Nomination of Soapstone Ridge as a Historic Distric under the Dekalb County Historic Preservation Ordinance, HP961003-051

This nomination of Soapstone Ridge as a Historic District under DeKalb County Historic Preservation Ordinance is submitted by the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society. It is our belief that the Soapstone Ridge area is a unique and a valuable cultural resource. It is also our belief that protection of the information contained in the sites within the proposed district is highly important, not only to provide a sense of place and an understanding of the history of DeKalb County to its citizens, but also to provide researches and the citizens of the United States generally with information that can only be provided at Soapstone Ridge.

It is our contention that current development, if allowed to continue at its present rate, will destroy all vestiges of the Soapstone Ridge sites within 30 years, and that preservation of the information in these sites, as well as preservation of the sites themselves when possible, is necessary to avoid losing the highly significant information found in these ties. We further contend that preservation of one or a few sites is inadequate to obtain the variety of types of information and range of information necessary to obtain a useful understanding of the district.

The following nomination describes the proposed district, places it in a prehistoric context, explains what archaeological research has been done in the district to date, discusses the proposed district’s significance, discusses impacts to the sites in the proposed district, provides indications of public support, and presents procedures for implementation of the Preservation Commission’s responsibilities to enforce the Historic Preservation Ordinance in the District.

We have attempted to identify boundaries within the greater Soapstone Ridge area that will have the greatest potential to contain significant resources with the lowest impact to the largest number of landowners in the proposed district.