Paul S. Sutter, a University of Georgia history professor, is attempting to raise awareness of a little canyon that’s seen as a big disaster.
Providence Canyon in Stewart County, Ga. is considered an environmental disaster because of poor farming practices, and Sutter said Thursday he hopes his writings about the canyon, which is often referred to as "Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon" will increase tourism to the area.
"Providence Canyon is decidedly a human artifact. The park’s Web site admits its gaping chasms – some would call them gullies – are the result of ‘erosion caused by poor farming practices in the 1800s,’" Sutter said at a presentation sponsored by the UH Department of History.
In Sutter’s research, titled "Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies: Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon and Conversation in the South," he sets out to discover what Providence County means, he said.
"The question I’m interested in is this: what does it mean to celebrate and preserve the natural beauty of a place that is a product of what its own custodians consider to be an environmental disaster?" Sutter said.
The gully continued to expand throughout the early 20th century and is considered a "network of canyons." In 1859, the canyon began its expansion and a local congregation had to move its house of worship across the road to prevent it from sliding inside the gully, Sutter said.
It was in 1930 when the canyon started to draw crowds of tourists. By that time, the "extreme gullies" were already being referred to as "Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon," or alternately, "The Royal Gorge in the Chattahoochee," Sutter said.
Though the Chattahoochee had nothing to with the development of Providence Canyon, a publicity campaign by the Columbus, Georgia Ledger-Enquirer overlooked the inaccuracy to further their quest to make the park national.
"The Enquirer began a campaign to designate it a national park," Sutter said. "The Enquirer did everything they could to stir up publicity. They lost the campaign to make what the locals called ‘Providence Cave’ into a park in October 1937 and throughout their campaign, with only one or two very small glitches, they insisted that this place was natural."
Today, tourism to the canyon is declining, partly because of the location of the canyon and because it is also being hidden by trees, giving the area a different landscape. Sutter said he hopes that a second book about the canyon will encourage readers to tour the location.
"It is in a fairly out of the way and a tremendously economically depressed part of Georgia," Sutter said. "I’m actually hoping that my book stimulates growth," he said.
