UPDATED - Jan. 4, 2012
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Cherokee Rock Village gets another $100,000 By SCOTT WRIGHT LEESBURG — On Dec. 29 Sen. Gerald Dial presented the Cherokee County Parks and Recreation Board (PRB) with state grant funds in the amount of $100,000. PRB Treasurer Gary Banister told The Post the money will be used to acquire an additional 50-100 acres adjacent to Cherokee Rock Village. “That brings the total the Parks and Recreation Board has received since Aug. 22 to $275,000,” Banister said. “We're making progress.” The PRB has been working for over two years to develop the park near Leesburg into a viable tourist attraction. The county has owned the property for decades, but no coordinated efforts were ever undertaken until the PRB was rejuvenated by a change in leadership in 2009. Banister said the property to be purchased includes approximately two miles of the former Tennessee-Alabama-Georgia railway bed that once ran along the base of Shinbone Ridge. The property also contains an addition six miles of access roads. “It's super what they've done up there,” Dial told WEIS Radio News last week. “Tourism is one of the best industries you can have, and it is probably one of the top two in Cherokee County.” Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Thereasa Hulgan agreed with Sen. Dial's assessment. “Tourism in Cherokee County continues to grow,” Hulgan told The Post. “Cherokee Rock Village will draw thousands of tourists to our area and it, along with Weiss Lake and other area attractions, are some of this region's great assets.” Cherokee Rock Village already draws thousands of out-of-state rock climbers and outdoor lovers to the county every year. Probate Judge Melvyn Salter last year told The Post he frequently spots vans from major universities across the Southeast in the parking lot at the park. Salter said college students are among the thousands who make regular treks to Cherokee Rock Village to take advantage of rock climbing opportunities, hiking trails and primitive camping areas. "Students from universities in Florida have already been here at least four times this year," Salter said in April 2010. Last week, a survey of nearly two dozens vehicles in the main parking lot at Cherokee Rock Village revealed visitors from Cherokee, Jefferson, Etowah, Calhoun and Blount counties in Alabama. The states of Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Georgia and Tennessee were also represented in the parking lot on Dec. 29. Last year, the county successfully sought to acquire nearly $2 million in federal stimulus funds. Half of that money, around $900,000, was made available to the PRB to run water and electricity to the park. Other long-term projects already underway include a one-way access road that loops around the park, hundreds of security poles to limit vehicle access and a log cabin welcome center at the main entrance. PRB Chairman Scooter Howell told The Post there are a lot of other plans in the works for Cherokee Rock Village. “We already have an area leveled out and set aside for a covered pavilion,” Howell said. “It will be available for family gatherings and small concerts, and we hope to have restroom facilities built into one end of the facility.” Howell said the county also trying to negotiate insurance coverage that will allow hang gliding from the park. He said those talks are still underway and nothing has been finalized. The grant money was part of a combined $729,500 statewide allotment from the Recreational Trails Grant Program, part of the Federal Highway Administration. Local governments and non-profit groups are awarded grants through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs and are required to supply local funding matches of at least 20 percent.
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