# Civil War remains?



## cameronbob6 (Feb 5, 2009)

I was at Pine Log WMA on Sunday with the ol’ squirrel popper.  Gates were closed so I hiked in about 3 miles.  Took an old login road and came across what looks like Civil War remains up on a large hill.  I found large, concrete blocks with threaded bolts sticking out of the concrete.  There were several of these as well as a concrete wall poured into the hill.  These structures were terraced into the hill and rocks looked as if they were arranged to provide protection.  The only thing I could think of was that this must have been some sort of a look out post. If anyone can give me information about this piece of history I would greatly appreciate it.


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## boo (Feb 5, 2009)

sound interesting, id love to metal detect it


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## cameronbob6 (Feb 5, 2009)

let me know if your serious and i'll give you directions. i'd love to know whats there.


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## Old Crappie (Feb 5, 2009)

Don't know anything about Pine Log but concrete blocks and threaded bolts are not civil war construction. Since there is a Stamp Creek Rd in the area, could the remains be of an old stamp mill?


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## threeleggedpigmy (Feb 5, 2009)

There is an old furance right by the creek.  That is if you come in by the ranger station and go a ways back.


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## cameronbob6 (Feb 5, 2009)

Old Crappie said:


> Don't know anything about Pine Log but concrete blocks and threaded bolts are not civil war construction. Since there is a Stamp Creek Rd in the area, could the remains be of an old stamp mill?



Thats interesting.  There is a creek that runs along the bottom of the hill, but would a mill be built up on a hill like that.


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## Mr. Fishunt (Feb 5, 2009)

*Metal Detecting*

Check the state laws before you hunt for artifacts on state land....

Regards, 
Mr. Fishunt


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## fishtail (Feb 5, 2009)

Them medal detectors, even picking up surface artifacts have been changed in several locations to bring you to court.


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## Resica (Feb 5, 2009)

cameronbob6 said:


> Thats interesting.  There is a creek that runs along the bottom of the hill, but would a mill be built up on a hill like that.



Storage building?


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## cameronbob6 (Feb 5, 2009)

Upon further research I guess this could have been an old stamp mill.  If that is true an old furnace shouldn’t be to far away.  Please post your replies.


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## ngabowhunter (Feb 5, 2009)

There is a furnace nearby. Here are the coordinates:

N 34° 16.275     W 084° 40.773


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## cameronbob6 (Feb 6, 2009)

thanks for the replies everyone!


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## SmokyMtnSmoke (Feb 6, 2009)

Look here...

Stamp Creek Rd, White, GA 30184
http://maps.live.com/?v=2&where1=Stamp Creek Rd, White, GA 30184&encType=1

see 'Old Furnace Rd'

then choose Aerial, zoom in and have fun

The old furnace sits here on this push pin. Choose Birds Eye View

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&encType=1&sp=Point.pqbm5q7y8zxh_Untitled item____


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## bugger (Feb 7, 2009)

I don't know for sure where you were, but I'm guessing you walked in from the north end (off East Valley Rd) since there is an area like what you describe just off the main road a few miles in.  Assuming that is where you were, this is what you saw.

The northernmost area of Pine Log was once heavily mined (mostly for iron ore).  This, of course, was long before it was PL WMA.  In the earliest mining days (~1850 - later 1800s), the ore was smelted locally in the rock furnaces and the iron was hauled out by mule teams.  There are several furnaces remaining on PL- the best known is the one near the first bridge over Stamp Creek about 2 or so miles in from the main gate, but there are others.  In later years (turn of the century through ~1930) the ore was shipped out on rail to be smelted elsewhere.  There was a railroad connecting the northern end of what is now PL WMA with Cartersville and the main rail system.  The railroad was called the Iron Belt Railroad, and the terminus of the rr was the "spit" of land that sticks out in the retention pond at the north end of the WMA.  Another spur ended up the road at a small pond, very near structures exactly like what you described.  You can still find coal along the railroad bed if you know what you're looking for.  The area around the fields was heavily pit-mined and there was a semipermanent settlement/prison (depending on what you believe) there called Sugar Hill.  Brick chimneys still stand in the woods near the fields from the camp there and there are huge, obviously man-made pits visible from the road (so large that they don't look man-made unless you know what you'
re looking at).  Although they did not smelt the ore at Sugar Hill, they mined quite a lot of it and had facilities to load rail and possibly crush and wash ore.  There are big concrete and steel structures built into the side of a hill near one of the mining cuts, and the best guess is that was some kind of processing/loading structure for the rail, but as far as I know, nobody knows for sure.  

Between the two fields at the base of Hanging Mtn, the rr bed is obvious if you know what to look for- it is an unnaturally level, straight berm separating the big field from the little field.  

The only structures known to date from the civil war era are the rock furnaces and the related building foundations nearby.  There is a mysterious rock wall or two on the area, but I've never heard anyone claim they are civil war related.  There are no civil war era military installments on the area as far as I know.


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## cameronbob6 (Feb 10, 2009)

Bugger, 

Thanks for the great info!


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## Danny Leigh (Feb 10, 2009)

Great info Bugger. I've seen much of those structures that you have described. I can only imagine that the place probably looked like the moon with all the pits that they have on the north side of Little Pine Log Mtn and around East Valley. Nature has covered up much of the scars, but they are still visable.

I've seen one other furnace besides the main one that was on Guthrie Cr, but it was in bad shape and hardly more than a pile of rocks.

It used to be pretty neat to walk along the RR bed coming in from Oak Street back before they did all the logging. There were some pretty big chestnut oaks along the sunk-in RR bed and I miss what the area used to look like. Now most of the big woods are only located on the sides and tops of the biggest mountains.


