Foxfire

 

Experience the Southern Appalachia, as recorded, photographed, and documented by the students of Rabun County over the last four decades - and shared with the world through The Foxfire Magazine and the Foxfire Book volumes.

 

Visit our mountainside collection of log cabins housing the artifacts and memories of an era long passed - gathered by Foxfire students as they looked deeply into their families, their community, and their heritage.

 
 
 

The Foxfire Museum
and Heritage Center

Mountain City, Georgia

The Foxfire Magazine began in 1966 as an attempt to engage high school English students and increase their interest in learning. The simple idea of letting students give direction to their own study and their series of choices leading to a magazine about their community and heritage grew into an enduring legacy unlike any other. Still published by Rabun County students today, The Foxfire Magazine has endured in the classroom while the learner-centered teaching approach that began the journey has been refined, grown, and shared with classrooms across the country.

By 1972, enough student-collected material had been gathered to produce the first anthology of student-authored articles—The Foxfire Book. Over 30 years have passed since then, with 11 more anthologies added to the series and total

 


 

sales nearing nine million books. The Fox fire Book series stands as a lasting tribute not only to the people and heritage of Southern Appalachia, but to the high school students over the decades who wanted to honor their community, neighbors, and families with a simple and powerful tribute - remembrance. Royalties from The Foxfire Book and Foxfire 2 were invested - by student choice - into the purchase of property and groundwork for a physical facility for preserving Appalachia. The twenty-plus log structures of The Foxfire Museum were relocated to or built on the mountain property over a decade, largely through student labor. The facility serves as a functional museum of

 

 

Southern Appalachia with self-guided tours for visitors, featuring artifact displays in and around the authentic or replica log cabins themselves. The Museum features a grist mill, a blacksmith's shop, a replica chapel, a wagon collection, and other single- and multi-room cabins. Other areas of the facility also serve as resources for community interaction and for educational opportunities for visiting educators, schools, summer camps, and tour groups.

Admission for self-guided tours of the Museum can be purchased at the gift shop for $6.00 per person (children under 10 get in free). Admission includes one souvenir tour booklet per family/group. Guided tours featuring more artifacts and plenty of lore are available for groups of six or more by reservation only - please call for tour pricing and scheduling.

Out gift shop features hand-crafted pottery, home-made soaps, hand-made textiles, and wooden toys alongside the entire Foxfire series and a large selection of related books, covering topics such as Appalachian history, folklore, ghost stories, cookbooks, plant/animal identification, and how-to titles for traditional crafts and skills.


 

The Foxfire Fund, Inc. is a not-for-profit, educational and literary organization based in Rabun County, Georgia. Founded in 1966, Foxfire's learner-centered, community-based educational approach is advocated through both a regional demonstration site (the Foxfire Museum) grounded in the Southern Appalachian culture that gave rise to Foxfire, and a national program of teacher training and support (the Foxfire Approach to Teaching and Learning) that promotes a sense of place and appreciation of local people, community, and culture as essential educational tools.

www.foxfire.org

 

 

PLEASE NOTE:
The Foxfire Museum is NOT accessible by large motor homes or tour buses

8:30am - 4:30pm
Monday - Saturday
(hours vary near national
holidays - please call ahead)
The Foxfire Museum
and Heritage Center
200 Foxfire Lane/PO Box 541
Mountain City, Georgia 30562-0541
706 - 746 - 5828 foxfire@foxfire.org

To reach the Foxfire Museum from US 441 In Mountain City, follow these directions: 

Watch for the brown State Park signs, follow them to Black Rock Mountain Parkway

On the Parkway, continue up appx. I mile, watch for the first small brown Foxfire sign

At the huge Black Rock Mtn. State Park sign, turn left onto Down Home Lane

Just over 0.1 miles, turn left at the stop sign onto Cross Street (gravel road for a short time)

1/2 mile down Cross Street, watch for our sign and turn right onto Foxfire Lane

Stop at the Gate House, the first log cabin you’ll see