Water, passion and preservation shape the experience

CAVE SPRING — Empty milk and juice jugs travel to Cave Spring with people who plan. Now that I know how pure and delicious the water is in this community not far from Rome, Ga. I intend to take the Waterford pitcher when I return.

No chemicals in the 1,200,000 gallons flowing every day from deep underground—just a dash of fluoride and a bit of required chlorinate.

“99.9 percent pure,” Cave Spring Mayor Rob Ware told me. Easy to believe since the taste differs vastly out of faucets I know.

Look forward to enjoying the process of filling your pitchers; here’s the set-up:

Drive or walk through the 29-acre, lush Rolater Park, cross a little stream with ducks of many-hued heads and trout swimming just below the surface.

Stare awhile at the limestone cave dreaming of the rocks and passageways inside. Self-guided tours available for $1.00 spring and autumn or by appointment.

Squat just outside the cave entrance to fill as many containers as you like from a little rushing stream.

How do you pick blueberries? One for the basket and one-for-me style? Could be that’s how you’ll do this divine water too.

Paper cups are available inside the cave but I’d recommend taking a substantial vessel for drinking on site. This water tastes too good for only a sip.

Visit for more than water

Perhaps the water’s reason enough to drive four and a half hours from Tifton; easier for the people across the border in Alabama or in downtown Rome just 20 minutes away through the lovely Vann Valley.

Add to the pleasure and sleep over. Two historic inns, beautifully restored and furnished are real options.

I chose two-story Victorian Tumlin House where the great-great niece of the original owner is today’s proprietor. I like real-live history connections and Nancy Boehm has a house full of them.

Pronounce that bome, spelled like the artisans of porcelain birds but not related and not said the same way.

Nancy knows lots of family stories in Cave Spring, going back to her Aunt Julia Dickerson receiving this house as a wedding gift from her father in 1896 when she married Albert Tumlin.

Two doors away is the Dickerson family home built in the 1850s, one of 28 buildings described in the historic walking tour brochure. Cemetery is listed there too.

Ask in advance of your trip and you might be fortunate enough for a member of the Cave Spring Historical Society to walk with you.

Perhaps even Nancy Boehm.

Passionate people live here, caring deeply about their town of 1,200 neighbors.

More people here know how to sign the words they speak than anywhere I’ve been and history is part of the reason why.

This is the home of the Georgia School for the Deaf and I’m told many students choose to stay after graduating from high school.

Fewer students enrolled now than in the past, Mayor Ware said and the reason is fascinating: measles are no longer causing deafness in babies.

Here’s another indicator of passionate people: the Historic Society arts festival the second weekend in June is in its 38th year.

Enduring spirits here, and that includes the Cherokee.

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Local historians have discovered a two-story log building belonging to the Cherokee Vann family in the early 1800s.

That means before the Trail of Tears, and before Cave Spring was claimed by white settlers on this frontier.

Established 1832 is the declaration on the Cave Spring entrance sign and 1835 is the date of the signing of the Treaty of New Echota after which Cherokee were removed from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina.

Must confess I have mistakenly pictured Native Americans in mobile dwellings, tents for folding and moving.

This two-story house and the substantial Cherokee family home of Major and Schoya (Suzannah) Ridge in nearby Rome indicate my serious need to learn some facts.

One method might be a journey along the Trail of Tears, in Georgia and heading west.

“The Cave Spring structure is still being researched but it appears to have been owned by Charles Vann during the pre-Removal period,” says Jeff Bishop, president of the Georgia chapter of the Trail of Tears Association.

You can also find Bishop in the Department of Public History at the University of West Georgia.

This is the 175th anniversary of the removal so experiences and information are likely to be abundant and I’m checking.

Bishop says the Cave Spring log house will be certified soon as an official site on the National Historic Trail.

National Park Service certification is a big, detailed deal. Participating in the research are archeologist Pat Garrow and Dr. Carroll Van West, director of the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University.

Garrow’s expertise includes coordination with the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation on major data recovery projects in Tennessee, Georgia and West Virginia.

How was the log cabin protected so long? Covered up by the Cave Spring Green Hotel, actually built all around the original Cherokee building.

When some layers of blue clapboard siding were removed, Voila! “We knew this was something special,” says Nancy Boehm, “and the Historic Society began the process to purchase and protect the structure.”

I saw up close evidence of what happens in this tiny town when the preservation people fuel their passion and you can too.

Preservation in the park

Start with three buildings in Rolater Park, same place you get the delectable water.

Hearn Academy is the name to know, the private school established in 1839 to be “a permanent school of high order.” Seems that worked until 1922 when public schools were flourishing in Georgia.

Handsome from the outside, the school building is used for special events. We probably won’t be invited to many local wedding parties, so consider a visit in February for the Founder’s Ball.

$35 a couple, less for kids, free under age 12 and everybody goes. What a grand way to meet the community on a weekend holiday.

I was there the weekend before the Ball and 19th century style gowns were free to borrow from history-minded citizens in the Hearn Inn.

This exquisitely restored building was a boys’ dormitory for the Academy; today it’s an inn in search of an innkeeper.

Rooms are $73 or $84, depending on a private bathroom. Worth whichever if you love restoration and historic detail.

The 1851 Baptist Church is the third preserved building in this park, lovely exterior, easy to enjoy as you’re getting water.

Getting in the water is possible too with a 1.5 acre swimming lake, built like a pool and shaped to look like Georgia. Long laps to swim here and the pure mineral water from the cave for floating and soaking.

Met a community park with this much going on?

Overnight matters

Tumlin House where I stayed is easy to spot as you arrive, and easy to depart for a walking tour of Cave Spring.

When you’re there, however, contemplate the family history within -- good stories that innkeepers Nancy and J. C. Boehm will share.

Insider tip: ask for music because they are accomplished, professional singers, pianists and collectors of musical instruments from throughout the world.

Don’t overlook the vast collection in the parlor of musical instruments J. C.’s missionary mother embraced through a lifetime.

Hum sum tunes perhaps as you walk from Tumlin House to the yellow building off the main intersection.

This is yet another historic preservation, housing modest history displays. Most days you’ll find Ed Packer there carving snake-shaped canes and talking about his arrowhead collection.

He’s in his eighties and I’m told filled with Cave Spring memories and stories. Can’t always find authentic storytellers when I travel.

Wonder what he tells of the Dickerson family?

The 1890s wedding dress worn by Nancy Boehm’s great-grandmother Martha Virginia Ellis Dickerson is on display in the museum that also serves as the Cave Spring Welcome Center.

Rare to see that level of organization and presentation in a little community.

Rare to be intentional about planning a holiday in a tiny town.

Consider Cave Spring.

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