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Cartersville Bartow County Georgia

by ShanaCorbin
Cartersville Bartow County Georgia

Cartersville, Georgia, is a town in Atlanta’s northern exurb, where an easy 45-minute drive up I-75 unveils worldly museums, an ideally historic city center and many delightful dishes to rival some of the best in the city. Anchoring downtown Cartersville is the Booth Western Art Museum, which proudly shares the world’s largest permanent exhibition of Western Art in one of two Smithsonian Affiliate museums in Cartersville. The sister Affiliate, Tellus Science Museum, celebrates 10 years and two million visitors in 2019, as guests continue to pour into the museum seeking discovery and an enhanced passion for science.

Nearby, visitors and news media from across the globe have visited Old Car City USA in neighboring White, Georgia, the “world’s largest know’d classic car junkyard” since 1931, offering 34 acres of rusty gold finding new appeal in the photographer’s lens. Today visitors flock to Cartersville for selfies and photos of the World’s First Coca-Cola Outdoor Painted Wall Advertisement on the wall of Young Brother’s Pharmacy–Cartersville’s oldest business, evidence of the legacy left behind by a traveling syrup salesman who started an iconic brand’s advertising legacy right in the heart of downtown Cartersville. Coca-Cola is a sponsoring partner another of Cartersville’s gems–LakePoint Sporting Community which attracts the nation’s top amateur players and scouts to LakePoint’s eight Major League-size Shaw Sports Turf diamonds, plus a 10-court beach volleyball venue, multi-purpose fields for soccer, lacrosse and football, and the Champions Center with 12 hardwood basketball courts, convertible into 24 volleyball courts and the community’s largest expo and convention space.

Retreat to the shores of Lake Allatoona or rent your own watercraft for a day of boating and skiing on this 12,000-acre lake; or leave the boat behind and grab hold for a wakeboard turn on one of two lakes at Terminus Wake Park. Continue outdoor explorations at Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site, and a hike up Pine Mountain overlooking Lake Allatoona and Red Top Mountain State Park.

From the finest Southern estate of Barnsley Resort, to the lakeside cottage and summer camp accommodations at the newly-opened Pine Acres Retreat, there are many places to relax. Refuel at your choice of 14 chef-owned-and-operated restaurants in historic downtown Cartersville. Regional favorites include Table 20, Appalachian Grill and two recently tapped by Georgia Eats as “100 Plates Locals Love”—Swheat Market and Maine Street Coastal Cuisine. Or, stage your own “diner or dives” competition with a stop at Cartersville’s two highly-lauded favorites, 4-Way Lunch (circa 1931) and Ross’ Diner (circa 1945).

Make time to tour the Bartow History Museum and Rose Lawn Museum, the beautifully restored house museum once home to renowned evangelist Samuel Porter Jones. Add in art galleries, boutiques and a great line-up of community theatre and sweet sounds from multiple music venues for one great meet, eat and repeat destination.

www.VisitCartersvilleGA.org.

Fast Facts & Trivia

  • Cartersville-Bartow is home to:
    • The world’s first Coca-Cola wall sign, at Young Brother’s Pharmacy in downtown Cartersville.
    • The largest camel herd in Georgia, found at Pettit Creek Farms.
    • The world’s largest know’d junkyard. You read that right! That’s what the sign says at Old Car City USA.
    • The only Styrofoam cup art gallery on the East Coast, also found at Old Car City USA.
    • The first Georgia State Park for African Americans, George Washington Carver Park, established in 1950 on Lake Allatoona.
    • Georgia’s oldest restaurant without a telephone: The 4-Way Lunch, which has been operating successfully without the technology since 1931.
    • The last Civil War soldiers buried in the South. Hastily buried where they fell during the Civil War, these soldiers spoke from the grave during a séance. With aid of the information they shared, the Confederates were identified and reinterred in 1974 at Adairsville’s East View Cemetery, 110 years after their death.
    • The last Civil War monuments erected in the South, placed with full ceremony in 2016 at Allatoona Pass Battlefield.
  • 1934 Public Enemy #1 Pretty Boy Floyd was born in Adairsville.
  • The first female U.S. Senator, Rebecca Latimer Felton (served 24 hours in 1922), is from Cartersville and, to date, is the only female to ever represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.
  • Adairsville was the first Georgia town to be listed in its entirety on the National Register of Historic Places (December 1987).
  • The Civil War brought much action to Adairsville, including the Great Locomotive Chase on April 12, 1862. The Chase is probably the war’s best-known escapade, made famous by a Walt Disney movie of the same name.  Each fall, the Great Locomotive Chase Festival, a three-day celebration the first weekend of October, is held in remembrance of the event.
  • Cartersville is the smallest town in the nation to play host to two Smithsonian Affiliate museums.
  • The Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site is a major Mississippian Period Cultural Center that was home to several thousand Native Americans from 1000 to 1500 AD. The largest mound stands over 63 feet high and covers three acres. The impressive archaeological museum interprets life in what is now known as the Etowah Valley Historic District.

Annual Events

Must-See Limited Exhibits at Booth Western Art Museum Fall 2019-Fall 2020

In addition to “Commanders in Chief: A Living Art Exhibit,” we greatly anticipate the premiere of “Warhol and the West”–August 25-December 31, 2019. This is the first museum exhibition to fully explore Andy Warhol’s love of the west represented in his art, movies, attire, relationships and collecting. In 1986, Warhol completed his “Cowboys and Indians” portfolio, the last major project before his death. It included images of 14 iconic Western subjects such as Custer, Geronimo and John Wayne. This group of images has been exhibited at many museums, but never in the full context of Warhol’s continued involvement with Western people, places and things. His other Western subjects include Elvis as a movie gunslinger, Clint Eastwood, Dennis Hopper, guns, Indian art, Western artists R.C. Gorman, Georgia O’Keeffe and Fritz Scholder, plus two Western movies he produced. Warhol wore cowboy boots more often than not and loved to travel to Taos, Fort Worth and Colorado. All of this and more will be revealed in Warhol and the West, a major traveling exhibition of more than 100 objects and works of art.

“Lonesome Dove”– Bill Witliff Photographs–September 19, 2019-February 14, 2020

The “Lonesome Dove” miniseries, which first aired on CBS in 1989, continues to capture audiences. During its filming, renowned photographer Bill Wittliff documented the series with stunning photographs of the cast among the Western landscapes and in their iconic roles. “Lonesome Dove,” a travelling exhibition created by the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos in partnership with Humanities Texas, showcases 55 sepia toned prints from Wittliff, and audiences can again relive the exciting journey of Gus and Call.

The Booth Western Art Museum will celebrate the contributions of women in American art in 2020. The year will begin with “The Jackson Five”– which focuses on five important female painters from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Dates and details to come. This early exhibit is followed by the “American Women Artists Exhibition,” April 2-July 19, 2020, which will feature 100 works by AWA members. As fall harvest returns museum guests will appreciate the sleek wooden hues found in the Booth Museum’s major exhibition showcasing the turned wood bowls of three generations of the Moulthrop Family.

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Cartersville Bartow County Georgia
Cartersville Bartow County Georgia
Cartersville Bartow County Georgia
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