Google+ Georgia On My Mind: A Dade State of Mind

Sunday, February 4, 2007

A Dade State of Mind

Did you know when the Georgia state quarter was released it was discovered that the upper northwest corner of the state was left out?

This means that Dade County was left off the quarter. Could it have been intentional?

It is understandable since a Dade politician during the 1850s threatened to seceede from Georgia if the state did not seceede from the Union, and in 1945 the county finally passed a resolution to join the Union 80 years after the end of the Civil War.

Dade County has always been a place unto itself even from its earliest times. There was absolutely no road connecting Dade County to the rest the state until 1939. Folks who lived there had to travel around through Alabama or Tennessee in order to enter Dade County. Once Cloudland Canyon was purchased the necessary road was built.

Dade’s independent streak is still evident today as they have adopted the older version of the Georgia state flag as their official county banner. There are plans to display the old flag on a second pole outside each Dade County public building in the county seat of Trenton which is about twenty-five miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Picture Credit: Cloudland Canyon from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government site.

9 comments:

Adrian Pritchett said...

That is a wacky story. I never looked closely at the Georgia quarter.

Anonymous said...

Just to verify my story I googled "state quarters" and wound up at the right page. Click Georgia on the map and you'll locate the back image of the Georgia quarter. Notice that the NW corner of the state is not there....it's kind of shaved or rounded off. Take a look at a map and you notice that the NW corner of the state is not rounded it is sharp.

Adrian, thanks for visiting and for the comment. I agree...the whole thing is wacky.

Eddie said...

Cloudland Canyon and the surrounding country side is beautiful. Back in the late 60s we used to go to an annual art festival near Clouldland in a community named Plumnelly.
It was "plum" out of Tennessee and "nelly" out of Georgia.

Another History Blog said...

Your posting reminded me of some stuff I dug up a few years ago in response to a student question on this. Turns out that Dade's "secession" never really happened! I've put up a piece on this on Another History Blog.

David Parker

Anonymous said...

ET,the Cloudland area is "plum" beautiful. When I was a student at Reinhardt we used to go exploring on the weekends and ended up there a few times.

It is amazing how threats can turn into the real thing over the decades. Thanks for continuing the story over at your place, Prof. Parker.

Button Gwinnett said...

I'm guessing that Key West is the only former Confederate territory that hasn't officially rejoined the union. When I visited there a few years ago, they were selling passports with the "Conch Republic" accross the front.

Celeste said...

Dade is right next to me. I think they still try to keep people from there! The highway over the mountain to get there is deadly.We try not to acknowledge them LOL. They are real close to Sand Mountain.

Anonymous said...

Intersting Story! Who knew we Dade county folks were such rebels ha ha..

EHT said...

Thanks for visiting Anonymous. I would be there are a few in your county that don't know your rebel history.:)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...