A few months ago, I met with local historian Michael Hitt to learn more about the Native Americans who lived, worked, and traveled in the area that includes Dunwoody and Sandy Springs before their forced removal. We met on the north side of the Chattahoochee River, where 400 goes overhead, at the Don White Memorial Park.
The Cherokee Native Americans of Georgia lived primarily north of the Chattahoochee River and the Creek Nation lived in areas south of the river, including Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, Chamblee, and Doraville. However, they both traveled on the Native American trails including the Hightower Trail.
Michael Hitt pointed out that the history of indigenous people goes much further back, before the Creek and Cherokee were in this area. A Georgia Department of Natural Resources chart shows the Archaic period as 8000 BC to 1000 BC. During this time, people would have used natural shelters, such as the the rock overhangs along the paths of the Island Ford Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Sandy Springs.
The next period, the Woodland era, extends from around 1000 BC to 800 AD. During this time, Native Americans began to establish villages. These villages are known to have been located at Stone Mountain, Nancy Creek, the crook of the north and south forks of Peachtree Creek and Sandtown, where Six Flags of Georgia is located today.
The Mississippian era begins aroud 800 AD and continues until 1541 when European exploration began. Farming became important during this time. This is the time of chiefdoms and towns, sometimes located around a mound. The site at Etowah is the largest intact Mississippian site. Other locations were Sandtown, and the area around the shallow ford, the shallow part of the Chattahoochee River near today’s Roswell. The shallow ford was part of the Hightower or Etowah Trail.
When the European explorers moved in, they brought many diseases with them and the population of the Native Americans was greatly reduced.
Hitt has been reviewing archaeological reports and searching for evidence of Native American homes and villages on both sides of the Chattahoochee River in what is Sandy Springs and Roswell. The reports and evidence Hitt has found indicate people living in these areas well before the Creek and Cherokee arrived.
I’ve also been reading Native Decatur by Mark Pifer. Although the focus of the book is on early inhabitants of Decatur, he includes history for other parts of greater Atlanta area and Georgia, including his chapter on Native American trails. He often cites Vivian Price, author of History of DeKalb County , 1822-1900 and Carl Hudgins’ documents on file at the DeKalb Historical Society.
I learned about Pifer while listening to the podcast Archive Atlanta, episode 104, Indigenous + Native Atlanta. Victoria Lemos has several episodes on interesting Atlanta subjects. I began enjoying podcasts a couple of years ago at the suggestion of the young adults in my life.
The Hightower Trail runs from Augusta to north of the mountains of northwest Georgia. Pifer describes the path from Augusta. The trail passes High Shoals on the Apalachee River to a section of road still known as Hightower Trail, then crosses the Yellow River where the old rock bridge used to be (Rockbridge Road). From there the trail continues to Stone Mountain, Old Tucker Road, and Lawrenceville Road northeast of Tucker, through Heritage Golf Links and Graves Park to Winters Chapel Road.
From this point I will use the research of Jim Perkins to describe how the Hightower Trail cuts through Dunwoody and makes its way to the shallow ford. Perkins mapped out the path through Dunwoody from Winters Chapel Road and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, with the help of illustrator Chuck Brown. Parts of the trail run along the border between DeKalb and Gwinnett County. Perkins also used old maps, such as the two included with this blog post that still indicate the Hightower Trail. He combined his map of the trail with modern days maps and current road names.
From Winters Chapel Road and Tilly Mill Road, the trail crossed through the woods on the northeast side of what is now North Amberly Court. It went through the headwaters of Nancy Creek, through the west end of the DeKalb County Water Works, crossing Peeler Road west of Windwood Drive.
Then the trail crossed Brandy Turk Way and Happy Hollow Road, north of Coldstream Drive. It went through Heatherdale Lane and continued along the north side of Kingsley Lake. According to Perkins, the trail went through the parking lot of Kingsley Swim and Racquet Club and then North Peachtree Way.
From there, the trail continued behind the homes on the east side of North Peachtree Road, crossing North Peachtree Road north of Sandell Drive. Then it went along the east side of the parking area of All Saints Catholic Church before crossing Mount Vernon Road. Perkins was able to place a historic marker at the entrance of the church to commemorate the trail in 1997.
From All Saints Catholic Church, the trail continued through the Williamsburg at Dunwoody shopping center, and into The Woodlands subdivision. The trail crossed Trentham Drive near Woodland Way. It continued into Dunwoody Club Forest, crossing the east end of Trowbridge Drive, Stapleton Drive, and then Trowbridge Drive again. Then it passed through Tamworth Court and Trowbridge Drive, for a third time. Next, it crossed what is now Durrett Drive, Durrett Way, and Woodsong Drive.
At this point, the trail followed the path of Ball Mill Creek. It crossed Bend Creek Road and Dunwoody Club Drive into what is now Fulton County. Following the creek towards the Chattahoochee River, the trail continued past Spalding Drive just to the west of Temple Emanu-El. Then it crossed Northwold Drive, Sunnybrook Drive, and Northridge Road east of 400.
The trail picks up with the road off Dunwoody Place that still bears the name Hightower Trail. Hightower Trail crosses Roswell Road into Huntcliff. That means there are two sections of the Hightower Trail which still bear the name. At the Cherokee Country Club golf course, the trail continues to the Chattahoochee River and the shallow ford.
Pifer provides location on other trails, which I will only summarize. The Peachtree Trail follows the path of Peachtree Road. In Buckhead, there is a fork with one way continuing along Peachtree Road and the other “following Paces Ferry Road and Moores Mill Road to the location of the old town of Standing Peachtree where Peachtree Creek meets the Chattahoochee.”
The Stone Mountain Trail is the walking path that takes one up the mountain. The Sandtown Trail runs from Stone Mountain to Decatur along Sycamore Street, following along the path of the Georgia Railroad, College Avenue and DeKalb Avenue to Five Points in Atlanta, to Sandtown where the Utoy Creek and Wilson Creek enter the Chattahoochee River.
Shallowford Trail follows Clairemont Avenue from the Decatur courthouse, turns off Lavista Road, across Oak Grove Road to Briarcliff Road until it meets up with the road known as Shallowford Road. Then it crosses Peachtree Creek and Peachtree Road between Chamblee and Doraville to the shallow ford at the Chattahoochee River. I once thought the Shallow Ford and Hightower were the same trail; however, they are different trails that meet at the same place on the river.
The Standing Peachtree Trail connects Stone Mountain to Standing Peachtree. Pifer also describes Soapstone Ridge, Fayetteville Trail, Five Points and Peachtree to Sandtown Trail. As the name indicates, this last trail connects Standing Peachtree to Sandtown.
Pifer tells how Native American mounds were located where Six Flags is today. In 1967, the mounds were destroyed by bulldozers. He says there were also mounds at the village of Standing Peachtree, where the Atlanta Waterworks pumping station is located today.
There is always more to research and read on this topic, but I’ll wrap it up for now and return to this subject another day.
Another map with the Hightower Trail included. Lawrenceville Road on this map is today’s Dunwoody Club Drive. It is known as County Line Road on some older maps. Roberts Drive is a continuous road on this map, many years before 400 was constructed.