Archeological Survey of the Proposed White County Interpretative Trail System, White County, Georgia

The White County Board of Education wishes to construct a set of inter-connecting trails on County land surrounding the newly constructed White County Intermediate School, which is about 1.5 miles northwest of Cleveland, the county seat of White County. The school system was awarded a Federal Highway Administration (FHW A) enhancement grant to help with the implementation of the trail project. In assisting the FHWA, the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources recommended that a Phase I archeological survey of the proposed trail be conducted to ensure compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. This act requires consideration of effects from federally funded projects on significant archeological resources, with the goal of not inadvertently harming such sites. Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc. was selected to conduct this Phase I archeological survey of the proposed trail. The survey was completed on October 3, 2001 and this report presents our findings, the essence of which is that no sites were encountered. The trail does pass by a previously documented and archeologically delineated cemetery (Gresham 1998), but will not affect it.

The parcel of school property on which the trail is to be built lies on the west side of the junction of Turner Creek and Little Tesnatee Creek, northwest of Cleveland (Figure 1). The parcel contains a prominent ridge top from which protrudes a sloping ridge spine. The majority of the tract is steeply sloping land. Until the school was built a few years ago, most of the tract was wooded and about a third was in pasture. The trail system will consist of three types of trails, 4-ft wide light duty interpretive trails, a 6-ft wide hard surface fitness trail and 4-ft wide sidewalks. The sidewalks and fitness trail already exist and were built on cut or filled land immediately next to the school. The subject of our survey was the 4-ft wide light duty interpretive trail, which roughly encircles the school property and is about 2,350 m (7700 ft) long (Figure 2). The trail has a few short connectors that do not appear in Figure 2.

The survey was conducted on October 3, 2001 by SAS archeologists Ron Schoettmer and Trent Meyers, under the direction of Tom Gresham. The trail was not marked in the field, but had been mapped onto detailed, 1:1200 scale, 10-ft contour project maps. The maps and trail design were prepared by a consulting design firm, Land Solutions Group, and the archeologists stopped at their offices in Gwinnett County to obtain a full-scale version of the map and to discuss the location of the trail with chief designer Bo Cone. With the large scale map in hand and good understanding of where the trail was to be placed, the archeologists had little trouble determining the path of the proposed trail. The survey was conducted by simply having the pair of archeologists walk the route and place shovel tests where sites could occur.