STATE OF GEORGIA

[Music] and gentlemen this is jack douglas and this is what much of georgia looks like so thickly forested you can't see a patch of ground a dozen novels had led me to expect a barren dusty terrain well forget it the state is second only to california in lumber production atlanta the capital was founded in 1836 and was the scene of one of the most decisive battles in the war between the states the cyclorama building at grant park pictorializes the battle of atlanta in dramatic style now you stand on a platform and make a full 360 degree turn to see all of this impressive canvas painted by a group of german artists in milwaukee during 1885-86 because of its size and shape no one has ever properly photographed the atlanta cyclorama we also failed but don't let that stop you from seeing this incredible work when you're in georgia [Music] atlanta had its beginning as a railway terminus and was originally known simply as terminus later the name was changed to marthasville and finally to atlanta the feminine for atlanta since the capital is also the state's largest city most vacationers are inclined to make atlanta the first and longest stock the wren's nest what memories that brings back and the briar patch well of course this is the home in atlanta of joel chandler harris the georgian who gave the world the delightful uncle remus stories of brer rabbit and brer fox and the tar baby and so many others the harris home by the way derived its name from this old mailbox and the family of friends that sought refuge in it the house is full of other mementos braer rabbit and braer fox carved from wood of the black forest in germany here the author's inkwell the old typewriter with wooden keys and as you wander through the ren's nest the picture emerges of a man who lived simply and humbly yet numbered among his fans people like theodore roosevelt and andrew carnegie harris was not an atlantean margaret marsh was and in the city of her birth is the grave site that has become a literary shrine we all knew her best as margaret mitchell who authored one of the all-time best-selling books that became one of the all-time most popular movies the south that was symbolized in scarlet o'hara's passion for tara is represented today by magnificent antebellum homes such as these you'll find them throughout the state and especially in washington georgia louisville the state's first permanent capital has preserved the 1758 structure the old slave market where slaves were auctioned the bell in the tower was stolen from a new orleans convent by pirates who then simply sold it in savannah in those days cotton was king in georgia and so it is to this day the state's leading money crop sightseers are generally surprised to see cotton being picked by hand well much of the cotton is harvested by machinery which means that one machine can take away the jobs of 20 or 30 people here's another common sight along the highways and byways one man cane presses it may seem like a primitive process but you're certainly guaranteed a fresh product people buy it by the gallon and boil it into syrup at home this sunny invitation is just opposite yet another friendly sign georgia welcomes you you all and they mean it now this is a typical welcome center these centers are located on main highways entering the state and their sole function is to encourage tourism by helping the tourist now outside you'll be greeted by one or more welcome girls and inside more welcome hostesses people who know every nook and cranny of the state can save you a lot of time and even money let's listen good afternoon how are you this time how are you sir may i help you i'm on my way to jacol island i love to have wrote information there all right so perhaps this state map and the rooting would be the first thing you'd be interested in this is where you are now 301 stay right on 301 until you get to jessup georgia then take your us 341 and us 25 to brunswick just over a causeway from brunswick is jekyll island it's approximately 159 miles from where you are nasser how's the accommodation from here sign all the way down we have a travel guide i'll be glad to give you also also this is a brochure on jekyll island that you perhaps would like to have while you're there we have never heard of jekyll island and since curiosity is an element of our series we decided to make the same trip the history of jekyll island starts with the indians then the spanish then the colonial settlement under james oglethorpe but jekyll island's most fabulous era started in the late 1800s when it became known as the playground of the hundred millionaires names like rockefeller vanderbilt harriman jp morgan and others bought the nine-mile island in 1886 and literally made it their exclusive playground well here the tycoons and their families brought their guests and their enormous yachts here they built mansions which they regarded as modest little cottages and here at jekyll they lived in the world apart from the rest of the world in 1947 the state purchased the island and subsequently opened it to the public the accommodations are excellent you can golf virtually the year round and the ocean swimming is also first-rate the sun you bet and nights are as balmy as they are in tahiti at jekyll island the hideaway of the few that became a paradise for the many i guess all of us who lived in the roosevelt years remember the small white house the late four-time president built for himself on the slope of a small mountain in warm springs georgia inside the eyes caught immediately by the famous unfinished portrait the portrait for which he was sitting when he passed away in april of 1945. fdr built the house for