The Little People
The Cherokee legend of Little People who live in the wild forest and mountains describes them as attractive, about knee high to a tall man. Like Celtic fairies, the Little People love music, and humans can see them only when they allow themselves to be seen. The Little People also play tricks on adult humans but care deeply about lost human children, both those who lose their way in the wilderness and those who are lonely, confused and grieving.In the 1940s, a Murphy farmer was plowing his field near the convergence of the Hiwassee and Valley Rivers. He hit a rock that turned out to be a sculpture of two elf-like creatures. The farmer used the carved rock as a wellhouse door stop. It now sits in downtown Murphy’s Cherokee County Historical Museum where visitors and curators ponder who may have made it. For decades, locals have referred to the stone duo as Moonites.Legend says the Little People had long hair and this duo is bald. UFO buffs point out their resemblance to the classic image of outer space aliens. The sculpture seems too elaborate and well-done to be a prank by a farmer who had to work dawn to dusk — and he neither asked nor got money for the carving.Anyone who wants to research this mystery and and try solving it can contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com.
Chattanooga and North Georgia probably won’t have many Currier & Ives winter landscapes of clean roads slicing through snowy hills and evergreen forests splashed with crimson holly berries. Here, a winter drive conjures images of a cold, rainy glide through acres of leafless trees and fast food chains.
But with the right route, road trips in the Southern winter can be an adventure with charms unmatched by spring and summer. Walk in the door of a family owned restaurant on a gray February day and get the greeting that celebrities routinely enjoy. Gorgeous vistas are easy to marvel over without green leaves in the way.
Maybe summer and spring are meant to overwhelm the senses with a perfume of rich earth, rain-soaked asphalt, green lawns and flowers. Winter is meant to hone the senses with air clear and sharp as crystal and scenery pared to the essential glories such as rivers, lakes and mountains.
Here are three road trips of different lengths with the idea is that one of these trips an suit both people who love to drive and those who find it a chore.
The first one to Murphy, N.C., is an epic five hours round trip, but it is designed with enough stops along the way that it could be cut off at several points if bad weather or exhaustion rolls in.
The second is three hours round trip to the Ellijay/Chatsworth, Ga., area but again, it can be cut off midpoint and still be fun.
The third trip is contained in one battlefield in Chattanooga’s back yard – Chickamauga.
Along these paths are stops that offer some century-old mysteries that have baffled historians. Any school children out there who want to research and try solving one of the mysteries can contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com.
Road Trip 1: Murphy, N.C.
About 2 hours 15 minutes one-way
On the way
When you see the rushing, glittering Ocoee River running alongside U.S. 74, stop to enjoy the sight. On a recent January weekday, when the mercury plummeted below 30, kayakers were navigating the tumult. Some of the zipline operators are open if you feel like swinging through the leafless trees for views that are hidden in other seasons.
Mining museum
The Ducktown Basin Museum has an unusual copper mining museum that kids will like if they are not forced to linger over every artifact there too long. They are kids, for heaven’s sake. Explain that their phones, tablets and HDTV would not work without copper. Mining was dangerous, scary and the deepest shaft tunneled 3,200 feet into the earth.
Kids will probably be most intrigued by the giant sinkhole visible from the museum’s overlook. The sinkhole appeared when part of the mine collapsed at 350 feet deep; now it’s full of unearthly green water, as if a potion were mixed from emeralds and seaweed, a hue that comes from copper coloring the water.
Enormous 10 Commandments
Keep an eye alert for signs pointing to Fields of the Wood Bible Park, where the 10 Commandments are spelled in letters 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide across Burger Mountain. The park is 10 miles off U.S. 74 on North Carolina Highway 294 just outside Murphy.
Climb up the steep slope opposite the mountain to see a small missionary plane that flew around South America in the 1950s. The windowless cockpit offered no protection from wind or rain. There also is a replica of Jesus’ tomb with a comforting anachronism – a wee white lamb sculpture above the entry. Prayer Mountain has 320 steps leading past stone tablets engraved with the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount to the summit.
Food
Anyone hungry when nearing Ducktown, Tenn., on the way to Murphy should take a 10-minute dip four miles south on state Highway 68 to Copperhill for truly delicious hand-tossed pizza loaded with fresh ingredients. The Copper Station (1529 Highway 68, 423-496-1117) is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day except Sunday, when it’s closed. The sandwich bread is homemade, and there are crisp salads. Friendly motorcycle aficionados stop here after riding a twisty road known as Dragon’s Tail.
