THE TRUE HISTORY:
The historic sites at Fern Springs Picnic Area, and in the Lake Russell WMA, were built by The Northeast Georgia Upland Game Demonstration Project, of "The Resettlement Administration" which re-segregated our community, and is still geographically segregating Habersham and Stephen's county 94 years later.
Fern Springs was Dedicated by Govenor Rivers on June 9, 1938. By this time, the Civilian Conservation Corps had already disbanded from the Cornelia CCC camp, allowing the Works Progress Administration to move in.
Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell Jr. made his political mission one of conservation, as a rouse to introduce The Resettlement Administration in 1935. With his executive power over the USFS, Resettlement Administration brought slavery back to the entire nation for two solid years. After this period, skepticism by congress led to a decision being filed to change management and stop the program, and The Resettlement Administration was renamed The Farm Security Administration.
After the decision was made by congress to do away with the Resettlement Administration, the largest known case of government censorship took place in America. The USDA was found to be in possession of a total of 170,000 photographs that were taken by photographers hired by the Resettlement Administration, to keep detailed records of the 'success' they claimed the project made. Many of these were still in negatives which had been hole punched (sometimes multiple times), and locked away at a USDA facility until recently in the 2010's. (when they were found and processed.)
The photographs that were actually shown to the Public were chosen very carefully. Propaganda was used by the Administration on a nationwide scale to make the members of the white community believe that the government was being gracious because the farms were in turmoil, while 75% of the 'destitute farms' that were 'unsustainable' were owned by African American tenant farmers. The Administration inspectors later stated that of the 37 plots on the territory that were deemed destitute, that at least 80% of them were 'perfectly good farmland'.
Fern Springs has been submitted to The National Register of Historic places twice, and denied. This is, in part, a result of the Register of Historic Places being founded by the Russell Family. Richard Russell Sr. Plantation Home in Winder, Georgia has been declared to the Register since 1984.
The African American sectors of Fern Springs Park have been purposefully destroyed at some point in time, by some sort of large machines.
Later at around 1970, Fee stations were set up on the Russell and Nancytown areas, declaring anyone caught without a parking pass would be fined 5,000$, get 6 months in prison, or both. The entrances to Fern Springs, George Washington Carver Camp, and the Lake Russell Refuge leading toward Fern Springs were gated off to strip access. At whichever point the Segregated sectors were destroyed, the trails in the interior of the park were also ripped up and/or altered to cut access to the Sourwood Hiking Trail in Lake Russell to the area around Fern Springs Picnic Area.
The USDA (of 1970) would then deny African American visitors the same Fee pass to have use of the recreation area of Lake Russell, in a very similar situation to the Voter Poll Tax that restricted African American voters from exercising their newfound rights.
Quoted from "The Northeast Georgia Upland Game Demonstration Project"
(Printed 1936.)
A comment of the mission of the Project in Cornelia:
" The project will be similar in many respects to the National Parks. The two-fold purpose is to *take useless farm land and put it to work..." (uncontinued)
The USDA has yet to make comment releasing any reason behind these 20 year closures, and the complete absence of Federal Maintenance.
Visit: FERN SPRINGS PICNIC AREA (EDUCATION) ON FACEBOOK.
DECLARATION TO PEACEFUL PROTEST AT FERN SPRINGS PARK NOVEMBER 6, 2021.