MOULTRIE — Ed Jackson of the University of Georgia initially met with some resistance to his effort to promote historical tourism in Colquitt County.
“They said, ‘How can we have historical tourism when nothing has ever happened here?’” Jackson related to the Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce Wednesday.
Jackson said as an outsider, he found the county filled with places of historic significance, and he thinks there may be still more he hasn’t found yet. He hopes people who know of such places will contact him.
“Do you know a house that’s over 50 years old that should be on this?” he asked. “Do you know an old cemetery?”
Jackson, under the auspices of the chamber of commerce, has compiled a list of historic sites in the county and is combining them into several tours grouped by subject or location. There’s a walking tour of downtown Moultrie, a driving tour, a tour of historic sites within an hour’s drive, a tour of cemeteries (great for genealogy buffs, he said), a tour of monuments and memorials, and more. He is beginning work with the aid of Moultrie City Councilman George Walker on a tour of African-American historic sites in the area.
Some of the tours are already available on the Internet. Jackson demonstrated two at the chamber meeting Wednesday. Most are works-in-progress — a site may be marked on the on-line map, but not yet have text explaining its significance, for example.
One of the tours nearing completion is the downtown walking tour of Moultrie. Photos and GPS coordinates are complete, but descriptive text has not been finished. By the time it is, the project should have the information available in a downloadable format for iPods and personal digital assistants, according to Steve Dempsey, associate vice president of UGA.
Dempsey is working with the UGA New Media Institute to use students to put the Internet information into a format for the hand-held devices, so a person could download it off the Internet or at the chamber of commerce, then walk through downtown with the information on the sites there literally at his fingertips. He offered no timetable on when that part of the project would be ready.
Anyone with suggestions for Jackson’s inventory of local historic places can reach him at his office, (706) 542-6245, or by e-mail at jackson@cviog.uga.edu.
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UGA specialist explores historical significance of Colquitt County
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