Welcome to Chalybeate Springs, Georgia

Time to Celebrate
Centennial in Chalybeate

Copied with the permission of the author Tyron Elliott.

For those who enjoy the idea of an obscure event we are about to celebrate the centennial of the first and presumably the only serious effort to mine iron ore in Meriwether County.

The Meriwether Vindicator, in its issue of June 3, 1899, reported that shafts were being sunk for the iron mine at Chalybeate and it was expected that the mine would yield over 160,000 tons of iron ore with a 60% iron content.

We do not know exactly what happened but apparently the mine did not turn out to be as lucrative as expected and disappeared. into the pages of obscurity.

The existence of iron ore and its related deposits must have been well known in that area for some years.

Chalybeate was one of the earliest settlements in Meriwether County and someone who named the settlement must have been conversant with geology and ancient history.

The word "Chalybeate" has come to mean impregnated with iron salts when referring to water and thus Chalybeate Springs was water that had a large iron content.

The name is derived from the Chalybes, an ancient people of Pontus in Asia Minor, now a part of Turkey. The Chalybes were skilled as workers in iron.

At one time the word "Chalybean" meant metal of a superior quality. Also from Pontus were the Amazons.

From the time Chalybeate Springs was settled around 1831 until the mine shafts were dug almost seventy years later, the residents had always tried to use the natural treasure of the iron deposits.

The first way was to get people to come and take the water as a tonic. They called it lithia water and it was advertised as having the highest iron content as any spa in the world.

Chalybeate Springs was a spa community. From 1870 until 1924 the resort there was in operation although its glory days declined after the turn. of the century.

In its heyday the Grant House could accommodate 500 guests in the hotel or in guest cottages.

There was a skating rink, constant band music at a pavilion; carriage rides on top of the mountain and extensive swimming pools.

A Chalybeate Springs was established in Texas in the 1840s and there is a Chalybeate, Mississippi but ours seems to have been the first. In 1908, Chalybeate Springs was doing so well they had the town incorporated.

That beat Manchester by one year.

The date when the town charter was surrendered may be known to some but it is difficult to find in the record.

If they had reflected on the future as they began to dig their iron mine one hundred years ago, those enterprising men doubtless would have been disturbed to know that one hundred years later their mine would be gone and forgotten as well as the bustling spa and all its activities.

Not only gone but vanished without almost a trace.

The dream of developing this region for tourism never disappeared, however, and there are still those who think of all of the wealth of adventure which still awaits in the water and beneath the ground.

Still there waiting on the next pioneers with vision to make something of it.

If nothing else there are still those carriage rides on the mountain, there is unparalleled beauty, and there community--items which are more difficult to find than iron ore in our day and age.