The remote, tiny city of Blairsville, Georgia has found middle ground in the mountains. Yes, it’s a tourist mecca…but it’s also drawing new residents and businesses.
You win some, you lose some.
I’d planned my Blairsville visit to coincide with the annual Scottish Festival and Highland Games, which draws thousands to 160-acre Meeks Park. This year, a record-breaking 40 clans had registered; Scottish music, games, food, falconry, sheepdogs and a lot of tartan plaids awaited.
But it rained. And it rained. For the first time in 16 years, the Festival was canceled.
Driving in from the north, you could see the rain coming, the sky a low gray and the mountains blue with mist. But once in a while, the clouds would rise, and you could think that maybe there’d be a way to get out and see Union County the way it deserves to be seen:
- Brasstown Bald, the highest mountain in Georgia
- Vogel State Park, CCC-constructed and home to Trahlyta Falls
- The 4,000-acre TVA Lake Nottely
- The 79-mile North Georgia stretch of the Appalachian Trail
- The Byron Herbert “Hub” Reece (the Farmer Poet) Farm and Heritage Center
And more.
But the rain came and stayed, and I was destined to learn Blairsville from inside a car and under an umbrella, listening to those who are passionate about this place and its future, as well as its agricultural, Scottish-heritage past.
Georgia is the only state in the country that allows sole county commissioners, charged with decision-making without elected supervisors to whom they answer—and Union County is fortunate to have Lamar Paris at the helm. Other than his four years at the University of Georgia, Paris has lived his whole life in Blairsville.
“Obviously, I’m very prejudiced—I was born and raised here. This is home.”
According to Paris, when you pick a community, you’re looking at four things: health care, schools, recreation and government services. From what I saw on our driving tour, Union County stands tall in all four.
Forty-bed Union General Hospital has round-the-clock emergency care with local air transport available. Cancer, dialysis, and cardiac rehab centers. A sprawling wellness center providing extensive workout machines and a pool, as well as occupational, speech, and physical therapy. You can even give birth at Union General—a rarity in rural America.
Union County Schools are renowned for creative curricula and a high (97% last year) graduation rate. All four schools (primary through high school) are adjacent on a campus. Their award-winning high school contains a 986-seat Fine Arts Center. Clearly, the nearly 3,000 students are a priority here.
As is public safety. The fire department has 14 full-time employees and a flotilla of fire and rescue vehicles, as well as two volunteer fire departments in the county. With Meeks Park’s walking trails, creeks and lake, and a pool and splash pad for the kids, Blairsville has it all.
How does a county with just 23,000 people afford these big-city amenities? The key is that Georgia allows counties to levy a 1% sales tax to be allocated to capital outlay projects for public facilities. And the schools have their own 1% sales tax for funding. So great parks, public safety, streets, schools and farmers market (85 booths filled in-season, along with a fully equipped canning building for market shoppers and gardeners to put up their bounty) are part of the lure.
Darren Harper is the Director of the Downtown Development Authority. He’s rightly proud of the fact that Blairsville looks like a town where people actually live their lives, rather than a tourist mecca.
“Our downtown, well, it’s small, and it’s low to the ground—we don’t have a lot of restored brick buildings lining our main streets like some of the other north Georgia tourist towns.,” he says. (That being said, the restored 1899 brick courthouse housing the Union County Historical Society and Museum is imposing.)
There are a lot of events going on in downtown Blairsville, some expected (Independence Day fireworks and a Friday night concert series) and some not (the Green Bean Festival and the Sorghum Festival). “Our restaurants and shops and festivals draw a lot of visitors—the population here swells 30% in the summer and fall,” Harper says. “We know that growth is going to happen—it’s all in how you manage it.”
Although 33% of Blairsville residents are over 65, the effort to bring in families by creating jobs is ongoing. Mitch Griggs, head of the Union County Development Authority, talks with earned pride about the two site-ready industrial parks outside of town.
“We consciously work to build a mixed economy. We know we need to be more than tourism, more than just construction and real estate,” he says. “We aren’t your ‘typical’ mountain town. We’re pro-growth—but we’re focused on maintaining the character of the community. And new residents come to us happy to serve as volunteers, glad to accept us for who we are and to be part of Blairsville.”
All of this is impressive for a town surrounded by mountains, without a nearby interstate or river or rail transportation. Blairsville is a town the Scots built, where agriculture was once the mainstay. But it continues to thrive through an impressive balance of tourism and industry. With skill and creativity, the past is honored and the future anticipated.
The story above appears in our September/October 2019 issue. For more subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription. Thank you for your support!