himself and so it is a very small house but a man's house a man who loved the sea and filled the rooms with handcrafted models such as these his bed was a plain bed his desk was a plain desk the kitchen stove was far from elegant but he was happy in these surroundings and that was all that mattered it is not an ostentatious estate but after the president's death this museum was erected to house many interesting and irreplaceable mementos to be shared with all who wish to see them and many have come here including another great president the martyred john f kennedy shown in these photographs as he spoke at the little white house shortly before his nomination in the little white house in warm springs about 60 miles south of atlanta from warm springs you can drive a tree-lined highway some 16 miles to callaway gardens the 2500 acre gardens were conceived by a georgia industrialist as a means of preserving the natural beauty of the southern highlands it is a sanctuary for man and the creatures of nature there are 11 of these spring-fed lakes and hundreds of thousands of shrubs and flowering plants now this is merely a small section of just the chrysanthemum garden by the edge of one of the lakes mr callaway honored his mother with one of the loveliest chapels we've ever seen of english gothic design it's patterned after rural wayside chapels of the 16th and 17th centuries there are no regular services but the chapel is open to all for meditation and to hear organ music a really beautiful chapel and what a setting [Music] at the tennessee georgia border just four miles from chattanooga rock city atop lookout mountain is another garden which to use a word we've often used is a must our two friends here are sue hankins of birmingham alabama and tommy holding of wake forest north carolina observation point is the main attraction and to reach it you can cross a sturdy stone foot bridge or if you're the adventurous sort you can sway along on this swinging bridge observation point also known as lover's leap you can look out and see parts of seven states tennessee kentucky virginia north carolina south carolina alabama and of course georgia it's an incredible telescopic view now over the world's largest granite monolith stone mountain 16 miles east of atlanta the exposed surface covers an area of 25 million square feet well today one face of stone mountain is being devoted to the fulfillment of a dream that has sputtered on again off again for more than 50 years the dream to create a lasting memorial to the confederacy well at long last the dream is nearing reality as sculptors and engineers carve out a huge sculpted relief and when completed it will feature jefferson davis robert e lee and stonewall jackson on horseback to expedite the work they're using by the way new industrial jet torches to cut into the hard granite the torches burn a mixture of kerosene and oxygen and sound just like jet engines now notice the work when they're using protective ear muffs from the base of the mountain two glass enclosed swiss cable cars each capable of carrying 50 passengers take visitors to the summit of stone mountain memorial park anticipating completion of the sculpture an attractive plaza of confederate flags has already been established it's a colorful observation point and atlanta is easily seen from the plaza also at the base of stone mountain you and your youngsters will enjoy a ride aboard the stone mountain railroad now as the train reaches the halfway mark in its journey around the mountain an indian rides hard in the saddle while the train slows down as it approaches the town of big shanty and sure enough the savage redskins are ransacking the town it's all very confusing but the youngsters eat it up [Music] well i don't know how we made it but here we are back at the station a bit flabbergasted but safe and sound this is savannah georgia's gateway to the atlantic and the seaports of the world it is also one of the handsomest cities in america savannah is dotted with one-acre parks called the savannah squares and in chippewa square savannah honors the great oglethorpe the english general and parliamentarian who founded georgia as an asylum for the poor and the religiously oppressed these small savannah squares are kept clean by sweepers using palm fronds the old cotton exchange building the imported english cobblestones used as ballast and sailing ships factors walk with its unique three-level street construction the antique gas light lamps still working perfectly these are just a few of the nostalgic reminders of a truly historic city good evening and welcome to the boys head the boar's head is one of savannah's finest night spots the entertainment is easy on the ears you can drink your ale and the colonial style and the piste resistance is roasted wild boar well let's just call it roasted suckling pig and let it go at that i think you'll want to dine here and if you do i know you won't be disappointed this old house was once the hangout of pirates and hard drinking sailors it is almost as old as savannah and was apparently well known to robert louis stevenson when he wrote treasure island the present owner of this delightful inn is mr herb trop well jack while robert louis stevenson never never actually visited savannah uh he was quite as quite a traveler as you might know and he based his story of treasure island on around the the character who did come to this old end many many years ago and spent quite a bit of time here this man in the book of treasury island was known as captain flint and according to legend he died upstairs over what is now the pirates house restaurant here in savannah despite the pirates and the lusty men of the