Cultural Resources Survey of the Tallulah Falls Lake Segment of the Proposed Toccoa-Franklin Natural Gas Pipeline, Rabun County, Georgia

The Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia, a public corporation and instrumentality of the State of Georgia that is a wholesale gas supplier to 64 municipalities in Georgia, is proposing to construct a new gas supply line from south of Toccoa, Georgia north along a route that generally follows or parallels U.S. Highway 441 to its terminus just south of Franklin, North Carolina. The project also entails the construction of six distinct natural gas distribution systems in the communities of Hollywood, Tallulah Falls, Tiger, Clayton, Mountain city and Dillard in Habersham and Rabun Counties, Georgia and in the town of Franklin in Macon County, North Carolina. The project requires Section 404 nationwide permitting and must comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended. This act requires that any federally permitted project must take into account the effects of the undertaking on significant historic properties, which are those listed on or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The process of locating and identifying eligible and potentially eligible properties in the project area has been multi-phased, and the present report is the fourth to deal with cultural resources.

The first effort was an archeological survey of the portion of the proposed line that was to pass through the town of Tallulah Falls and along the Tallulah River (Braley 1998). This was perceived to the most sensitive portion of the project area in terms of cultural resources, and for that reason was dealt with first. Braley (1998) identified several significant resources in the area, including the Tallulah Railroad, built between 1904 and 1906; the Tallulah Falls Depot, built in 1913/1914; the old U.S. 441 Bridge, built in the 1930s; and a Warren Pony Truss bridge, built in 1916. Only the bed of the Tallulah Railroad would have been affected by the proposed gas line, and in consultation with the Georgia State Historic Preservation Officer, Braley concluded that the project would not constitute an adverse effect to the rail bed. The second phase of work consisted of a reconnaissance survey of the entire 93 km line, from just south of Toccoa, Georgia to just south of Franklin, North Carolina (Gresham and Braley 1998). This survey report discussed the four archeological sites and two National Register properties that were near or adjacent to the project area and identified eight segments of the line that warranted intensive archeological survey. Gresham (1998) predicted, based on known site distributions in the area and the limited extent of the project area, that very few sites would be encountered. The third phase of work was the intensive survey of the eight segments identified by the reconnaissance survey. This intensive survey located no sites, and in combination with the previous surveys, demonstrated that no significant cultural resources would be adversely affected by the proposed undertaking (Gresham 1999).

In September, 1999, a rerouting of the line around Tallulah Falls Lake became necessary when the original plan of tunneling underneath the lake became unfeasible. Originally, the line was to follow the old Tallulah Railroad bed from the town of Tallulah Falls, across Tallulah Falls Lake (underneath the lake), and then northward along the east side of the lake to rejoin old U.S. 441 north of the lake (Figure 1). The revised route brings the line westward around the lake, rather than northward across it (Figure 1). This revised route, approximately 4.2 km in length, was the subject of an intensive archeological survey conducted on September 22, 1999 by the principal investigator and Chad Braley and is the subject of this report. One historic resource, Camp Chattooga, was documented and evaluated by architectural historians Scott Messer and Monica Callahan on October 4, 1999.