5 Notes On Visiting Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site

I’ve visited Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site several times on my trips to the Oconee National Forest in middle Georgia. The historic site is fascinating and very underrated compared to how much publicity it gets.

Crazy That This Site Exists

Like the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation on the Georgia coast, it’s pretty incredible that even though every Georgia farm from the 19th century has disappeared, rotted, and gone away, this plantation still exists.

It made it through both the economic depressions after the Civil War and the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s in the American South until the 1970s when Jimmy Carter persuaded the family to let the state preserve it.

Georgia has a very complicated and wrenching history. It’s pretty incredible that a site like this exists, where you can see the workings of a plantation up close and how it evolved from the antebellum era through the industrialization of the South and the agricultural transition in the Great Depression.

Very Well Preserved

It’s fascinating that there’s a working cotton gin, a working sawmill, a working syrup mill, and all sorts of actual machinery used on Georgia farms from the antebellum period through the 1950s. It’s pretty interesting to put your hands on it and see it in place.

Pairs Well w/ Other Public Lands Nearby

While the state historic site is fairly small, and you can walk it in just a few hours, it is centered right next to the Oconee National Forest, the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge, and several other state parks, such as Indian Springs and High Falls. It makes it a worthwhile day trip to visit several, especially with kids.

Still Improving On Telling The Full Story of The Site

One downside of the site is that it’s pretty obvious that the interpretative brochures and boxes do not tell the full story of slavery. Even my 7-year-old son noticed and asked about the surprising lack of information about slavery and then the Great Migration after the Civil War…when there’s literally a slave’s quarters right at the front of the Park.

The site was founded 20 years before the Civil War and employed dozens, if not hundreds, of slaves who built the land, farmed the cotton, and ran it, and were owned as enslaved peoples by the Jarrell family. I understand that the Jarrells (the family still owns the land next door) likely want the State historians to focus on the flattering parts of their history, not the bad. However, I do wish they’d lean into telling the full, complicated story of Georgia.

On my last visit, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources added a couple of booklets and a small plaque to honor and memorialize the enslaved people who lived and worked on the land.

However, hints of the Lost Cause mythology still show up (as well as in many Georgia State Historic Sites). Unfortunately, it’s an unfortunate and pretty obvious part of the site’s history that is missing. Hopefully, over time, they’ll tell more of the story.

Perfect Historic Site for Kids

Lastly, it’s an excellent place for kids to roam and explore. Since it’s a working plantation with lots of exhibitions in real life, demonstrations of working farm life in the 1840s and the 1870s, it’s pretty interesting to take young kids there and let them see everything from an outhouse to a cotton gin and everything that they might briefly read about in history books, but it’s hard to imagine. It’s a big site, and it’s never crowded, so it’s great just to take young kids there and roam around.

Overall, this historic site is highly underrated and worth a visit.