Travels in the South

Welcome back friends to another edition of Travels in the South.  We have been talking about our visit with our great friends Bill and Jean from Canadian Cats.  If you have missed the previous editions, please check them out here:  Red Lobster; Fogo de Chao; Stately Oaks; Spa Day. World of Coca-Cola Part I, World of Coca-Cola Part II. World of Coca-Cola Part III, The Varsity, CNN Center.

 Today we are going to start sharing another tour that we went on that was called Gone With the Wind Tour.  The funny thing is that this tour has been in downtown historical Jonesboro for as long as I can remember and mom/dad have never went on it.  Now, they have been to some of the places that the tour visits but never the ‘official’ tour that shares all kinds of information.  And well Jean is such a fan of Gone With the Wind that everyone *had* to take this tour.  This posting will definitely have to be in several postings to share all of the highlights that we saw and the pictures we took.  So are you ready?  Here we go.

The tour picks up at the Road to Tara Museum which is a 1867 Train Depot.  Back in the day at the peak of railroad travel, both passengers and freight passed through downtown Jonesboro day and night.

It was once made of wood and stood near the Confederate Cemetery (which we will get to soon).  But that building burned down in 1864 during the Civil War’s Battle of Jonesboro.  After the building burned down, they built this building of granite and placed it more in the center of the town.  You bought the tickets for the tour in this museum and also could shop for all kinds of gifts and trinkets.

In fact inside of the museum, they had all kinds of items for Gone with the Wind including this picture, paintings, books, pens, bells – you name it and they had it.  I can assure you that mom and Jean walked out with more than the hub units wanted – snorts with piggy laughter.

Mom said she could have spent hours inside of the store just looking at everything – it was like walking on a movie set.

This beautiful house is called The Warren House and it was built in 1860 by Guy Warren.  Guy Warren was an agent for the Macon & Western Railroad and one of Jonesboro’s first town commissioners.  On the tour, you go by the house but currently it has new owners so you can’t go in to explore.  It was on and around this house where the majority of the Battle of Jonesboro took place.  The house at that time was used as a field hospital and was headquarters to the Confederate Troops until the Union Army took possession of the house for the same use.  The tour guide told us that in some of the walls in the downstairs parlor, you can still see signatures of the soldiers that were recuperating at the house during the war.  They left messages and signed the wall for all to see in the years to come.  Cool huh?

The next stop on our tour was the Patrick Cleburne Memorial Cemetery.  Now there are some graves that are marked with the names.  But this cemetery also holds the remains of over 1,000 soldiers that died during the Battle of Jonesboro who were buried in unmarked graves.  The unmarked headstones are laid out in the shape of a Confederate battle flag that can be seen from the air when you are overlooking the cemetery.

AND, in all the years mom has grown up in the area she has heard plenty of stories about this cemetery.  Mom knew of a friend that grew up in a house across the street.  One night her parents had gone out and she stayed home alone.  It was dark and rainy with a heavy fog in the area.  She looked out her front door and saw the image of a Confederate soldier walking down the street.  Just the thought of that makes my hair stand up on end – shivers.

Well friends, I hope you enjoyed the first installment of the tour of Gone With the Wind.  Come back next week for more in the Travels of the South with my mom/dad and Bill and Jean from Canada 🙂 ❤