Vann House proposal forthcoming

Mark Millican

SPRING PLACE — In the 1940s, the Dalton Chamber of Commerce hired a consultant to study the Chief Vann House — at that time in disrepair and being used as a barn — to see what, if anything, could be done with it, Tim Howard said as he prepared to lead a tour through the historic site on Thursday.

“He told them to take it down and rebuild it on South (Highway) 41 to help sell bedspreads,” said Howard, the Murray County historian.

One of the best preserved properties of the Cherokee Nation, the Vann House lost a full-time interpretive historian and four part-time employees during recent state budget cuts, said site manager Jeff Stancil.

“We’ve got two young people here courtesy of federal stimulus funds, but those run out on July 31, and two other part-timers who are going back to school this fall,” Stancil said. “When school starts back and we get a crowd of 25 kids in here, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

He said the smaller staff and volunteers have been hosting around one dozen tours each day since the site cut back to three days of operation, Thursday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Howard said the “great concern and disappointment” about the cuts has reached the ears of the descendants of the Cherokee.

On June 22, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith and Jack Baker, a council member of the Cherokee Nation and president of the Trail of Tears Association, met with Gov. Sonny Perdue, regional legislators and Becky Kelly, director of the Department of Natural Resource’s Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites Division.

“Kelly indicated that the two sites (the other being the New Echota Historic Site in Gordon County) had their budgets cut by $80,000 together,” Baker said by phone from Oklahoma of the meeting. “The Cherokee Nation will submit a proposal to the state of Georgia — in partnership with the Eastern Band — to make up the shortfall to get the sites back to where they were. That proposal has not been submitted to the governor yet.”

Baker said Smith is currently on a 23-day, 900-mile bicycle trek with 10 other cyclists of Cherokee descent to retrace the Trail of Tears, commemorating the infamous Indian removal west in 1838.

“I’m speculating, but hopefully we’ll submit the proposal in the next couple of weeks,” Baker said. “We do not want to drag it out, but do it as quickly as possible.”

Baker called the offer “primarily a fundraising proposal,” but when asked about a figure, pointed back to the $80,000 that was cut from both sites.

“If we can restore the sites to the way they were (in the next year), it will give various groups time to look at various options,” he said. Those groups include Murray County government or the federal park system, he said, and the possibility of one of them running the sites.

Kelly said there have been “lots of conversations” since the budget cuts have hit the state’s parks and historic sites.

“We’ve had positive feedback from everybody concerning the budget situation,” she said in a phone interview, “and we want to make sure our Native American sites are open and accessible to the public. We’re waiting on the proposal from the Cherokee Nation, and I’m looking forward to seeing it. I think we can come up with a positive solution.”

Murray County sole commissioner David Ridley did not immediately return a phone call on Thursday.