Copperhill’s Iron Bridge Restaurant (279 Ocoee St., 423-496-2910) offers burgers, sliders, breakfasts and homemade ice creams. It opens every day at 8 a.m. and closes Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
In Murphy
A new Harrah’s casino opened here a few months ago. Residents will tell you the influx of visitors spawned a rebirth of a downtown already adorned with picture-perfect historic churches and a Greek Revival municipal building of local blue marble. Now shops and restaurants blossom across Murphy.
Shopping
The shelves of Blue Ridge Olive Oil Co. (104 Tennessee St. 828-516-9474) are lined with silvery casks of olive oils from Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Cyprus and South Africa. Each label poetically describes the unique oils’ floral, herbal and nutty undertones. Pick an oil and let the staff fill and label a bottle for you. The store is open from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily, including Sunday.
Appalachian Outfitters adjoins Olive Oil Co. Even fish-haters will be won over by manager Justin Mickens’ encyclopedic knowledge and love of fishing. He is a Raleigh/Diamondback bicycle dealer with a bike mechanic on staff who organizes weekend rides on area trails that locals and tourists can join. Mickens also can arrange a local fishing guide for customers. His big, well-organized store’s mascot is Koko – a raccoon eating a box of Cracker Jacks – and a life-sized statue of a blobby lady nicknamed Grandma. Mickens sells dozens of lures with outer-spacey names like Power Worm, Storm Wild Eye, Rapala Shad Rap and Swedish Pimple.
Outfitters’ hours vary so call 828-837-4165 to find out if it’s going to be open when you’re in Murphy.
Next door, the Bearding Bottle Shop, 828-516-1500, offers beer from Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina breweries. It’s open from noon to 8 p.m.
Natural wonders
Hiwassee River, Valley River, Notley River, Hiwassee Lake and Chatuge Lake are accessible from Murphy. Multi-tiered North Shoal Creek Falls gleams and glitters like satin and diamonds even on a gloomy day.
The downtown Cherokee County Historical Museum is a blend of artifacts like Cherokee arrowheads and mineral crystals aptly named “fairy crosses” that form naturally in only a few places in the world. The museum also has kitschy collectibles like a battalion of dolls and an aluminum phone topped with a mini Elvis who jiggles when it rings.
Food
Valley River Brewery (71 Tennessee St., 828-837-2337) has pizza worth the visit; the pizzas are baked in a wood-fired oven that owner Greg Wasik built himself. The restaurant also has half-pound burgers and delicious desserts, including a root beer cake frosted in whipped cream. Wasik makes his own root beer, so you literally will find it nowhere else. Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, its prices are modest and the craft brews so good you may want to book a hotel room and stay overnight.
Shoebooties Cafe (25 Peachtree St., 828-837-4589, hours vary) is a local favorite, with quiche, soups and sandwiches for lunch and daily dinner specials, which include Crab Legs and Garlic-Encrusted Prime Rib. Dinner platters range from $16.50 for Pecan-Fried Chicken to $27 for an eight-ounce Bourbon-Butter Filet Mignon. Lunch features an array of salads and sandwiches for half those prices.
Second Road Trip: Ellijay Ga.
1 hours 30 minutes
Outdoors
Even in winter, the mountain scenery is beautiful between tiny Chatsworth and Ellijay.
On the way to Ellijay, stop at the historic Chatsworth Train Depot (North First Avenue, 706-695-4416), built in the early 1900s as a stop on the L&N Railroad, which ran from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Atlanta. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once spent a night in his private car at the depot when he was headed to his home in Warm Springs, Ga., where he went for therapy for polio.
These days, the depot is home to model train set displays, storytelling and live music. There also are train cars and cabooses for kids to clamber on. Hours vary so call before you go.
The depot sits next to the Wright Hotel, which opened in 1909 and soon attracted both Northerners and Southerners who came to Chatsworth for the mineral waters and mountain scenery. The hotel also was home to Thomas Wright, his wife and six children.
Wright used only the best materials of the time to build the hotel. He rented a brick plant for a year to make the rose-colored bricks, and the heart-of-pine lumber was cut from his farm and left to age for an entire year.
Inside, you can see the rock that sits at the bottom of the stairs; back in the day, hotel guests would place outgoing mail under the rock. The hotel also features a collection of nursing paraphernalia that belonged to Wright’s daughter, Kate Raine, who was as a nurse on the Indian reservations in the Southwest.
Also in Chatsworth is the Chief Vann House (82 Georgia Highway 225 N., 706-695-2598), which belonged to James Vann, a Cherokee Indian leader and wealthy businessman of the late 1700s. Covering 1,000 acres, Vann’s plantation was the largest and richest in the Cherokee Nation.
