Archaeological Guide to the Nacoochee Valley – Helen, Georgia Area

Driving directions, GPS coordinates and descriptions, based on the original archaeological reports of Charles C. Jones (1873), Cyrus Thomas (1885), George Heye (1915), Robert Wauchope (1939) and Mark Williams (1999 & 2004) of all officially designated archaeological sites in the Nacoochee Valley National Historic District. The full color, 48-page booklet is heavily illustrated with over a hundred photographs and architectural renderings.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “The Nacoochee Valley is the largest and most densely occupied archaeological zone” north of Teotihuacan, Mexico. It has been almost continually occupied by mankind from the Ice Age to the present. This beautiful valley, created by ancient volcanic peaks, is is also the official starting point for the 1828 Georgia Gold Rush. Gold can still be panned from its streams.

Available from the book publisher in North Carolina for $18 + sales tax + shipping costs . . . see ordering information below.

The Helen, Georgia and Nacoochee Valley compose Georgia’s Number Three tourist designation, yet virtually no one living or working there knows anything of substance about its ancient heritage. When tourists, interested in early history, go into the Helen Visitor’s Center to learn the locations of the ancient capital of the Creek Indians, the 5,000+ year-old Alec Mountain Stone Oval or the location where Roanoke Colony survivor, Eleanor Dare, spent the last 10 years of her life, they encounter puzzled faces. The staff is focused on promoting the commercial attractions of “Alpine Helen.”

Almost all of the Valley’s popular 19th century bed and breakfast homes are built atop Native American mounds or town sites, but the current owners don’t know that. The Sautee-Nacoochee Community Center, Old Sautee Store, Nacoochee Presbyterian Church and Nacoochee Methodist Church were constructed on mound sites sacred to the ancestors of the Creek and Chickasaw Indians. The occupants of these historic structures are totally unaware. That is because the current faces, one sees in the Valley, are generally transplants from the late 20th century up to the present.

Click here to obtain more information or order booklet from Lulu Press Publishing Inc.

For those readers, who would like to know the complete history of the Nacoochee Valley and Helen, GA from the Ice Age to the present . . . Lulu Press also offers The Nacoochee Valley . . . Ancient Crossroads of the Americas. The full color, 108-page book contains all of the information in the tour guide, plus a detailed chronology, which will tell you about all sorts of surprising tidbits from the past from Ice Age mastodon hunters to the arrival of Itza Maya immigrants to the arrival of 10 survivors of the Roanoke Colony to the Georgia Gold Rush to the “invention” of the modern poultry industry in Northeast Georgia to the filming of the movie, “I’d Climb the Highest Mountains” to the redevelopment of Helen into an alpine village.

The book price from the publisher is $48 + sales tax + plus shipping.

Click here to order “The Nacoochee Valley . . . Ancient Crossroads of the Americas” from Lulu Press.

Richard has been a key cast member on TV programs, nationally broadcast by NBC, the History Channel and PBS. He has also created over 50 educational videos for Youtube.

About the Author

Richard L. Thornton, is a professional Architect and City Planner, who is the Architect-of-Record for hundreds of New Construction and Historic Preservation projects around the Southeastern United States and in Sweden. He is the author of 16 books on Architectural History, Native American History and Modern History, plus was a consultant to the Muscogee-Creek Nation for five years. Many of his new construction projects reflect the aesthetics of his Creek and Uchee Indian heritage from Georgia. Prior to starting his own practice, he also designed the original path system in Peachtree City, GA and prepared the Midtown Atlanta Urban Design Plan. Perhaps his best known works are the Trail of Tears Memorial in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Revitalization & Urban Design Plans for Downtown Asheville, NC.

Richard is a graduate of Georgia Tech and Georgia State University. He was the first recipient of the Barrett Fellowship from Georgia Tech, which enabled him to study on-site all of the major Pre-Columbian archaeological sites in Mexico, under the tutelage of the famous Mexican archaeologist, Dr. Román Piña Chan. In 1990, his restoration of his former 1754-1770 farmhouse in the Shenandoah Valley was awarded National Historic Residential Preservation Project of the Year. That led to work on increasingly older structures until he was more in the realm of archaeology. His current professional work involves the use of LIDAR, infrared imagery and satellite photos to unravel several lost civilizations in the Georgia Mountains. He has lived in the Nacoochee Valley since 2018, but has been coming there all his life.

His most recent book is, The Shenandoah Chronicles . . . the true, story of the 3 years that he served as a covert intelligence asset for the US Department of Justice Task Force on State and Government Corruption . . . which resulted in the State of Virginia abolishing the Virginia Bureau of Investigation and US Attorney General Jane Reno busting an interstate drug ring, run by corrupt law enforcement officers in Northern Virginia, North Georgia and South Florida. The surrealistic experience began when he sought justice for a murdered friend, who was an investigative reporter for the Washington Post.