Tallulah Falls Gorge is on US Hwy. 441, north of Athens and a few miles south of Clayton, the latter a few miles south of the border with North Carolina. I have been through there many times; and actually hiked down to the river bottom a time or two. It’s a steep climb, but the Park Service now has a walkway built most of the way, which makes it easier.

Many years ago, Highway 441 was a major north-south road all across Georgia. Initially, it was just two lanes, but traffic grew to the point that the state Dept. of Transportation eventually turned it into four lanes, as funding became available.

Heading north, just before one gets to the entrance to the state park, there is what used to be an old “trading post” atop the gorge, where most visitors stopped. It was really just a small “pull-off,” with just a handful of parking spaces. The building had a “souvenir shop” on one side, where you could buy postcards and snacks, etc., and a small grill on the other side, which sold hamburgers and hotdogs, ice creams and sodas, that sort of thing.

But behind that small building was an overlook, where one could look pretty much straight down into the bottom of the gorge, and use one of those coin-operated telescopes (I think it cost a quarter), so you could see “far away, up-close.” At one time, this would have been a very popular place. Eventually, when the GA Dot four-laned 441, they wound up building a bypass around that old trading post, as the existing roadway would not accommodate widening. I will never forget going up that way on a hiking daytrip with a friend of mine from Athens, back in the 1980’s, I think it was, and being totally surprised.

We were heading north on the “new” four-laned 441, and spotted a sign that said, “Historic 441, turn right.”

I told Kevin, I didn’t remember any such “Historic 441, let’s go see what that is.” He agreed, so we took the right turn -- and simply found ourselves back on the original Hwy. 441, just going to the old trading post!

We have laughed about that many times. An old French saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Unfortunately, the building of that bypass pretty much killed that trading post. (As often happens with new roads being built.) The only folks who stop there now are locals and “old-timers” like me and Kevin, who know it’s there, and make a point to stop there. But I don’t think the old grill is still in operation.

Such a shame! It was always a wonderful place to stop in, even if we didn’t stay long, before heading on to wherever we were going. That is one major problem with all the “newer, bigger” highways that are designed to allow folks to travel “further and faster” – they miss out on all the local places that add so much enjoyment to our lives. And of course damage the local economies in the process. (Interstates did that when they were built.)

A few other notes about this marvelous place. The gorge itself is so tall, it is a steep climb down to the bottom (and back up). Kevin and I did that one time, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

But we made the mistake of doing it the day after we had just climbed up (and then back down) Amicalola Falls, outside Dahlonega, the day before – both of them having park-service-built paths, but some 1,000 steps each! So the day after we got home from that weekend, our legs turned to rubber!

I did not expect that.

That was Note 1. Note 2, a trapeze artist, Kurt Wallenda, I think his name was, patriarch of the family known as “The Flying Wallendas,” crossed over that gorge one day (I think in the 1970’s) on a wire stretched across two concrete and steel towers erected on either side of that gorge, in front of that trading post, drawing hundreds of onlookers. Thankfully, he made the crossing without falling – but wore no safety harness during his cross-over! An amazing feat.

Note 3: A tornado hit Tallulah Falls, I think sometime in the late 1980’s, and it was so weird, the way it hit. It was one of those “bouncing” tornados, that would demolish one house, then bounce over the next one, leaving it intact, then tear up the third one.

I had heard of that phenomenon, but when I saw it, driving through Tallulah Falls by happenstance, not long after it hit, I was astonished. I had never seen anything like that before. It was just freaky. And scary! Folks “in that part of the woods” don’t get tornados very often, so they haven’t built “storm shelters” underneath their houses to take shelter in when one does come through, like they do in the Midwest.

Tallulah Falls State Park is one of Georgia’s great treasures! You should make a point to visit, if you can, even if you do like most folks and just drive through it the way to somewhere else, stopping off only to look a bit. You will not be disappointed.

That is often the best way to discover places off the beaten path, that are still very much worth seeing! Just stopping for a bit, and looking around.

Rafe Semmes is a proud graduate of (“the original”) Savannah High School and the University of Georgia. He and his wife live in eastern Liberty County with their menagerie of rescue cats. He writes on a variety of topics and may be reached at rafe_semmes@yahoo.com.