His house was completed in 1804, but Vann didn’t get to live in it long. He was murdered in 1809, but no one was ever arrested in his death. His son Joseph inherited the mansion.
The house is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, and a guided tour gives visitors a chance to see the home’s hand carvings, antiques, its collection of handmade quilts and even burn scars on the “floating staircase,” evidence of the Georgia militia’s attempt to run Joseph out of the home in 1835.
Moving on to Ellijay, you can stop at Cartecay Vineyards (5704 Clear Creek Road, 706-698-9463) which has acres to roam and a refurbished 1890s barn that serves as a tasting room. On chilly nights, the owners light up a 19th-century house chimney to warm a patio where wine lovers can sit and sip.
Back in the 1890s, the vineyard was a working farm that grew corn and hay and raised cattle, hogs and mules. When Cartecay Vineyards bought the land in 2007, the farm had gone to seed and reverted to its natural settings. But vineyard owners knew that North Georgia, home to the Southern end of the Appalachian Mountains, is an excellent place to grow grapes for wine. The vineyards are open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m.
If you’re feeling particularly energetic, you can drive less than an hour down U.S. 76 to Blairsville, where Georgia’s tourism bureau says Vogel State Park, with its easy mile hike around Lake Trahlyta, is one of the state’s loveliest places, with views of Blood and Slaughter Mountains.
Food
Jolly Roger (716 Industrial Blvd., Ellijay, 706-276-2090, hours vary) is a terrific seafood restaurant in an unlikely spot – right behind a Marathon gas station. The sampler platter includes scallops, deviled crab, fish, jumbo shrimp and oysters, or you can dine on red snapper and scallops.
1907 is a new downtown restaurant (24 River St., Ellijay, 706-276-6116) located in a beautiful historic building. With Chef Wayne Sloop owning it and preparing the food, the restaurant features such high-brow fare as Lobster Bisque, Shiitake Carpaccio (an Italian dish usually made with raw beef but made with raw mushrooms here), Rack of Lamb and Wagyu beef from a Chattanooga rancher. It’s open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily but is closed Mondays.
The Cantaberry Restaurant has two locations, one in Ellijay (751 River St., 706-636-4663) and one in Blue Ridge, (524 E. Main St., 706-946-7687). Owned by Case and Jessica Bruner, the restaurants serve homemade soups, sandwiches and salads. Case Bruner trained at Culinary Arts in Charleston, S.C., part of Johnson and Wales University.
Road Trip 3: Chickamauga
30 minutes
Right in Chattanooga’s backyard, Chickamauga is a history buff’s dream ,with hours of hiking and driving available in Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.
In September 1863, Union and Confederate soldiers groped through thick forest, clashing when they stumbled into each other. Winter visitors can see what those soldiers could not – the terrain around Winfrey and Brock Fields, Snodgrass Cabin and Horseshoe Ridge. Stop at the visitors center first for maps and advice.
One stretch of land deserves to be haunted by angry Indian ghosts. Cherokees trudged down Brown’s Ferry Federal Road Trace on the Trail of Tears, and enslaved Africans were forced to walk the road on their way to Deep South plantations and slave markets in the 1840s.
Park ranger Christopher Barr leads tours along the tragic passage every winter, when the bare landscape makes landmarks stand out starkly against the sky. Barr is a natural storyteller with an eye for details that break the heart.
“Prior to the railroad, eastern Virginia plantation slaves were moved via ‘coffle’ (lines of people chained together) along Brown’s Ferry Federal Road Trace on Moccasin Bend,” Barr said.
The Chattanooga Gazette estimated that 600 to 800 shackled men and women walked the trail. When the railroad came in the 1850s, slaves were loaded as cargo.
“One railroad company whose line passed through Chattanooga offered ‘free shipping’ on children to entice slave traders and planters to use their line,” Barr said.
Food
Barbecue is king in Chickamauga restaurants. Sit and talk about this and that at Pigeon Mountain Country Store and BBQ (9887 Georgia Highway 341, 706-539-2999), where the smell of smoking meat is enticing, even if you want to stop in for breakfast from 6 to 11 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Of course, lunch and dinner also are available; lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner from 5 to 8p.m. Tuesday through Friday; on Saturdays it’s open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Also highly recommended for tasty ‘cue are Choo Choo BBQ & Grill (1015 LaFayette Road, 706-375-7675) and Crystal Springs Smokehouse Grill (501 W. Ninth St., 706-375-9269).
The hometown Mexican restaurant Los Potros gets good reviews for its food and prices. It has two locations – 109 Gordon St. (706-996-2509) and 201 Lee Ave. (706-375-4111).
Contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6391.