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## bfriendly (Feb 10, 2009)

Great question and answers guys.........I too have seen some rock walls and have always wondered where they came from.......I love Pinelog, it is beautiful!  I have only seen the one chimney stack right beside the road as you come from the North end(East Valley) and of course the old mill by the first bridge coming in from the South.  I have been wanting to go in from Oak Street, but can I park there? It looks like an industrial park

Also, I have not seen the old RR bed-at least I did not know it if I did see it.  WHere can I find that?  I have been around most of the big lake(Cept where it is NOT WMA)........

Tomorrow is my day off and I have a Dental Appt or I would be there for sure


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## Danny Leigh (Feb 10, 2009)

The old "mill" by the first bridge was a furnace used to smelt iron ore and probably had a water wheel to pump the bellows and put air into the furnace. Just before the Weiman Mineral Museum closed they had a model of the furnace and what the parts were used for.

Oak Street has a storage area and mobile homes along it. There is a gate just past the mobile homes but then there is another home right next to the gate. The roadbed is the old RR bed and it goes through private property and then back into the WMA before ending at private property again. The bed continues around the mountain and back onto WMA with the road bed above the fields being part of the RR. (around the old mine "ponds") Sometimes when they grade the roads you'll see old RR spikes.


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## bugger (Feb 11, 2009)

The crumbled remains on Guthrie are one of the other furnaces.  There are two others.  One is also in pretty bad shape, and there's not a whole lot to see.

However, the last one is in every bit as good a shape as the one everyone knows about- maybe better.  It is located on the main fork of stamp creek and is on the WMA.  But, it's on a part of the WMA most people don't go to.  If you look at the map of PL and trace Stamp Creek, the creek runs out of the WMA below the check-in station, but then runs back into the WMA in a southern block of the WMA.  If you hike in there and follow stamp creek up, you will find the nicest furnace on the property on the west side of the creek.


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## Hooty Hoot (Feb 11, 2009)

There are several picket breastworks as well as furnaces in that area. They are still standing. They mined iron ore for cannon  and cannon balls during the war. Probably be pretty hard to metal detect in that iron rich soil.


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## cameronbob6 (Feb 11, 2009)

Bugger, keep pourin it on me! I'm lovin this.


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## whitworth (Feb 11, 2009)

*Iron ore mining and foundries in Bartow County*

Red Top Mountain State Park
County:Bartow
City:Cartersville
Type:State Park
One of the most popular parks in the state Red Top Mountain State Park in Cartersville offers a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities that make it attractive to thousands of people a day.

History

Smith Log Cabin on Red Top Mountain State Park grounds.  The availability of iron ore was one of the earliest attractions to Bartow County, and its visibility gave Red Top Mountain its name. Here this land was used by the Stroups, early north Georgia ironmasters, to produce "clay iron." Mark Anthony Cooper purchased the business from them, including the land south of Stroup's mill on Stamp Creek and his furnace on the Etowah River. When the iron ore in the area became too expensive to mine, Cooper began to import ore from northwest Georgia on the Western and Atlantic Railroad and the land returned to agricultural use.


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http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-945
Iron ore mining also contributed heavily to forest removal in northwest Georgia. This activity occurred primarily in the Ridge and Valley region stretching from Dalton to Rome. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, speculators, chiefly northeastern industrialists, mined coal and iron extensively in Dade and Walker counties, and logged the ridges for timber to make charcoal for smelting the iron ore. 

****************

http://www.gamineral.org/augusta-ridge.htm
The Indian Mountain area in eastern Alabama and western Georgia is a great source of excellent phosphate microminerals.  Open pit iron ore mines were first operated here starting in the mid-1800's and all have since ceased operations.  The ore consisted of limonite with some hematite present and was between 46-61% metallic iron.  The impurities in this ore body allowed for the secondary development of abundant phosphate microminerals. 

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http://www.evhsonline.org/hills/hills.html
Prior to the Civil War, at least nine iron furnaces operated at one time or another in the county. [Bartow]Today, the remains of five of these furnaces can still be seen along the banks of Stamp Creek and the Etowah River, where the heaviest deposits of iron ore exist.

The industry, which began with the arrival in Bartow County of pioneer furnace builder and ironmaster Jacob Stroup in 1836 and reached its peak in the 1850s, abruptly ended with the physical and economic upheaval caused by the Civil War and the destruction of Mark Cooper's Etowah ironworks.

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The Noble Brothers foundry in nearby Rome, made cannon for the Confederates.

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http://roadsidegeorgia.com/site/cooperiron.html
Cooper's Iron Works
County:Bartow
City:Emerson
Type:Roadside
Furnace at Cooper's Iron WorksThe only remains of the bustling industrial town of Etowah is the furnace at Cooper Iron Works. Built by Jacob Stroup in the 1830's, this foundry was the first in the area.


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## Danny Leigh (Feb 12, 2009)

Bugger, thanks for the info on the other furnace. For some reason I have never looked at that tract of the WMA, but I'll see about getting down there in turkey season.


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## bfriendly (Feb 14, 2009)

> Bugger, thanks for the info on the other furnace. For some reason I have never looked at that tract of the WMA, but I'll see about getting down there in turkey season.




x2........


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## cobra97 (Feb 14, 2009)

This is a really neat thread. I was looking for more info on the railroad but didn't find much. Did find links to two maps on the railga site. 

http://railga.com/ironbelt.html

I was looking to see if the rr was narrow guage or standard and what kind of locomotives were used. 

Terry


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## oldman 45 (Feb 19, 2009)

be advised dont get caught with a metal dectector on that WMA


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