ve always called these pedestrian sections on the sides of bridges along the coast “fishing bridges” but I know there must be a better name. On a list of McIntosh County fishing piers, this is identified as the Champney River Bridge Catwalk, and catwalk seems a good description. It’s probably the safest, accessibility wise, of all of these public piers in the Altamaha Delta, because there’s a nice parking lot. The others generally have little more than a pull-over spot and US 17 is a very busy road most of the time. Tourists may use these from time to time, but locals, who know the tides and and the runs of numerous species, use them frequently.
If you’re not an angler and just want to take in the coastal scenery, or a birdwatcher checking out the diverse avifauna, they’re a good starting point.