TONEY ATKINS: WHAT I THINK ABOUT THAT: The City of Chickamauga

TONEY ATKINS: WHAT I THINK ABOUT THAT: The City of Chickamauga
This sleepy small town in northwest Georgia will be part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga during the War Between the States. A must for Civil War buffs!

Toney Atkins comments: Anyone who wonders why I've posted so much about Chickamauga, GA, doesn't know that I proudly call it my home town. I grew up there, graduated from Gordon Lee Memorial High School and later enjoyed some of the best years of my life teaching many terrific youngsters in grades five through seven at Chickamauga Elementary School (1967-1971). After teaching another year at North Rossville (GA) Elementary School, I vacationed in Florida, where I essentially was handed my first job in journalism, starting as a police reporter, progressing to the government beat, entertainment writer and editor and then to county and assistant city editor at a mainstream newspaper. I lived in Chickamauga for 29 years and occasionally still yearn for the good old days of small town life where the living was relatively carefree, moved at a leisure pace and full of Southern hospitality. I'm amazed at how much of the town/s history that I wasn't taught when I lived there, but learned about recently. Maybe my teachers tried to inform me, but being a typical kid, I simply took for granted the atmosphere as it was then and not that every day, I was walking on or driving through a land that was jam-packed with history. The upcoming observances of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga during the Civil War excite me and I want to share that excitement. If you want to visit a small Southern town steeped in history, I encourage you to see Chickamauga. (Did you know that the Civil War battle was named not for the town, but for Chickamauga Creek? The area was known as Crawfish Springs during the War Between the States. A crystal clear spring flows from an area just east of the Gordon-Lee Mansion, a plantation built before the war which still stands an historic landmark. The water from the springs flows into Chickamauga Creek.)