The massive trunk and branches of The Star Thread Society's mission.

The P.A.R.R.C. Initiative is the implementation of a set of comprehensive goals attained through a multi-disciplined campaign structured to achieve environmental, historical, and financially sustainable conservation efforts at Barnett Shoals, Georgia.

Preservation of

Artifacts

Restoration IN

Recreational

Conservation. 

preserve

It is true that there are areas where Time does not flow by us like waters across a land. Rather, it occurs continuously over it in one place. The Old Ones would say there are places where Time's fabric is worn thin as its ribbon cuts through stone. The threads unravel to reveal all times represented in one space.

Here we strive to preserve the spirits that have echoed through these lands and waters for eons.

Paramount to the success of these goals is the preservation of the natural lands, waters, flora and fauna of this unique environmental resource. Established trails, observation areas, and campsites conform to the surrounding woods and swamps, encouraging the natural world to remain close at hand.  In addition, historic preservation of the remaining structures and site improvements, as they pertain to the human occupation, are culturally unique to this land. They provide a context in which one can glimpse the human condition throughout time in one setting. The compatible preservation of both natural and human resources provide a tangible totem to our past and a reminder to our future.

All Things Must Pass, But How Will They Be Remembered? 

Historic Barnett Shoals, GA is that Place Through Time.

Artifacts

The very word hints to a higher level of culture found in an object. History's hands shaped the quartz stone into projectile points. Its fingers rolled the grey earth into smooth round bowls. History stacked the stone and built a village. It harnessed the power of the river to cast light out into the darkness. All of humanity's mind has manifested itself into physical objects of stone, clay and water.

The identification of human disturbed areas and the collecting, preserving, cataloging and ultimate understanding of retrieved artifacts from sites, both Pre-Columbian and Modern Historic, is what provides the link of the individual from the first occupation to the current stewardship of the park property. It is represented spatially upon the natural resource of water and underlying stone to build up a depth of continuous debris discarded throughout the eons. Interpreting these mosaic trash-to-treasure patterns, buried in the land, reveals just who we are.

Where We Were, Where We Are, Where We Went.  

Historic Barnett Shoals, GA holds that Place Through Time.

RESTORE

Once the heirlooms from our collective memory are in the custody of the present, how does one keep and preserve those archetypal items, and where are they housed? It is in the realm of restoration that the process for this becomes clear. Visually experiencing the application of the item within the context of the historical landscape, and physically comprehending the technology of one’s ancestors, provides the most temporally efficient and mentally potent exchange for the recorded knowledge to be passed down to the future.

Understanding the relationship of the building to the site, the factory to the intended industry, the dwelling to the homeland, allows one to witness how the technique or tool of the artifact itself was used. Restoring site improvements, by stabilizing existing historic improvements and ruins whenever it is feasible, and reconstructing contemporary, similar styles based on the architectural context in which the knowledge desired to be highlighted is presented, provides the opputinity to physically manifest the knowledge of the past. Within the Village District and Merchant's Row, the sawmill site, a blacksmith shop, the carpenter’s shop, a pottery barn, the gristmill, water cistern, school, church, and the general store all become living museums to our agro-industrial past.

An Old Door Opened, An Old Town New.

Historic Barnett Shoals, GA revives that Place Through Time.

RECreation

Our mission to restore encompasses more than just revitalizing the silent stone markers that stand testament to a people's ingenuity, skill, and labor. Whether one joins The Star Thread Society for a day, a month, or years to come, the donation is used to help restore both the historic ruins of the town, as well as, the individuals themselves through exploration of the hills and riverbanks. 

No balance in human life is achieved without an outlet to explore the pursuit of one’s happiness. For yourself. For your family. It is on these lands and waters defined within the park that the endeavor of leisure is enhanced with respect to the echoes of past laughter and delight found along the waters and hills of this stretch of The Oconee River. Hiking through the history of hillsides and abandoned raceways, one encounters the 10,000 plus years in the lives of human habitation. Working the waters of the Oconee by paddling and casting, one can begin to experience the eternal as the river falls fifty feet over the dam to the shoals below.  To hike the hardwood hillsides, meditate among the moss covered granite, or float the red waters is to explore what the mill house resident, the country boy, the slave, the Creek Indian, the Mound Builder, and the First Peoples experienced as they roamed the open wilds.

Upstream of the Barnett Shoals Dam, an upper boat landing serves as the terminus for an Athens Blue-way trail reaching up along the North Oconee River section of The University of Georgia Campus, and the Middle Oconee section from the State Botanical Gardens. The lower landing downstream of the tailrace of the Barnett Shoals Dam provides a gateway to the lands beyond the preserved park area. The Blue-way along the Oconee River continues into the Oconee National Forest. It is here in 20,000 acres of woods, rocky hillsides, and swamps where the old foundations of Fambrough Bridge are found, the sacred falls of Falling Creek, the Indian Mounds of civilizations past, and the Sister Ghost Town of Scull Shoals are all located. The journey continues onto the backwaters of Lake Oconee at Dyar’s Pasture on the Oconee National Forest.

Come, Experience The Liberty of A Life Well Lived.

Historic Barnett Shoals, GA echoes that Place Through Time.

conservation

The sum of all envisioned goals accumulated into a perpetual preserved estate. This park serves as the Life Tree that reaches from the navel of warm, deep, earth out into the endless, cold, sky. Above and below, out and in, located at both ends of Time’s eternal chord. Conservation is the fulfillment of the P.A.R.R.C Initiative.

Protection of lands, waters, flora, and fauna currently established along this area of The Oconee River in coincidence with the removal of contemporary trash, invasive and non-indigenous species. Establishing a collection of artifacts representing the human ingenuity and influence found in this area. Revitalizing the remaining site improvements when appropriate, recreating others when necessary in order to convey an effective transfer of historic technique and tradition. Appreciating the passive simplicity of the bounty of nature through, hiking, camping, fishing, paddling, coupled with community fairs and special gatherings. This is the essence fostered by The Star Thread Society. This is the essence heard in the falls over the Barnett’s Dam. This is the essence of life witnessed along these Great Shoals.

THY AXIS MUNDI. 

Historic Barnett Shoals, GA connects that Place Through Time.