Jasper - Nelson - Talking Rock - Tate - Marble Hill - Blaine (Old Talking Rock) - Ludville - Hinton - Sanderstown - Jerusalem

JASPER, the county seat of Pickens, is one of the most beautifully located towns anywhere to be found and is a fitting namesake for the gallant soldier whose name it bears. It looks out upon the mountains and is supported by the valleys of Pickens.

As already related, Jasper came into being as a town after a spirited  election held during the early days of the county on the question of where to locate the county seat. The present site winning over one farther to the west, Jasper laid out as a town and it soon acquired a
sizable population. It was incorporated in 1857.

Jasper is now the principal trading center of Pickens County, besides serving as its center for legal and official matters. It supports thriving Chevrolet and Ford agencies; and is the distributing point for the Standard Oil and Texas Company products for this section of the state. It also has drug stores and general stores which furnish splendid accommodation and service. The Georgia Power Company maintains an office and salesroom here, through which its service and general business in the county are carried on. There are two industrial enterprises: a lumber mill which sells its finished product, and a marble plant which finishes the stone and deals in monuments.  There is also a harness and shoe shop started many years ago by the Groovers which still does a very good business and is now owned and operated by Mr. Lee Prather, who served his apprenticeship under former owners.

Jasper has one of the most up-to-date public schoolhouses in the section and maintains and excellent high school, the official high school of Pickens County. The building is of brick construction and is well-equipped throughout. 

Nelson. As the marble industry developed in the county, the need for another finishing plan caused The Georgia Marble Company to purchase the property of John Nelson, located on the railroad near the Cherokee County line, for this purpose and the town that sprang up there logically took the former owner's name. Mr. Nelson was a farmer and also a gunsmith of considerable note, and today there are many Nelson rifles throughout this section which are highly prized by their owners. 

Since the beginning of the marble industry at Nelson, the stone for many important buildings throughout the country, and many beautiful works of art in marble, have been finished here. Among the skilled workmen at Nelson have been a considerable number from Italy and Scotland, where they were also workers in stone, and some have remained to become citizens.

The town has a Baptist and a Methodist church, and not far from the limits is a second and very old Baptist church which antedates the town by many years. Nelson also has one of the best and most beautifully laid out high school plants in this part of GA, and a corps of efficient teachers.

Nelson was incorporated by the legislature in 1891. The extreme southern part of the town lies in Cherokee County, and the 1930 census showed 90 of the 798 inhabitants of Nelson as living in Cherokee.

Talking Rock. Several legendary accounts are given with regard to the naming of Talking Rock; one is the story of an unusual echo that was supposed to come from a nearby rock cliff; while another story already mentioned (p28), tells about a rock with which some
of the Indians played a trick on one another.

Talking Rock is situated on the creek of the same name, in the upper  part of the county. Being on the old Federal Road, it was one of the earliest settlements in this region, and some of the earliest churches and schools in Pickens were at or near the present site of the town. Talking Rock is also close to the old Indian village Sanderstown. One of the earliest cotton mills in GA was started at Talking Rock by William C. Atherton, and flourished until the Civil War, when it was destroyed by Sherman's raiders.

The Talking Rock neighborhood was settled by a number of Presbyterian families including the Coleman, Morrison, Kelley, Glenn, Freeman, and Allen families, most of whom came to Pickens County about the time of the Indian removal.   The town, however, was not incorporated until 1883.

Talking Rock is a good business center, and for many years was the only railroad outlet for a sizeable area. It is located on the L. & N. Railroad and the Atlanta Knoxville highway, and is in the midst of a fine farming section. 

Tate. Widely known as the home of the GA Marble is the little town of Tate, an  unincorporated and scattering village of about 1600 people. The main quarries of
The Georgia Marble Company are located here, as well as one of its large marble
works, although most of the product of the quarries is shipped to other plants to be
made into monuments or prepared for its place in buildings.

Tate is situated in the southern part of the county on the Atlanta-Knoxville Highway and the L. & N. railroad. It is estimated that the area served by the railway station and post office here has a population of over 2,000.

This is one of the oldest settlements in Pickens County, and in fact was the site of the first election and court held in the newly organized Cherokee territory, in 1832, (page 44). The settlement was then called Harnageville, after Ambrose Harnage, in whose house the early court was held. The post office at this place was officially known as Marble Works for a period of years; then it was renamed Harnageville; and when the railroad came through in the early "eighties" the town and post office received their present name of Tate.