sea the savannah of two centuries ago typified the best of two continents the gardens the statuary the fountains the fine homes the genteel ladies the rich but never ostentatious furnishings and surroundings these two were symbols not merely of a city but of a way of life that ended at appomattox courthouse we've been visiting the owens thomas house facing oglethorpe square a house that played host to lafayette on his return to america in 1825 he slept in this very bedroom at the mouth of the savannah river coxspur island is dominated by fort pulaski national monument named after the great polish ally of the american revolution the fort was completed in the early 1830s after some 20 years of work and 25 million bricks now so massive were these brick walls that fort pulaski was rated impregnable yet in just two days of april during 1862 the power of new rifled cannon battered the fortress into submission it is a moated fort and a fascinating place to visit fort mcallister on the south bank of the great ogi river is another important confederate shrine now this fort is historically significant for two reasons first it demonstrated that earth and fortifications could stand up to the heaviest naval bombardment known up to that time second the fall of mcallister in december of 1864 marked the end of sherman's march to the sea from the roof of a rice mill across the river sherman and his staff watched as nine of his regiments stormed the fort the assault lasted only 15 minutes but sherman said it was the handsomest thing i have seen in this war well somewhat understandably sherman is not greatly admired in georgia well after the july 1863 defeats at vicksburg and gettysburg the confederate victory at chickamauga momentarily gave the south new hopes now gis in our audience may be interested in this demonstration of the rifle of a century ago at chickamauga this is a model 1842 harper's ferry musket it's one of the many types of weapons used by the soldiers on the battlefield at chickamauga in order to load this weapon the soldier would first drop the weapon between his feet then from his cartridge box where he carried his ammunition he would withdraw a paper cartridge placing the tail between his teeth after he'd torn the tail off he would pour the black powder inside the paper cartridge down the barrel of the weapon then squeeze the round bullet from the paper dropping the bullet into the weapon also the paper then was placed in on top of the charge he would then withdraw his ramrod from beneath the barrel of the weapon the ramrod was then used to push the charge to the base of the muzzle of the weapon the with ramrod would then be withdrawn and return to his carriage he now had to prime his weapon a percussion cap was used he would pick the weapon up about way tight pull it back on first into it from his cartridge box he would take a percussion cap place it on the nipple of the weapon it is now ready to fire [Music] oddly enough fort benning in columbus a relatively recent military installation founded in 1918 attracts almost as many sightseers as any battlefield shrine in georgia of special interest is the airborne infantry school where the perennial sound is geronimo [Music] this tower is the favorite of youngsters and men say this is really dreamsville isn't it so nice and smooth even the landing isn't too hard to take but now let's start from the bottom up and this is like a chapter out of jules verne [Music] well this is just one of many reasons why over a hundred thousand vacationers visited fort benning last year a small community of about three thousand in northeast georgia on any given day in the town square you may see a small green vending truck parked by the curb the vendor pedals numerous handmade items but the big seller is indian corn cherokee corn to be exact it's used primarily as a decoration for thanksgiving halloween and christmas but it's still a favorite food of georgia's many cherokees there's a gold panning concession at the lanaga but this isn't just a tourist gimmick you see dahlonega was the scene of the first gold rush in america back around 1827 or 28 long before the california or the klondike strikes one woman there said this is like washing dishes except that i never found gold in the dish pan well this woman did pan some gold about a dollar's worth in less than five minutes [Music] northwest of atlanta became the capital of the cherokee nation in 1825 when the cherokee's abandoned tribal government and patterned a legislature similar to that of the usa only a few years earlier a mixed-blooded cherokee sequoyah invented a cherokee alphabet so that his people could communicate with the written word a few miles from nuechota you'll want to visit the van house the grandest house in the cherokee nation and now maintained by the state as an historical shrine the builder james vann was the half-breed son of a scotch trader who married a cherokee woman this wooden structure is typical of the kitchens and smokehouses which in those days were built adjacent to the main house and back in savannah don't miss the world's largest world 60 feet in diameter and this water wheel the largest overshot water wheel in the u.s is located of all places on the heavily wooded campus of very college in rome georgia well we stayed here in this quiet woodland quiet safe for the soft splash of the water and reflected back on what is in my opinion the most surprising armchair vacation we've presented i might add pleasantly surprising i had no idea how big this state is how beautiful so much of it is how much it has contributed to the history culture and tradition of america what a vacation spot it is this amazing place georgia you