Museum and Restaurant #1: Barrow County Museum in Winder, Georgia & Smokin' PO Boys BBQ

And the journey begins...

Welcome everyone! I'm so excited about taking this venture on, and that you are coming along with me. Now I know that this post is made in February instead of January, but I assure you I did visit my first museum in the first month. Unfortunately I have been knocked down by the infamous flu that has been passed around in my area. Even now as I am typing I am sipping a steaming hot cup of Emergen-C, trying my best to breath through the one nostril that's not clogged. But...I digress.

Making the choice for my first museum to visit was fairly easy. I have lived in the town of Winder, Georgia my entire life, and I had only been to the Barrow County Museum once...when I was 6...so I thought it was time for another visit! 

Now before I begin, I am not an historian, so this will not be an extensive history of Winder or Barrow County; nor will any of the posts I make about any other museum be an extensive study. So I will be giving a short summary of the some of the major events in the history of the town, along with some tantalizing tidbits of information that I found quite interesting. So, without further adieu, lets begin! 

The museum itself is a beautiful, brick building that used to be the jail house in Winder. When you walk into the building, you see memorabilia of years gone by on the walls and in cabinets around the front room. The building was formed in 1916, and stayed open until it closed its doors in the late 1980's. There were 12 standard jail cells with two bunks in each. In the upper level of the jail there was one cell that housed women, and a solitary confinement cell that had no windows and a solid door.

 As you walk through the museum you will see that the upper level cells are left intact for you to 'visit', as well as one in the actual cell block on the lower level, which holds it's permanent resident "Erastis." As you walk through the different rooms you will find many artifacts that have been donated by locals throughout the years. On the second floor you will find a reading and research room that holds the archives, with newspapers dating back to 1915. The room smelled like old books...I love that smell.

 The old jail also had a hanging tower that was erected, but this was never used as hanging was abolished during the construction. Now unfortunately you cannot visit the hanging tower for safety reasons, but you can see the stairs that lead up to the tower itself. In the early 1990's, a decision was made to renovate the building and turn it into a museum for the public to come to freely to learn about the rich history of this amazing town (Cool Fact: My dad, Darrell Dykes, was welding at the time and was asked by the county to help with the renovation. He helped take out the actual cells of the old jail. Cool huh?!) But enough about the building, let's take a look at the history!

Now before the bright lights and big buildings of Barrow Country, the land of Barrow was actually used by the Creek and Cherokee Indians. In 1786, settlers came to the land and asked if they could make a trade with the Indians. The Creek chief Umausauga agreed, and the 8,000 acres of land was sold for 14 pounds of beads...now that's a lot of beads. Because of this trade, the land that would soon be known as Barrow County was first called Beadland.

The city was Winder was actually known first as Snodon, which was an established trade center for the Creek and Cherokee Indians during the colonial period. It was later called Jug Tavern, then Brandon for a short period of time before it became Winder in 1893. The railroad that was built throughout the town brought major population growth, and the town was actually named after John H. Winder, the general manager of the Seaboard Air Line Railway.

Now...time for some interesting tidbits that will tantalize your viewing taste buds.

I'm sure that if you have visited Winder at any point, you would have heard about Fort Yargo. Did you know that the fort was originally developed in 1792 to protect the area from Creek Indian attacks? Yeah...not me. The two-story log cabin still stands that housed many of the settlers at the time. Another interesting fact about Winder includes a civil war battle that took place near Winder, and actually happened on GA-211 close to Carl-Cedar Hill Rd. It was called the Battle of Kings Tanyard, also known as the Battle of Jug Tavern in 1864. Learning about these events was intriguing, but I wasn't truly surprised until I found out about this next piece of history: Nodoroc and the legend of The Wog.