There are two churches at Tate, Methodist and Baptist and also one of the  finest high-school buildings in the United States. The latter is built of Georgia marble and equipped with every modern convenience. Like the model church, it was not built for show but to house the teaching of lessons and truths more durable than the stone of which it is built. It was made possible by the interest and liberality of Col. Sam Tate. The school is handled by a most efficient staff of teachers, who are making it one of the best high schools in the state.

Marble Hill, another unincorporated village, is located 4 miles from Tate, at the northeastern end of the marble quarry area, and has a population of approximately three hundred. As in the case of Tate and Nelson, the mercantile enterprises are supported largely by the workers in marble, but there is also considerable business done with the neighboring farmers. There are a Methodist & Baptist church here and a splendid schoolhouse with capable teachers.

The town lies between several mountains, at the head of Long Swamp Valley -- a region of great natural beauty.

At one time the only Catholic church ever built in our county was located here, when
a number of marble-cutters of that faith came into the Valley to do some work
for the old Piedmont Marble Company. They erected and dedicated this church and
worshipped in it for a time, but when their jobs were done and they returned to the former
homes the church went into decay and now it would be hard to pick out the exact spot on which it was located.

In addition to the towns mentioned, Pickens has several smaller communities where trade is active, including Ludville, Hinton, Blaine and Jerusalem.

Ludville, west of Jasper, was the first community in Pickens County to establish a high school or academy (page 278) and it now has one of the many first class schools of the county. Ludville is located in a splendid farming section and has been a trade center
for the western part of Pickens.

Hinton. At Hinton the road forms a parting of the ways, one branch going to Talking Rock and the other to Jasper. As a result Hinton has long been a trading point of some importance for the western part of Pickens County.

Old Talking Rock, now called Blaine, is a small community near Talking Rock, and marks the former site of that town. It is not on the line of the railroad, and the town of Talking Rock sprang up in its present location  after the railroad came through. Blaine is also near the site of the Old Talking Rock Cotton Factory, and the site of the old Indian village of Sanderstown.

Jerusalem is not so much a settlement as the name of a thriving Baptist church and community settled over 50 years ago.

Economic Progress of Pickens County

Economically, Pickens County is noted chiefly for one of the state's outstanding industrial concerns, The Georgia Marble Company, which is the outgrowth and culmination of the efforts of several individuals and organizations, over a long period of time, to develop the county's most precious and remarkable mineral resource.

A little farther on in this account is given the early history of Picken's County's marble industry, together with some of the pioneer names in connection therewith.  One of these names is that of Henry Fitzsimmons, a stone-mason and contractor who came to Pickens about 1836 and shortly afterwards started the first marble-mill in the county. Col Samuel Tate, who purchased marble lands here in 1834, was another early figure in the realization of the county's present industrial program.

Until the coming of the railroad in 1882, Pickens County of course saw no large activity in the marble business, or in any other branch of industry. There did not exist, however, the small, scattering "industrial" enterprises usual in settler regions, such as milling, brickmaking, metal-working, and so on-- as well as a few of a slightly more unusual nature, as for instance the making of wooden shoes and the manufacture of plug tobacco. Such enterprises as these, together with the slowly developing marble industry and a small though successful project in the textile- manufacturing field, comprised the industrial activity of the county in the days before the Railroad came to Pickens.

Rather numerous were the old water-mills where the corn was ground into meal and, sometimes, wheat into crude flour; & many an older resident of the county will recall his early responsibility as a boy of "going into the mill" on horseback with bags of shelled corn slung from his saddle. Another highly essential industry was conducted at the neighborhood smithies where plows and other agricultural tools were made and horses shod with home-made shoes and nails.

Can you name the village?  

About 1876, a population of approximately 100 - thirty-five miles as a crow flies to the east of Cartersville, on the Western and Atlantic Railroad.  A mere post village with 3 Methodist Churches, 2 Baptist, Atherton's Grist Mill; T. J. Bryan's general store, John Black's boots, shoes and harnesses; Doctor D. H. Hardee; A. J. Laney's watches and jewelery; Wheelright named James Barrett and T. J. Times the tanner, B. T. Warlick presided as the blacksmith and Justice of Peace, W. B. Swan had a saw mill and Tolbert Haley & Co - grist mill.   {Yes, it is Talking Rock} ... 


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