Flowing Through Time: A History of the Lower Chattahoochee River (Chattahoochee Valley Legacy Series) - Hardcover

Willoughby, Lynn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817309349 ISBN 13: 9780817309343

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 1999

Synopsis

This handsome, illustrated book chronicles the history of the Lower Chattahoochee River and the people who lived along its banks from prehistoric Indian settlement to the present day. In highly accessible, energetic prose, Lynn Willoughby takes readers down the Lower Chattahoochee River and through the centuries. On this journey, the author begins by examining the first encounters between Native Americans and European explorers and the international contest for control of the region in the 17th and 19th centuries.Throughout the book pays particular attention to the Chattahoochee's crucial role in the economic development of the area. In the early to mid-nineteenth century--the beginning of the age of the steamboat and a period of rapid growth for towns along the river--the river was a major waterway for the cotton trade. The centrality of the river to commerce is exemplified by the Confederacy's efforts to protect it from Federal forces during the Civil War. Once railroads and highways took the place of river travel, the economic importance of the river shifted to the building of dams and power plants. This subsequently led to the expansion of the textile industry. In the last three decades, the river has been the focus of environmental concerns and the subject of "water wars" because of the rapid growth of Atlanta. Written for the armchair historian and the scholar, the book provides the first comprehensive social, economic, and environmental history of this important Alabama-Georgia-Florida river. Historic photographs and maps help bring the river's fascinating story to life.   

About this title

About the Author

Lynn Willoughby is an independent scholar and author of Fair to Middlin': The Antebellum Cotton Trade of the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee River Valley.

Review

"Willoughby clearly understands the Chattahoochee and its people and presents them with insight, humor, and a sense of drama. Here is a good blend of popular and academic history, and the book will find an audience in both camps. We need more works like this."—Harvey H. Jackson III, Jacksonville State University

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“This is a story of the declension of the Chattahoochee River from a ‘spiritual conduit’ to a toxic stream. It broadens and sharpens Lynn Willoughby’s earlier study, Fair to Middlin’, of the decline of the Appalachicola River Valley and port city during the antebellum period. . . . The author presents evidence advancing her thesis that European colonists and white Americans wantonly destroyed a river that had survived millions of years of sustainable use.”—The Alabama Review

Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4“Lynn Willoughby attempted to produce a book that would be ‘enjoyable to the general reader while informative to the professional.’ Much to her credit, she has admirably succeeded in achieving her goal. . . . Willoughby ends her book not with a naively optimistic conclusion, but with a clear eyed assessment of the multiple challenges facing this important southern river and the need for the people of the region to make self sacrifices in reaching a basin-wide compromise for its management. The historical basis she provides for such an understanding should prove an important beginning.”—The Journal of American History

Edition details

• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0817309349
• ISBN 13: 9780817309343
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248