Over twenty years in the making, Whitfield County's Rocky Face Ridge Park will have its grand opening Monday.
The thousand-acre park features mountain biking trails, a lake, facilities for picnics and digitally interactive markers describing its place in Civil War history.
The $4 million effort was funded with about $3.2 million in local, state, and federal government funds, plus about $800,000 in grants from organizations dedicated to causes such as mountain biking, preserving Civil War battle sites, running and general livability.
"It's a testament to the number of types of people that came together to make this one spot," said Jess Hansen, Whitfield County's GIS manager.
The park's grand opening is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Monday at 2209 Crow Valley Road. The park's been open since spring 2021, but county officials waited until the bathrooms were completed to host the grand opening, said Jevin Jensen, chairman of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners.
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Visitors can scan the park's digitally interactive historical markers with their smartphones to learn of its history. Diagrams and photographs are available on the markers - with additional information and videos accessed by scanning the markers' QR code.
"Dalton was a larger city than Atlanta or Chattanooga at the time, but because Westpoint-educated (Gen.) Joseph Johnston fortified Dalton so well, (Gen. William Tecumseh) Sherman didn't attack the city, and instead went around it," said Bob Sivick, Whitfield County's administrator, during a tour of the site, standing near one of the earthen batteries where the Confederate defenders rained rifle and cannon fire down on advancing Union troops.
The battle, part of Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, took place from May 7-14, 1864.
"William Sherman was pretty much a direct guy, so that was saying something for Johnston's ability," Sivick said. "But they said, had Johnston not so heavily fortified Dalton that it had fallen, and been used as a headquarters for the Union Army, it would have grown like Chattanooga and Atlanta due to that federal presence."
Standing near a natural bowl in a field where Confederate defenders routed Union troops, Brian Chastain, Whitfield Parks and Recreation director, described using the park's interactive features for the first time.
"I just thought it was so neat when I scanned this (QR code) and found out what happened here," Chastain said.
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At the top of Rocky Face Ridge, 1,000 feet above the parking lot, a 150-year-old defensive wall hand-built by the Confederate troops is still clearly visible.
The wall along the ridgeline was built in winter of 1863-64, Hansen said. Beyond the wall in the valley to the northeast is Potato Hill, where Sherman surveyed the Confederate defenses being built on Rocky Face Ridge, probing for a possible big spring offensive.
"He'd ride his horse down every morning, and use the top of that (Potato Hill) as an observation post, to kind of monitor their (Confederate) forces," Sivick said. "And that's when he made the decision, 'Nah, I'm going around these people.'"
Instead, Sherman flanked west, Sivick said, to Resaca, Georgia. Johnston followed, and it was a "dance all the way to Atlanta," he said, describing Johnston's defensive campaign meant to slow the Union's march to Atlanta. This angered Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, because he wanted Johnston to be more aggressive, Sivick said, but Johnston could only do so much with 40,ooo troops against Sherman's 100,000-strong army.
Buzzard's Roost, according to lore, Sivick said, got its name from Union soldiers in the valley looking up at the strong fortifications built by the Confederates.
"One of them (Union soldiers) exclaimed, 'There's buzzards roosting up there waiting for us to die,'" Sivick said, while a buzzard soared on a breeze above.
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Fierce fighting took place on the ridgetop, as well as the in fields and woods below, Hansen said.
This past week, finishing touches were still being put into place at the park. The parking lot was being graded, a structure was being completed, and Jensen said a Civil War-era cannon was soon being delivered.
Jensen said more features are coming, including a hiking-only trail to the ridge top, more mountain bike trails and another bathroom.
Among the multiple local and national groups that contributed to the park, Hansen credited the Lyndhurst Foundation and its associated Riverview Foundation for support and assistance.
"They've been a fantastic partner the whole way through," Hansen said, including providing part of the purchase price for the Grant farm property, funds for the bike trail and paying for $50,000 worth of amenities, an update to the master plan and development of design standards for the property.
The land acquisition started in the early 2000s, Jensen said, with a 600-plus-acre purchase made with state greenspace funds matched by Whitfield County and city of Dalton. Another big addition was the $1.4 million land purchase of Larry Grant's farm that included contributions from nine local organizations, which included $150,000 in Whitfield County sales tax funds, according to county records.
"The end result is, had this land not been acquired by the county, you would have had houses built all along here," Sivick said, indicating the vast, green open fields that lead to the trees lining the base of the ridge. "Not that I'm against housing, but this is hallowed ground."
Contact Andrew Wilkins at awilkins@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow him on Twitter @tweetatwilkins.