Brown's Guide to Georgia

At the Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center, you will find homes, tools, trades, crafts, and a look at the lifestyle of the all-but-vanished pioneer culture of the Southern Appalachian mountains. Rabun County students began interviewing their families, friends, and neighbors in 1966 for their English class project, a magazine that they titled “Foxfire.” Many times, the folks being interviewed would give the students an old tool or a finished, hand-crafted item they were discussing or documenting. Very quickly, Foxfire grew an extensive artifact collection. When The Foxfire Book became a national phenomenon, Foxfire was able to fund further growth. In 1974, land on the side of Black Rock Mountain was purchased, and Foxfire created a physical presence in the community. From the beginning, the students intended the property to be a place of interaction between themselves, their work, and their community.

Foxfire’s new homeplace opened up new possibilities for the students. They could now collect and preserve larger pieces of Southern Appalachian culture – log cabins. About half of the 20+ log cabins at the Museum are authentic structures, standing nearly as they were originally built, relocated to the Museum mostly by the students’ own hands. The rest of the cabins are traditional designs, constructed from usable pieces of barns, homes or other buildings too deteriorated to be reassembled, and represent structures that could not be found intact or would not be parted with by their owners.

The Museum’s oldest structure is an authentic 1820s one-room log cabin that was home to three family generations with 10 children each. “Dog-trot” cabins, known for their summertime comfort, a replica chapel (the center of any mountain community), an animal barn, a blacksmith’s shop, and a complete grist mill showcase other aspects of living and working in the bygone days of Southern Appalachian. Collections of simple tools and furnishings complete the picture. The Zuraw Wagon, the only existing wagon known to have been used in the Trail of Tears, is also on display. The Village Weaver, artist-in-residence Sharon Grist, is an accomplished spinner, knitter, and weaver. Sharon usually has a wide range of woven goods in progress on her many looms, and is more than happy to discuss her art with visitors. Keep in mind that almost everything at the Museum was collected or actually built by high school students who valued their unique mountain heritage.

Self-Guided Walking Tours
For a small admission fee, visitors can take a self-guided walking tour of the Museum along a 1/4-mile trail that climbs the property, winding throughout the cabins and grounds (for visitors with mobility issues, parts of the Museum are vehicle and wheelchair-accessible). A souvenir tour booklet provides photos and information on each of the cabins along the trail. Please allow about 2 hours for your visit to ensure ample time to enjoy the Museum.

Museum Gift Shop
The gateway to the Museum, the Gift Shop is a unique experience in its own right, featuring all of Foxfire’s own publications and an extensive selection of related books covering the Southern Appalachian region: cooking, plants, animals, skills, trades, history, lore, and more. The Gift Shop carries a distinctive array of hand-made regional crafts as well, including home-made natural soaps from Miss Jenny, knitted/crocheted/woven wearables and kitchen textiles from The Village Weaver and other regional crafters, decorative and/or useful folk pottery from Steve Turpin and other North Georgia potters, just to name a few.

The Foxfire Magazine
The root of everything that Foxfire has become, The Foxfire Magazine has been in continuous production since 1966. Students at Rabun County High School work to produce two double-issues per year, operating with the same goals their predecessors: student leadership directing the day-to-day operation of the magazine with help from faculty facilitators, students using their Rabun County home and neighboring communities as resources for the information they gather, and distributing each finished Magazine issue to an audience beyond their school and classroom-an audience across the United States and beyond.

The Foxfire Book Series
With nearly 9 million copies in print, The Foxfire Book and its many companion volumes stand memorial to the people and the vanishing culture of Southern Appalachian, brought to life for readers through the words of those who were born, lived their lives, and passed away there-words collected by high school students who wanted to be a part of their community and preserve their heritage. All 12 volumes in the regular series are built from Foxfire Magazine articles written by Rabun County students over the magazine’s 40-year history, usually expanded through follow-up interviews and other research.

Open 8:30am-4:30pm
Monday-Saturday
(closed Sundays)

Admission is $6.00
for ages 11 and older,
10 & under get in free.

16th Annual Fall Heritage Festival
October 2 2010

Join Foxfire from 10–4 at the Rabun County Civic Center in downtown Clayton, Georgia (just a few miles south of the old location in Dillard). Meet students who help create The Foxfire Magazine and talk to some of the ‘contacts’ – the folks whose lives are presented therein. Watch demonstrations of many traditional skills and talk with the folks who enjoy keeping these skills alive. Crafters on hand are usually displaying pottery, wood carving, handmade musical instruments, blacksmithing, spinning and weaving, folk art, basket weaving, cornshuck dolls, coopering, broom-making, and much, much more.

10:00 AM

4:00 PM

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