I ran out of space in my column on Cartersville, before I told the story of another unusual place there.

My wife and I had taken a weekend trip to visit nearby Lake Allatoona and Red Tip Mountain state park., and stayed in a Comfort Inn right off I-75 and Lake Allatoona Road. We had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel across the street, Sunday morning, before getting back on the road and heading home.

When leaving the parking lot, I happened to spot a small sign pointing east on Lake Allatoona Road that said, “Visitors Center, 1 mile” (or whatever distance it was). Wondering what kind of visitors center would be so far out, we decided to check it out.

Lake Allatoona was created by building a dam on the Etowah River, primarily to prevent flooding in nearby Rome. The lake did just that, and also provided many opportunities for locals to enjoy boating, fishing, camping and the like.

The “Visitors Center” we found by following that road was at the top of a bluff overlooking the lake, and was actually the center where the Corp of Engineers controlled the floodgates below. Part of the building had been turned into a museum of sorts, with lots of pictures, some showing scenes of two-story houses in Rome flooded up to their eaves.

We had no idea Rome used to have endured flooding like that.

Spring rains were what caused the river to flood, so in the fall and winter, the Corps would have to lower the lake level to make room for the coming rains. When they did that, a loud horn would sound, in advance, to let any hikers or fishermen on the river below the dam know, it was time to get to higher ground.

Leaving this small visitors center and returning to our car, we saw a small monument on a hill nearby, so we went to see what it was. It was a marble obelisk with a four-sided base, each side having names inscribed on them. Two historic markers on either side of the obelisk told the story of this “Friendship Monument.”

In the 1850’s, an iron foundry was built on the river, which employed a lot of folks and made rails for railroads, among other things. When a financial downturn occurred, the owner was faced with bankruptcy, but managed to secure a large loan with the Bank of Etowah to keep the business afloat. When the bank threatened to call the note, he was able to persuade a number of friends in town to co-sign the note, to stave off bankruptcy.

When the downturn eased, business came back, and he was able to repay the loan. He then erected the monument to thank the folks who had co-signed the note. It is supposedly the only known monument “erected by a debtor to thank his creditors for keeping him out of bankruptcy.”

What an amazing story!

Since I work for a bankruptcy trustee, I had to get pictures and take them back home to show my boss. But on that trip, I only had a small Kodak 110 “Instamatic” camera, not my larger Minolta X-700 35-mm camera with its wide-angle lens. So I took a set of photos, and resolved to come back another time with my better camera.

Which we did, some six months or so later. Only to find, when we got there, that one of the historic markers that told the story was missing from its post!

When I went inside the visitors center to ask where it was, the ranger on duty at first didn’t know what I was talking about.

But when I told her the marker was in fact not on its post, she snorted. “Must be those high school kids that come up here on the weekends, drinking and messing around! Sorry about that.” So we had to make yet another trip, about six months later, to find the marker restored to its place and available for pictures.

What an interesting story! There’s a bit more to it, of course, but that’s the basics. You can look it up online for more details.

What an interesting find. You never know what surprises Life has in store.

Rafe Semmes is a local traveler.