History of Cohutta Springs: Cohutta

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Cohutta

The word for "Cohutta" is thought to come from a Cherokee word, "gahuti" or "ga-hut-yi," meaning the poles of the shed, referring to the Cohutta mountains as the poles that hold up the sky. (See note, below).*

Several landmarks, places, and businesses in the Southeast bear the name of Cohutta or Cohuttah. In North Georgia, there are the Cohutta Mountains (part of the Appalachian Mountain Chain) various Cohutta Springs communities (discussed within this blog), and the unrelated town of Cohutta in Whitfield County, Georgia.

*NOTE: More about this reference will be given later. The definition for Cohutta appears in quite a few local histories, that have it as meaning "poles of the shed" or "frog." A year or so ago, I tracked the original reference down to an old trade journal or encyclopedia. I further traced the word origin and found one Cherokee language site in which syllables similar to ga-hut-yi (but not exact) did add up to meaning shed poles. I did not find anything among the various words for "frog" or "toad" that resembled gahuta, gahuti, or Cohutta, and I had to wonder if people had confused several words. A part of the same mountain chain, in Tennessee, is called "Big Frog." In a more recent casual search of Cherokee pronunciation databases, I couldn't find anything that resembled any word that sounded like Cohutta or gahuti. I'll try to find my notes and give more detailed references on these facts.

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Blog Purpose

The Cohutta Springs History blog is meant to explore an old community in Murray County, Georgia, known as Cohutta Springs. The place name appears in at least four locations on old maps, and on some maps, actually appears prominently in two places at once. For that reason, we will sometimes distinguish between "Cohutta Springs, east" and "Cohutta Springs, west," though both of them appear on old maps simply as "Cohutta Springs." The original place name appears to belong with the mineral springs, located at the base of Grassy Mountain, northeast of the old Summerhour Chapel. The springs are at the dead end of Cohutta Springs Road, off of U.S. Highway 411. The post office opened a branch five miles west of the springs in 1836, at which time the second place name for Cohutta Springs appeared on old maps. Later maps designate the second "Cohutta Springs" as "Cohutta Springs P.O." The post office suspended mail delivery during the Civil War. Some years later, after that post office closed, another branch was opened west, but much nearer, the mineral springs, and the place name on maps followed it. The other two instances of "Cohutta Springs" as a place name are an additional site very near the springs, and an area north of the springs called "North Cohutta Springs."

Loss of the Old Mill

The old ruins of the mill and dance hall on the property of an old, historic mineral springs always interested me. I loved to visit the old mill when it was still standing. The diagonal timbers were pretty, I thought. The massive wooden beams of the mill were something to see. I first visited it as a child in the late sixties or early seventies. Even then, it was falling in. In the seventies, the Georgia Cumberland Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists bought the property and built a new conference center and lake a half-mile or so from the older ruins. The mill was in hazardous condition, already falling into the creek. No one then had the money to restore it. The new owners demolished it, but first, they created a history project to document all they could learn about the mill, mineral springs, and old resort. They spoke to neighbors and collected stories, deed histories, and a bit of genealogical information. The mill is now gone, but not forgotten.

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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Cohutta

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