Just returned from a wonderful weekend in Blue Ridge. The snow was an added bonus! 2 inches at our rental cabin. The roads were kept clear and safe. Breakfast at The Village Restaraunt was excellent and the people were as friendly as family. See y’all again soon!

Please, tell me what is going on downtown with the orange “cones” blocking off a part of Main Street. I saw them the other day from the webcam view, and can see them a little bit today. What’s happening? Also, the webcam used to be aimed in a different direction. Is it possible to occasionally change the direction so that those of us “longing to be in Blue Ridge” can get a better sense of “Life on Main Street”? Thanks.

It’s the streetscape (street beautification) program. They’re spiffing up the street/curbs/sidewalks/etc.

The webcam used to point down the opposite end of the street; I moved it to get a longer view of Main Street. However, I have another webcam lying around that I could use to point the old way, giving the user 2 street cams, one for each direction. Thanks for the idea, but please give me a few months to hook it up.

Have you ever thought about where you are going when you die or what happens when you die?
Do you believe in heaven or hell?

Does anyone know anything about the Fannin County Board of Commisssioners proposal to pave and widen every county road? This includes gravel roads that are in residential areas and are dead-end roads. I have heard from several property owners that have received notices from the Commissioner’s office.

Does anyone else besides me find it a shame that there are few restaurants or other establishments open in BR (or our other towns) after 8 PM?

The town is certainly “coming along”, but it seems a shame that it goes to sleep so early (even in the summer). I am sure that there are a few more night owls like myself out there that would love to be able to eat a quality dinner later in the evening, and maybe grab a latte around 10 PM or so fairly frequently like I can elsewhere… Seems that we may be rolling up the sidewalks too early in our towns. I’ll probably get some heat for it, but I sure wouldn’t mind seeing a Starbucks open up around Blue Ridge somewhere… now I have to take a drive down the River Road to Cleveland, TN and their Starbucks in the evening just to eat dinner later or grab a decent coffee in the evening..

Just think about it, Starbucks could be like Home Depot and have the store with the most Beautiful view of any store in their system from their patio right here in Blue Ridge!

JB

I heard that there are ‘geneology’ books available for various families that lived there.

My folks are the ‘Conley’’s and the “Loudermilk’’s.

My maiden name is Carol La’trell Conley. And my father, grandmother, possibly step grand-mom, along with a ton of kin are buried up there.

(I was originally told that they were buried in Copper Hill, as I was only 5 at that time.)

But someone told me that you had these books on the founding families…if that is the case, I would love to know how to get one or two.

Please respond……..I remember as a kid, staying at the Fannin Inn and how beautiful Blue Ridge was going down Main St., shopping with my Mamaw.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!!

Sincerely,
Carol McKenna (nee Conley)

Carol,
Your best starting point would be with the local Blue Ridge paper - The News Observer http://www.thenewsobserver.com
There are two columnists there that frequently write about the history and families of Fannin County. I know one of them wrote a book on the cemeteries of Fannin County.

The Library and the Heritage Foundation have Fannin County Cemetery Books for sale. The Baugh House in Blue Ridge is open during the summer, 2 or 3 days per week. They have a lot of info on different families.

