Georgia Mountain Fair

Today (July 19) we chose to return to Hiawassee to attend the Georgia Mountain Fair just west of town on Hwy 76. The event runs from July 16 to July 27. We chose today because there was a parade, a clogging program in the music hall and craft sales and exhibits in over 65 booths in an Appalachian village setting.

This event is a big deal. We were in a line of vehicles all the way through town. Thousands of people were going to enjoy this with us today.

The Anderson Music Hall was impressive indeed as we watched cloggers perform to a live mountain band. That hall was built in 1979 and has a capacity of 2,900. It seems the hall was at least half full today.

The upper part of the craft village is called Pioneer Village, consisting of a one-room schoolhouse, a mountain cabin, a blacksmith shop, a soap factory, a sawmill and many other vintage buildings which were moved here from the neighboring area. It brought us back in time at least 100 years.

The sawmill drew a lot of attention as old men in beards and overalls wrestled 24” logs onto a cradle and slide that cradle past a huge round saw blade, belt driven by a very old gasoline engine. Lois didn’t want to watch this very long as she was afraid someone would get hurt.

We bought a home-made ice cream cone in Pioneer Village and took a close look at the home-made ice-cream machine which was turning out five gallons a batch. The machine was powered by a 1911 Ideal single-piston engine. The proud owner told us all about it. He rigged the whole thing on a four-wheel cart so he could move it around. The ice cream was very good.

We bought some fresh locally-grown tomatoes and Georgia peaches to take home. We saw a lot of craft products, like a leather hat, black-smith hooks and jewelry, but were not motivated to spend the money.

The Georgia Mountain Fair is almost 60 years old and the grounds we were on today has been owned by the fair about 30 years. It is a beautiful venue on the shore of Lake Chatuge and includes an RV resort. It was well worth the price of admission -- $9/person.