New Farmers Market trail highlights local heritage

Most of the project has been completed, with a few finishing touches remaining to be applied ahead of the 11 a.m. ribbon cutting for the trail that coincides with the season opening day of the Farmers Market on June 7. It’ll also be Beef Day at the market, so people should come hungry.

But the initiative needs help from the public.

Blue Ridge Mountain SWCD Chairman Mickey Cummings is asking folks to submit old photos showcasing work by local farmers of yesteryear. Particularly, he is seeking pictures of sweet sorghum production but will be grateful for any old photos of local agriculture being practiced.

Photos can be submitted to Sole Commissioner Harold Collins’ office inside the Union County Courthouse, where they will be scanned and promptly returned. Cummings hopes people can share biographical information about the individuals pictured so they can be honored by name.

These photos will be used as part of a trail marker program, to feature four signs along the trail highlighting local historical information. A QR code will be available on each sign for trail guests to scan and be directed to a website for more information, including access to the photos.

“I would like to have a photograph of everybody that grew sweet sorghum back in the day so that we can put it behind this QR code,” Cummings said. “Any production practices – if you’ve got pictures of cooking the sorghum, taking the seed heads off, planting sorghum, we want that.

“But also, we’d like to have some pictures of some of our vegetable production, like the folks that grew early collards. If you’ve got a picture of somebody processing hogs back in the day or stacking hay – that was something that was really important, and we want all those things.”

Located on the east side of the market, everything about the roughly half-mile walking trail pays homage to the agricultural roots of Union County and the North Georgia Mountains.

Visitors will find plenty to ponder about the past, such as historically significant crops grown on plots adjoining the trail – pears, apples, peaches, figs, Indian tobacco, Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, field corn – plus many varieties of native plants that wind their way along the path.

Then there are the four historical signposts that will be installed soon for people to read all about the history of mountain agriculture and the story of Union County.

Sign topics range from the days of subsistence farming to market development; facts about the 1832 Georgia Land Lottery; info on Native American Place Names; and even details about medicinal plants and naturally growing foods available in “Butternut Creek’s Wild Pantry.”

As people make their way down the gravel trail before or after a visit to the market, they can sit for a spell on any of several benches overlooking the trail and take the time to imagine the many peoples who once populated Union County.

The trail ends at the Hunter-England Cabin and Farmstead, where visitors will find even more history on display, including one of the oldest houses in the county, a heritage garden, a Blacksmith Shop, a shed with antique equipment, a tobacco-drying barn and a smokehouse.

Of course, this heritage project would not have been possible without extensive collaboration, which started with a conversation between friends.

A few years ago, Cummings – a retired local ag agent and former manager of the Farmers Market – got in touch with Frank Riley, who leads the Chestatee-Chattahoochee RC&D and owns Mountain Scene Farms in Towns County that has been in his family since 1857.

“Frank and I love mountain agriculture, but the times are changing so quickly, people are going to forget our heritage of growing things,” Cummings said. “I’m just afraid, with everything that’s going on with all the development, that people are going to forget about farming.”

To further preserve the community’s legacy, both in terms of farming and all the people who came before – the Cherokee, early settlers, those who rushed here in the Land Lottery and later – the men planned to do something special at the Farmers Market.

“We want to honor those individuals, and we want people to know the story of the land development here in Union and Towns counties,” Cummings said.

With their goal cemented, the idea sprouted into a heritage trail tying into the farmstead, to serve as a perfect chance to provide more for visitors to do at the Farmers Market while keeping the history of the area alive for future generations.

But the trail wasn’t going to make itself; enter the partnerships. Riley put in for an NRCS grant, and State Conservationist Terrance Rudolph handled the proposal himself. After a brief back and forth with Washington, the project was totally funded via a grant award of $128,000.

Conservation nonprofit MountainTrue came out to help clear plots and identify native plants, and the Commissioner’s Office got involved in a big way, providing design work courtesy of County Project Manager Mike Thomason as well as layout and grading by the Road Department.

Commissioner Collins, a farmer himself who grew sorghum for years and watched his dad make syrup for decades, put his signature on the trail by coming up with the idea to grow a patch of cane for live cooking to promote the new Sorghum in the Mountains Festival each October.

This prompted Riley to get to work acquiring both a mill to grind the harvested sorghum cane and a copper pan to cook the syrup, the latter of which has been expertly restored by resident Paul Reeves, whom Cummings described as a genius able to build anything.

Building modifications and final assembly of the syrup-making facility are still needed, but everything should be ready in time for cooking demonstrations ahead of the festival this fall.

Last week, Cummings and Riley thanked all the partners involved in the collaboration, including the county, and Collins offered his appreciation right back for the men’s efforts to bring the trail to fruition – and their procurement of funding, requiring no local tax dollars to be spent.

“It’s good to partner up with them,” Collins said. “They’re great guys, they know a lot, and they want to share a lot with the community and the visitors that come out there to see the heritage of Union County and learn a little about farming, sorghum and native plants.”

Farmers Market Manager Dustin “Rog” Rogers said the trail has already attracted plenty of walkers, and he looks forward to the orchard growing up over time to produce fruit grown right there at the market and trail.

“People come to the Farmers Market on Saturdays, and we’re hoping they’ll make a day of it and venture on up to the trail, to the Blacksmith Shop, the old England Cabin, and just check all that out on Saturdays also,” Rogers said.