Lynda

This is in response to John B. Im 20 years old, I’ve lived in Blue Ridge my ENTIRE life, and to be honest, I don’t really see how the town is ” coming along”. The only thing the town is doing is charging far too much money for a train ride that takes FAR too long that can be taken on 5 in 15 minutes or a little more depending on the traffic for FREE, not to mention the people coming here from Atlanta and Florida and wherever else they decide to vacation from deciding that any local is below their respect level and therefore they must treat us as though we are stupid, uneducated, non-feeling, quasi-sub-humans who serve no other purpose than to cater to their every need and whim. I should know. I work retail. Another thing. Want some Starbucks later into the evening? Get a latte machine, it would be cheaper than buying both the gas for the trip to either Cleveland or Ellijay ( I heard they opened one up there recently) AND the coffee. As for restaurants staying open later, well since The Cabin closed down you have two options: Waffle House or Waffle King.
I’m not trying to be rude or condescending here or anything of the sort. I just get sort of tired of having to compete with traffic almost daily just to get to the post office, or to get past Merciers to god forbid get to work on time. I get tired of the people treating us all as though we’re morons just because we live here full time I REALLY get tired of the people coming up here, then moving up here, and complaining about how the place they came from was SOOOOO horrible, when in reality all they always try to do is make THIS town, MY town, my BIRTHPLACE, and the ONLY place I have ever known, into the place they came from in some way or another.
Like i said, I’m not trying to be rude, and least of all to you John, but look at it from this point of view. Almost every day of my life that I can remember up until I started driving, I would ride up 5 with my mother or father and look at the trees, and the hills, and all of the beautiful scenery that I’ve been so blessed by the God and Goddess to have grown up in, and now every day I drive by them, I shudder to think that in another 20 years, none of it will be there. It will all be outlet malls, or starbucks, or franchise restaurants, Starbucks, and god(s) forbid Wal-Mart. I think, that someday if im fated to have children or a family of my own, that they wont be able to see what I’ve grown up seeing, or experience anything that this place has to offer. It will become a catering service to the tourism industry, to the people that use us and our town as THEIR excuse to do what they will, be what they will. Honestly, it kills me. I’m 20 years old, how will it be in another 20 years?
–RP

RP, you seem somewhat wise for your young age, and it sounds like it has been from a lot of hard luck from life, which isn’t fair, I know. You are right to wonder what Blue Ridge will look like and be like 20 years from now. But unfortunately, the progress is here, and continues to come, and there is nothing that you can do about it to most degrees.
I grew up in a small town in south Alabama. It was beautiful…farms and pecan trees everywhere….a simple town with simple, hardworking, good people. A town like Blue Ridge with the good, honest people. After church on Sundays my family would load up the car and drive to the beach and pull off the road about anywhere as there was not much there but sand dunes, and my folks would surf fish while we played in the sand. Then Hurricane Frances came in the late 70s and then the condos came to the beach. Then the chain resturants, and of course the outlet mall and other stores, gas stations, etc. My home is no longer like it was. I have lived in Florida for a few years. I knew this place years ago, and saw pictures when my folks honeymooned here (1949!) before Disney came and wrecked the quiet beauty. You talk of the tourist in Blue Ridge?…you should see them in Florida!…coming and not speaking my language, expecting to be catered to, driving with maps in their laps and no attention to the road, the rudeness, some of them foreigners with lots of money looking down on all of us, etc. No, they are not all like that, but yes, a lot of tourists can be “ugly” whether they are in Blue Ridge, Florida, south Alabama or whereever. I look at Blue Ridge and what I see is my little small Alabama town with its innocence and it’s time changing. It is sad, but unfortunately the wheel of “progress” is turning and it won’t stop. The people will continue to come and the town will grow.
In Blue Ridge I try not to be the “ugly tourist/outsider”…I see in your faces the faces of my parents, my relatives, my old classmates, and ME, from years ago…the hardworking folks who got their lifestyles changed from the progress whether they wanted it or not. I try to be respectful to all of those that are locals, as I know they know their land and their people like no one else, and you all are a dying breed unfortunately. I am so sorry for you all that your kids will not know your area as you do. I go back to south Alabama and I cannot recognize the place at all. It is completely gone, the whole area that I knew, and my grandkids will never know the beauty of the sugar white sand and grassy sea oats like they were, or the town that I came from with its farms of potato fields and grazng cows and pecan orchards as they are now subdivisions and gas stations. But Florida is the same too; it is changing with it’s “progress” too. I only hope that the growth in Blue Ridge is monitored and in come sort of control; at least the politicians from the little Gulf town of Gulf Shores AL were involved and there are no strip joints, and other places like that…it is a family orientated vacation destination, and that is at least one good thing about the progress that came. I hope Blue Ridge grows with dignity and retains it’s charm and that the transplants that come look to you locals with respect. I am sorry that there are many that do not, but please don’t judge us all by the actions of some. I can guarantee you that although I am old enough to be your parent, if you wait on me I still say “yes sir” or “yes mamam” even though you are young. Respect is something that EVERYONE deserves, regardless of age, birthplace, etc, and I only wish that everyone would practice that, everyday.
Best of luck to you and your family.