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Sweetwater Creek State Park is a 2,549 acre (10.32 km2) Georgia state park located in the (New Manchester ) area of east Douglas County, from downtown Atlanta. The park is named after Sweetwater Creek which runs through the park. Sweetwater became an official state park in 1972, driven in great part by the work of the Georgia Conservancy, an environmental organization that was formed during a meeting at Sweetwater Creek in 1967. The park features wooded walking and hiking trails, the George Sparks Reservoir, a visitor center, a bait shop, and a gift shop, as well as the ruins of the New Manchester Manufacturing Company. The Visitor Center displays artifacts that belong to Native Americans, remnants from the Civil War era, and mounted animals and birds. The park has rich biodiversity, geology, and history. The park's mission is to conserve environment for the present and future generations through use of various conservation methods such as bioretention ponds, solar panels, green roofs, and a composting toilet. ==History== The area of the Sweetwater Creek park used to belong to the Cherokee and according to a legend “Sweetwater” means the name of Chief Ama-Kanasta. In 1819, hunger for land led the state of Georgia to appeal to the United States government to remove the Cherokee; the appeal was rejected.〔 In 1827, the state of Georgia began to divide the Cherokee lands through lotteries.〔 In 1829, just elected president Andrew Jackson who was an ally of the state of Georgia challenged the reject of appeal.〔 Even though the U.S. Supreme Court’s decree stated that Georgia had no right to forbid the Cherokee government, in 1831, Georgia’s General Assembly arranged all Cherokee land inspected and distributed by lottery.〔 In 1838, federal troops started forcing the Cherokee to leave Georgia and Alabama and about twenty thousand were forced to west to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears.〔 On the Georgia Gold Lottery, in 1832, Philip J. Crask won Lot 929 in District 18 of the Second Section and paid $18 grand fee.〔 In 1837, Lot 929 was sold at an auction to John Boyle for $12.50 who in 1845 sold it for $500 to Charles J. McDonald of Cobb County, a former governor of Georgia, and Colonel James Rogers of Milledgeville.〔 In 1846, Roger and McDonald started building water-powered mill along Sweetwater Creek and on December 21, 1849, the five story mill was in operation.〔 McDonald and Rogers incorporated their business as Sweetwater Manufacturing Company, which made cotton, yarn and fabric.〔 In 1858, McDonald renamed the Sweetwater Manufacturing Company as New Manchester Manufacturing Company after the center of the British textile industry Manchester, England.〔 By 1860, the factory produced seven hundred pounds of cotton per day, which was transformed into one hundred twenty bunches of yarn and five hundred yards of osnaburg. In the summer of 1864, during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War, General Joseph E. Johnson removed the Confederate Army across the Chattahoochee River, leaving the New Manchester factory exposed to the Union Army. On July 2, 1864, two divisions of Union cavalry under Colonel Silas Adams (1st Kentucky) and cavalry under Major Haviland Thompkins (14th Illinois) of General Stoneman’s personnel, approached the factory with orders to shut it down and arrest all the employees.〔 On July 9, 1864, following orders from William Tecumseh Sherman, Major Thompkins burned the New Manchester mill.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sweetwater Creek State Park」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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