When the bustle of a city slows, towns dissolve into abandoned buildings or return to woods and crumble into the North Georgia clay. In 1832, Auraria was one of the sites of the original American gold rush. The remains of numerous towns dot the landscape - pockets of life that were lost to fire or drowned by the water of civic works projects. Cassville was a booming educational and cultural epicenter until 1864. Allatoona found its identity as a railroad town. Author and professor Lisa M. Russell unearths the forgotten towns of North Georgia.
Lisa Russell is a member of the Bartow History Museum and the Etowah Valley Historical Society. She earned her master's in professional writing from Kennesaw State University, where she graduated with honors. When Lisa is not teaching at Georgia Northwestern Technical College or Kennesaw State University, she can be found exploring North Georgia through a micro-historic lens.