History on the banks of the Coosa River
The headwaters of the Coosa River in Rome were made famous in 1793 when a confederation of Cherokee and Muscogee fighters took on Gen. John Sevier somewhere near the base of Myrtle Hill Cemetery in October of that year. It was a battle that made Sevier a hero and helped create a battle hero who would later become the first governor of Tennessee.
Now that same area has been recognized for the passive pursuit of golf. The golf course at Coosa Country Club — we’re talking the course itself, not the clubhouse or any buildings — was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Next month, a group that has formed a 501(c)(3) organization known as the Rome Historic Golf Preservation Foundation will hold a meeting at Coosa Country Club to detail plans for the ongoing preservation and maintenance of the course. The not for profit group will also take on the mission of promoting education and scholarship in golf.
Mick Williams indicated to me that the meeting will take place on Feb. 7 at a time to be specified soon. Anyone who is interested in the preservation and upkeep of the course is encouraged to attend the meeting.
The original course was laid out in a pastoral setting overlooking the Coosa in 1910. It was a 9-hole course at the time. The back nine, extending the course to a full 18-hole layout, was opened in 1932. George W. Cobb, who is responsible for a lot of golf courses along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, was called on to redesign the course in 1962. Cobb’s vision was to create a park-like setting without any special gimmicks and it’s considered evidentiary of both the links and parkland styles of course layout.
Williams and others, including T. Michelle Williams, Janet Byington and David Mitchell, started the effort to have the course listed on the register about four years ago and that came to fruition in April of 2022.
Rome is rich in history and has more than 20 listings on the National Register of Historic Places. Floyd County as a whole has close to 50 sites on the Register.
Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home is one of the better known locations on the National Register. This part of the state has a rich Native American heritage that I think is tremendously under-appreciated. As I mentioned to start this column, the Battle of Etowah, also known as the Battle of Hightower, in 1793 was a major event at the time. Arguably, the two principal characters were General Sevier and native warrior Kingfisher.
The Kingfisher Trail along the Etowah
River is named for the native warrior who was killed during the battle, somewhere between Myrtle Hill and what we now know as Central Plaza. Sevier came out of that battle as a legendary hero and rode the coattails of that incident to the governor’s office in Tennessee.
Even before Kingfisher, native settlements were all over the fertile lowlands along the rivers. Evidence of that was found with the so-called DeSoto sword, which was unearthed by a farmer out in extreme western Floyd County close to 50 years ago. Spanish explorers certainly had some sort of interaction with the local natives and a whole settlement, called the King Site, has been heavily excavated.
Major Ridge came along a little later and his role in the infamous Trail of Tears has been well documented, and I think is fairly well known to most Romans. He could very well have been the principal chief of the Cherokee had he spoken English, but since he didn’t, John Ross took on that role. Ross also had a plantation in Rome, on the other side of the Oostanaula in the area of the Fifth Avenue Nursing Home and Floyd medical center.
New Echota in Gordon County may have been the capital of the Cherokee Nation at the time, but Rome was the seat of power.
As you drive down Second Avenue, you will encounter a couple of properties that are listed on the Register. The Robert Battey House at the corner of Second and Eighth Street was the original home of the physician who pioneered oophorectomies. Just a little farther down the avenue, the old Double Cola building, now home to Joe Vargo’s orthodontic practice, is also included on the Register.
Myrtle Hill Cemetery, the old Floyd County Courthouse on Fifth Avenue and Mayo’s Bar Lock & Dam are all included on the Register. An effort to reopen the lock was included on a SPLOST package years ago but concern over the disturbance of PCBs in the river foiled that effort. I continue to dream about somehow being able to navigate the river all the way to the Weiss Dam as a really cool tourist attraction, but that seems to be a pipedream considering the PCB issue.
I’ve always thought that some sort of an intimate catered dinner cruise down the river on the Roman Holiday would be a big draw but that’s never gotten past go.
People love history and I think there are lots of opportunities to capitalize on ours.