High Shoals Historic District

High Shoals is a river community on the Apalachee River, 14 miles southwest of Athens, where Oconee, Morgan and Walton counties meet. The settlement grew around a natural river crossing at the shoals, and from 1846 the High Shoals Manufacturing Company used the river's power to run a textile mill. Fire destroyed the mill in 1928, though foundations, mill races and two dams remain. The district includes farmhouses, about a dozen mill houses, many built as duplexes, two 19th-century churches with cemeteries, a school moved and rebuilt in 1930-1931, a concrete silo from a dairy farm, and postwar ranch houses. Most buildings are vernacular, with Folk Victorian details and some Greek Revival, Queen Anne and Craftsman influence. The district was recognized for its crossroads plan, which follows the steep river valley, and for architecture typical of Georgia's farming and mill towns. Its period of significance runs from the 1869 Baptist church to 1956.