Hiking the Homestead Trail

Monday was a holiday, and we took our traditional Martin Luther King Day hike at Red Top Mountain State Park this year.  With rain expected during the afternoon, Tom planned for us to be off the trail by then.  So we loaded up everyone and the dog and we got to the Visitors' Center parking lot around 11 a.m..

We should have thought to bring a trail map with us, because (probably thanks to cutbacks to state park budgets) the Visitors' Center was closed.  But we basically know the way, having hiked these trails before.  We took the Sweet Gum Trail as far as the lodge, then the White Tail Trail to the edge of the lake, then back to the Sweet Gum Trail until it intersected the Homestead Trail, which we took back to the Visitors' Center.  It was 4.5 miles or so altogether, and we did get back before the rain started.

It was a nice walk.  There was still a little packed snow in places on the trail, but it was mostly clear.  Not too many people there, given that it was a holiday - maybe people were still concerned about the roads, after the big Ice In the week before.  There were some dogs who were happy to be out of the house.   We didn't see any deer.

While we were walking, I asked Tom if we were in Bartow County.  Maybe, Tom said, he wasn't sure.  Why was I asking?  Some ancestors had moved from North Carolina to Georgia, I told him, and I was thinking that they might have been in Bartow County for at least a while.   Maybe if I want to do some family history research there's some to do that is not so far from home.  Jacob Rhyne, who had left his first wife and married a woman named Sally Hope, had moved to Georgia, and so had Jacob Stroup, the second husband of Jacob's mother (and the father of Jacob's first wife).  Red Top Mountain is red because of iron ore, and I knew there used to be iron mining there; Jacob Stroup had been an ironworker, and I thought that he might have been in Bartow County for a while, so maybe there was something to find out that would be interesting.

When we got back to the parking lot, a Bartow County Sheriff's car pulled into the parking lot.  Probably Bartow County, I told Tom.

No time to look anything up until today.  So I was quite surprised to find that Jacob Stroup is credited with building the first iron furnace there, in 1836, and that the last one he built was at the entrance of what is now Red Top Mountain State Park.  The remains of it and another one he built are under the water of Lake Allatoona.  Tom and the kids have sailed on Lake Allatoona for years, and the girls went to Girl Scout camp there, too.  How many times have we been at this park?  And I had no idea.

On March 19, the park is firing up two iron furnaces to commemorate the early iron industry in Bartow County.  We've enjoyed for several years attending the Georgia State holiday iron pour downtown; this year, I hope I can make it to the one at Red Top Mountain, now that I know that indeed this was where Hannah Hoyle's second husband ended up.