My first thoughts as I was reading about this in the museum was, "How did I not know about this?!" So according to my research, Nodoroc was supposedly a mud volcano in Winder. That's right. A mud volcano. Now this is not a volcano in the pure sense of course, but reports did says that it was an area that's only a few acres in size that gave off a bluish smoke as the liquid beneath rolled and bubbled. It was said by early European explorers that the area burned and dissolved everything they threw in it; even the rainwater would evaporate once it touched the bog.

The legend says that Nodoroc was a place that Indians believed was a portal to hell. It was supposedly a place where the Creek Indians threw their criminals in to satisfy the notorious creature known as The Wog. The Wog represented the Devil or Satin, and it was said to be a creature about the size of a small horse with jet-black hair and short hind legs. He had hooves instead of paws and a very large tail that had white hair at the tip. The most telling features were his piercing red eyes, large teeth and a long forked tongue that slipped in and out of his mouth like a serpent. Kind of crazy huh??

In doing more research, it seems that people are not exactly sure if this was a place where the Creek Indians actually threw in people, or just how hot the 'volcano' actually became. But this is still local legend that has been passed down through generations, and still makes for an amazing story. I actually found the spot where this bog is, and I couldn't believe how many times I have driven by without even realizing it. It is only a mile or two down the road from Smiths Funeral Home in Winder, and I will have a link at the end of this post of an aerial view of the spot.

Most of my resources came from the pamphlets they have in the museum that you can take home for free. My other resources came from other blogs and websites, which I will include at the end of this post.
                                                                   
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As I said in the 'Welcome' portion of the blog, with every town I visit I will also 'investigate' the wares of the local grub. For this month, I decided to go to a restaurant that is a true staple in Winder, and right across the street from the museum: Smokin' PO Boys BBQ. This quaint establishment has amazing pulled pork sandwiches, chicken and rib platters and great wings with a variety of sauces. As it says on their Facebook page, "They have a passion for BBQ," and it shows!! I love the pictures and memorabilia on the wall and the unique, family feeling you get as you walk in.

Now just as I am not an historian, I am also not a food critique by any means. So please take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I will say that this place has some awesome eats. For myself I ordered the Pork Sandwich basket with the sweet and spicy sauce, crinkle french fries and a sweet tea. Unfortunately I was not able to stay and eat as I would have liked, but even for a to-go order they filled it to the brim with food. I had to heat mine up since it had cooled on the way home, but even warmed up in the microwave it tasted amazing. If you are visiting Winder, or if you have lived their your entire life like me, you've gotta try it!

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So the next time you drive down Broad Street in Winder, take a few moments to think about what it might have been like to see Indian huts instead of buildings, and horse and buggy instead of cars on the side streets. I know that this experience has made me appreciate this town even more, and I hope that's what you find as you make plans for your own visits.

I hope you all have enjoyed the history lesson! And all that's left to says is on to the next!

Museum Face! 

Blessings!

Barrow County Museum
74 West Athens Street,
Winder, GA 30680

Smokin' Po Boys BBQ
67 West Athens Street,
Winder, GA 30680

Resources:

"Did You Know There Was a Volcano in Georgia? What About the Wog?" Georgia Mysteries. 27 May 2010. Web. <http://georgiamysteries.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-you-know-there-was-volcano-in.html>.

Gelbart, Mark. "The Mysterious Nodoroc Site in Winder, Georgia." GeorgiaBeforePeople. 9 Jan. 2003. Web. <https://markgelbart.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/the-mysterious-nodoroc-site-in-winder-georgia/>.

McKay, Chason. "Beadland to Barrow." Medium. N.p., 1 Nov. 2015. Web. <https://medium.com/hog-mountain-road/annotated-bibliography-2ba752a99917#.fgumeix5a>.

Sauls, Cheryl. "Counties, Cities and Neighborhoods." New Georgia Encyclopedia. N.p., 3 Sept. 2003. Web. <http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/winder>.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/smokin-po-boys-bbq-winder

Here is a picture of the Nodoroc location: http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.973821&lon=-83.672757&z=19&m=b