The Cherokee County Historical Museum is located in Downtown Murphy in the Carnegie Library…read moreBuilding. Look for the bear. Parking is on the street. The museum is on two levels and starts up the stairs. There is an elevator available on the first level for those who need it. Admission to the museum is $3. The second floor has a variety of collections of household items and farm tools donated by the community members. There are some gems mixed into this collection. I wish the museum was more focused on the history of Cherokee County and selected the better items to be showcased. It seemed junky with random donated old items of family members. Storyboards upstairs would be helpful. Now, the first floor provides information and artifacts on the Cherokee History that they had before the Trail of Tears. The first floor also has a large variety of minerals. The Cherokee History displays are factual and well presented on the storyboards. The Cherokee Indians story is sad. It is worth visiting the museum for the first floor.

This is a great little historical gem, with super knowledgeable folks that have a passion for the…read morearea. stayed about an hour and was taken back in time with the historical artifices from the native americans in the area and the civil war era items. I could have stayed all day and talked to the director and her volunteer. They have a huge collection of arrow heads and an actual native american cabin from West Virginia reassembled and on display.

Stopped in after hiking at Tallulah Gorge state park. It's about a 15 min drive from there and…read moretucked away, not able to see from the road. I thought the set up of the museum and tour were fantastic. I happened on a day when a school was touring and they had a working blacksmith and musician. The exhibits in the cabin are fantastic and the artifacts are well displayed. I liked that the tour takes you on a trail to each cabin so you get a bit of a workout. They had a nice gift shop and clean bathrooms. Tour took me about 90 minutes. Only thing I would caution is to make sure you can walk on slightly steep inclines. I also liked that while it focused on Appalachian culture it didn't shy away from highlighting the impact of the Indian Removal Pact that impacted the region. Highly recommend.

Interesting history and structures. Nice gifts hopefully and very informative and friendly staffread more

Great staff! We traveled here to see the Youth Arts Month exhibit. Loved seeing all the other art…read more Friendly staff!

We checked this place out after returning from the scenic railroad excursion around 2 p.m. It is…read morelocated facing the railroad tracks about 2 blocks south of the train depot. It is beyond the new county courthouse building it what appears to be the prior courthouse. Admission is free, though donations are encouraged. Given that Blue Ridge is a fairly small town, the scope of their arts building was quite impressive. When we visited, they had a gallery exhibit that took up the entrance hallways plus what was the main courtroom. Many of the paintings were very good. My impression was that they host rotating exhibits like this periodically. There are certainly towns much larger than Blue Ridge that have nothing like this facility for their arts communities. In addition to this main exhibit, they also had an arts supply store in the building, as well as a kiln in the basement for pottery (including classes). They also offered classes in upstairs rooms, on various arts-related topics. I believe the town also hosts arts events a few times a year (like plein air sessions and festivals). If we make it back to Blue Ridge in the future, we'll likely return here to see what new exhibits are on display. I'm giving it a 5-rating due to it exceeding expectations by a wide margin.

Great show of DSTM. Want to see again!! Want to bring some friends who would greatly enjoy the…read moreshow

Last week we made our second visit ever to Rollins Planetarium, located at Young Harris College in…read moreYoung Harris, GA. It's a great place to go for adults and kids alike, though note that it's a late evening activity. According to their site, the planetarium seats 104 under a 40-foot-diameter dome, and if you go, try to get there early to get a seat in the back. You'll be staring up most of the time, and the seats do recline a fair bit. The presentation is about half live, half recorded - but all with the lights down entirely - with the recording about whatever their current public show is about. The live portion is great, and features the night sky as it actually looks that night, in that location. The presenter we had was informative and fun to listen to, and the kids in our party got a kick out of it. The recording was about Saturn, and it was educational and interesting. We skipped the trek up to the observatory after the show, but only because our kids were done for the night. We did visit the observatory our first time to the planetarium, and if you can stay awake, I recommend it! Check their schedule and ticket times, as they generally only offer Friday night shows. We paid cash for our tickets ($3 adults, $2 kids/students), so I don't know if they accept other forms of payment. Parking was easy. Cool, educational, a real gem up in the mountains!

This place is a jewel! Tucked away on a side street, we easily could have missed it but so glad we…read moredidn't! So many different gemstones and artifacts from around the world and well arranged geographically. This collection spans over 50 years and there are some wonderful finds. Also includes a cell from the old jail. Staff is super friendly and helpful. All of this is provided for free by volunteers so donations are appreciated but not required.

