by John Kumiski
In a state of small towns, Toccoa exemplifies what is best about a small town life style. With less than 10,000 inhabitants, Toccoa certainly qualifies as a small town. Incorporated in 1875, Toccoa serves as the seat of Stephens County in the northeastern corner of Georgia. You’ll find the fine old county courthouse building on Tugaloo Street.
Prior to English settlement Cherokee Indians occupied this area. Indeed, the name Toccoa is the English version of the Cherokee word for the area, “Toccoah,” meaning “beautiful.” Surrounded by the southern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Toccoa certainly deserves the name.
One can travel to Toccoa by Amtrak. The town originally consisted of nothing more than a coaling station on the Charlotte to Atlanta railroad line. The tracks run parallel to Toccoa’s main street and the trains are a part of everyday life here.
Getting There
The nearest interstate highway is I-85, connecting Atlanta with Greenville, South Carolina. Drivers taking this road will get off at Route 17 and take 17 into Toccoa.
Toccoa also has an airport, Toccoa Airport, also known as R.G. LeTourneau Field.
Folks who live near the Amtrak’s Crescent Line train, which connects the cities of New York, Atlanta, and New Orleans, can take the train directly to Toccoa. The station, situated at 47 North Alexander Street, is one of the stops along this route.
Attractions
At 160 North Alexander Avenue (in the railroad depot building) you’ll find the Currahee Military Museum. This museum focuses on the 506 th Paratrooper Infantry Regiment that trained at Camp Toccoa, on nearby Currahee Mountain, during World War ll. More than 17,000 men learned the basics of soldiering here before being deployed in Europe.
The mountain, and the regiment, was made famous internationally by Steven Spielberg's TV series “Band of Brothers.” The paratroopers trained on the mountain, running up and down again daily. This training eventually led to the motto for these soldiers in the quote, "Three miles up, three miles down."
Elsewhere in town you’ll find two large antique shops. Both stores feature a wide variety of curiosities, furniture, collectables, and interesting knick-knacks.
Six miles east of Toccoa you’ll find the Traveler's Rest Historic Site, a stagecoach inn and plantation home that was built around 1815 by James R. Wylie. Wylie was a stakeholder in the Unicoi Turnpike, a busy thoroughfare that passed nearby. He operated the inn until the 1830s when he sold the place to Devereaux Jarrett, the "richest man in the Tugaloo Valley."
Jarrett doubled the size of Traveler's Rest, which also served as the headquarters of his 14,400-acre plantation. The Jarrett family inhabited the site until the 1950s, when the state of Georgia purchased the remaining few acres of the once-vast plantation and opened it to the public as an historic site. Thanks to its unique and well-preserved architecture, Traveler's Rest was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. Today visitors can enjoy a tour of the house and see many original artifacts and furnishings, some of which were crafted by Caleb Shaw, a splendid cabinetmaker from Massachusetts .
George W. Featherstonhaugh, an Englishman who visited the Inn in 1837, had this to say about it: "Here I got an excellent breakfast of coffee, ham, chicken, good bread, butter, honey, and plenty of good new milk for a quarter of a dollar . . . What a charming country this would be to travel in, if one was sure of meeting with such nice clean quarters once a-day!"
Speaking of food, good eateries always develop a loyal following, although these days you’re likely to spend more than a quarter. It may sound strange that you’d find good Mexican eats in the Georgia mountains, but Los Primos, located on Broad Street, pleases the palate with a selection of wonderful tacos, burritos, and chimichangas.
Another perhaps more expected type of food here is found at Shirley's Sole Food Café. Enjoy delicious down-home Southern food fixed just the way your grandmother made it. You won’t find a menu here. Shirley fixes up a batch of fried chicken, pork chops, BBQ, meatloaf, creamed corn, and greens or some combination of these daily, and you gladly (and perhaps greedily) eat whatever she made that day. You’ll find Shirley’s on Sage Street.
Since you’re in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, walking and waterfalls offer two attractions you simply can’t miss. During our visit we brought my mother-in-law, none too ambulatory, to two lovely falls. The first, in Toccoa’s Hamilton Falls Park, is Hamilton Falls. The water in this diminutive waterfall drops less than 10 feet, but the surroundings are beautiful and anyone, even the wheelchair bound, can visit here.
Another easy to get to waterfall is Toccoa Falls, located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College. Toccoa Falls doesn’t have anything like the flow of water that Niagara Falls has, but the drop is actually higher (186 feet) than the more famous falls.
Toccoa Falls has its own piece of infamy. These falls were the scene of a tragic flood in the 1970s when the dam on Kelly Barnes Lake failed, sending 170 million gallons of water downstream and over the falls. Thirty nine fatalities were recorded as a result of this event. Physical evidence of the flood can be seen on the scarred escarpment adjacent to the falls.
The farther you are willing to drive, and walk, the more waterfalls you can visit. Some are easy to get to. Others may require strenuous hiking, or even bushwhacking. All are worth whatever trouble it takes to visit, though. Waterfalls are one of this area’s loveliest spectacles.
Nearby Trips
A 20 minute drive brings you to Clarkesville, another lovely Georgia mountains small town. You’ll find several antique dealers and a pottery studio in town, most within walking distance of each other in the downtown district.
Also downtown are at least two restaurants of note- the Zanzo Italian Café, and the Baron York Café. Zanzo’s has all the usual Italian specialties, and some surprising choices that you might not expect, including grilled salmon in cream sauce and sautéed seafood cakes. Good stuff.
The Baron York Café actually operates as a tea room. The owner, Dea Irby, a lovely woman with a fascinating life story, prides herself on serving the highest quality teas and foods in an elegant and relaxing atmosphere. We very much enjoyed our conversation with Dea during our visit there.
Tallulah Gorge features the deepest gash into the earth east of the Grand Canyon, a spectacular place to visit. The state of Georgia had the wisdom to preserve the Gorge as a state park. Well maintained and easy to negotiate hiking trails border both the north and south rims, and you can get a permit to hike down into the gorge. Campsites are also available here.
If You Go
Visitors to Toccoa will need a place to stay. Susan and I stayed at the Simmons-Bond Inn, a bed and breakfast run by Elizabeth Forkey. Elizabeth serves up a wonderful breakfast! We were there two mornings and enjoyed such treats as cinnamon baked apples, coddled eggs, pecan waffles, pumpkin pancakes, and more. The Inn, a charming building built in 1903, is in the National Register of Historic Places. We recommend it highly.
For more information about where to go, stay, eat, etc., contact the Toccoa Chamber of Commerce at http://www.toccoagachamber.com, or call them at 706.886.2132.
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This article was written by John Kumiski of John Kumiski Outdoors and Travel. Contact him at his website www.johnkumiski.com or via email at john@spottedtail.com. Copyright 2007 John Kumiski.
John Kumiski 's most recent fishing guidebooks are How and Where to Catch Redfish in the Indian River Lagoon System (Argonaut Publishing Company), and Fishing Florida's Space Coast (Argonaut Publishing Company).
John Kumiski's newest book is Redfish on the Fly- A Comprehensive Guide.
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