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Search for Old Home Sites Star Creek Area 2, Fannin Co., GA Early February 2024 |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2024) |
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Search for Old Home Sites Star Creek Area 2, Fannin Co., GA Early February 2024 |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2024) |
| A few days after our previous explorations, Sheldon and I headed back to the Star Creek watershed to look for some more homesites that showed on the old maps. Like the other time, we had a sunny day, making for horrible lighting conditions. |
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| The first homesite, FA23, was an odd place... What looked at first like a cellar hole dug in a low knoll was actually a hole dug into the lower section of a finger ridge. A ditch had been cut across the bottom section of the ridge, resulting in a separate raised area with a hole in the center. Foundation stones were lined around the rim, but so sign of a chimney was observed. Neither of us had ever seen anything quite like it. |
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| It's hard to make out in these images, but here's another angle. The cellar hole is seen at the upper middle, and the "ditch" that cut across the ridge is seen along the upper part of the image. |
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| Me standing in the cellar hole at FA23 (Photo by Sheldon) |
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| Galvanized bait bucket, found next to the homesite |
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| Old enamel pot, also found nearby |
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| There were a number of rock-lined terrace walls around the old homesite. This view looks down along one of them... |
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| A few more examples of the terraces follow... |
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| Terrace wall |
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| Terrace wall |
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| There were also several ditches perpendicular to the terraces that ran uphill-downhill. |
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| Leaving that site, we walked around to the next drainage, part of which we had explored on our previous visit to the area. We came across an area where the creek bank was lined with rocks. |
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| Rock-lined creek bank |
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| Rock-lined creek bank |
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| Continuing upstream, we passed two sites that we'd visited on our earlier exploration, but this time we continued upward instead of turning to cross the gap where we'd gone before. |
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| We found homesite FA24 in a bowl near the head of the drainage. |
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| Like many others, this site had a collapsed chimney and a rock foundation footprint of the long-gone cabin that once stood here. |
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| Collapsed chimney |
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| Chimney from the rear |
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| We headed back down the mountain, because we decided to drive to the next area we wanted to explore. On the way down, we had an unusual sighting. |
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| Nine-banded Armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) It's not every day that we see an armadillo up here in the mountains. Coming down, we spotted this critter scuffling along, looking for grubs or whatever. We watched it for a few minutes, until it climbed down into a little hollowed out area. I didn't have a long lens, so I slowly worked my way towards it, taking a picture, and then another, with each step closer. This was the final shot I got before it skedaddled down into a hole. This is only the second armadillo I've seen while exploring in N. Georgia, my only previous sighting being on Pigeon Mtn 9 years ago. Sheldon, despite a career in the woods with the USFS, had never encountered one before. |
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| We headed west to explore our final area. Walking down an old woods road, we came to this old home place. |
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| Cellar hole at homesite FA25. |
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| Cellar hole from another angle |
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| And another angle... |
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| Me preparing to take some photos... (Photo by Sheldon) |
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| Remains of a few notched logs were still visible at one corner. |
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| Some huge arborvitae trees surrounded the homesite. |
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| Another of the huge arborvitaes. We ended the day looking for two more nearby sites, but didn't find anything worth recording. |