I enjoyed my visit to the Franklin Gem & Mineral Museum. It's housed in a very old building that…read moreactually used to be a jail. I can't think of a better place for a museum that holds so many valuables. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that they don't charge anything for admission. I made sure to buy something from the gift store because of this. The exhibits are located in several rooms on the first and second floor. As we started looking in the first room one of the volunteers was pretty much shadowing us. At first I thought this was rather odd, but I actually ended up being glad that he did. There are so many gems crammed into each display case and the placards only listed what the gem was. The volunteer was able to explain a lot of details and interesting facts about many of the pieces on display. If we would have been just looking at the pieces ourselves we would have missed out on a lot of interesting information. My favorite exhibit was the fluorescent rock display. When you looked at them they appeared to be just normal rocks. Once you pushed a button the room darkened and a black light came on, revealing some amazing colors. Upstairs they had an old jail cell you could go into. It was an interesting look into the building's past. It won't take you long to complete your tour of the museum but I felt it was definitely worth the time to visit.

Over 65 local artists displayed in various gallery rooms. The artists staff the facility on a…read morerotating basis. Beautiful oil paintings, photography, crafts and other artwork. Artwork can be purchased as well. Highly recommend.

MOUNTAIN HERITAGE FESTIVAL…read more This is a small annual festival that takes place on Labor Day weekend in Blairsville, GA. Blairsville is approximately 1.5 hours from Alpharetta on Highway 400/19. The artisans and vendors out today were selling jewelry, colorful gourds, wind chimes, clothing, jams/jellies, beautiful handcrafted wood items and more. There were many items that are perfect for enhancing your fall and Christmas decor and for giving as holiday gifts. The most popular items today were foods in jars. Although I am familiar with certain fruits and vegetables being prepared and stored, I was surprised to see, greens, zucchini, beans and other unusual items pickled and packed in jars. This must be a mountain tradition because I have not seen it in other places although I attend various festivals and was raised in the south. For me, the highlight of the festival was seeming the historical Mock house which was built in 1906 and restored in 2006 and the John Payne cabin built in 1861. The John Payne house was actually moved from it's original location and actually placed next to the Mock house. The Mock house was a small two bedroom home decorated in the style of the day with all antique furnishings and appliances. There was a quilting demonstration going on in one of the bedrooms. It is interesting how small the bedrooms were and I think the largest bed they had is what is known today as a "full size" bed but would only be appropriate for one person. Also, I love that the only fabric used at this time was just natural cotton which was used for EVERYTHING! That old GE refrigerator actually worked and had food in it! Wow! The rear of the home had a nice porch and an old well right next to it. The well was covered and no longer in use. The Payne cabin is located just a few feet from the Mock house and is the home of one of the area's prominent citizens. John Payne and his wife raised seven children in this one room cabin that also included a loft. I quickly realized just how blessed I am to live in this time, under current circumstances. Ms. Wanda was on hand churning butter from raw milk, it took her two hours and she mentioned that she had not done so in 60 years. She explained the process of extracting the butter from the milk and preparing it to be used at the dinner table. One of the other tour guides, provided a history of the home and its occupants and was actually making Brunswick stew in the fireplace using a cast iron pot. She was also planning to make cornbread as well but we did not get to see this part of the demo. This was such a great experience and a really important lesson for teaching children appreciation and what hard work really entails. DO NOT EXPECT IT TO BE COOL UP THERE AS IT WAS HOTTER THAN THE SUN AND THERE WAS NO DETECTABLE BREEZE! SURPRISE!

kinda torqued off about what should have been a 90-minute drive becoming four hours of wheel time…read morebecause AlphaBetCo started off showing me this venue right up 77 not way out west... but the map is only as useless as the folks publishing it so there's that :-\ the actual real life place is pretty impressive to behold: wall of glass is pleasingly reflective during the day but at night the lights shine through displaying the two-story lobby in all it's glory. our hotel backed up to the property so after dropping my lovely bride at the will call I went back and parked and walked over... yeah common sense! clean and nicely appointed upstairs and down, elevator or stairs to make the switch so you can come or go as you please. couple of snack bars on the main floor, and another for the balcony. no beer, no wine, just coffee and sodas and popcorn and stuff like that at reasonable prices so find your seat and relax... seats are a bit narrow but not horribly so, a gentle reminder to drop a couple dozen or so kilos :-\ acoustics are good and I can't imagine a bad seat in the house except the guy running the sound board tonight missed it "by-that-much" since the talky parts were fine but the occasional singy bit got clipped from the program... restrooms could use a little more room but that holds true of all venues... still not a bad night out and I got to sit in the balcony holding hands with my best girl all night :-)

I bragged about this place since entering. It's really beautiful but that's where it ends. I'm an…read moreaverage sized petite female (just pregnant) and I literally had to squeeze my hips in the seat. I look around at all the larger adults and I don't know how they are sitting here. It boast to be a 1500 seat concert hall but realistically it should only be about 1000 seats. This will keep me from returning. All I can think of is how uncomfortable this is and the concert hasn't begun. Think about guests comfort and not just how much $$ you can squeeze out of the place. Disappointing