Praters Mill Country Fair

From Praters Mill Country Fair Website:

The Praters Mill Country Fair focuses on mountain music, Southern foods, living history exhibits and the handmade crafts and original art of 185 talented artists and artisans. Craft demonstrations include blacksmithing, spinning, quilting, rug hooking, woodcarving and hand tufting, a cottage industry that evolved into the tufted carpet industry centered in Dalton, Ga.

At the fair, visitors take self-guided tours of the operating gristmill, Praters Store, Shugart Cotton Gin and the Westbrook Barn complete with farm animals. Across the road from the mill in the 1898 Praters store guests taste authentic Southern meals. Elsewhere throughout the festival are other specialties such as pit-cooked barbecue, apple cider, fried apple pies and churned ice cream.

During the fair, families enjoy canoeing on the Coahulla Creek, a walk down the nature trail and pony rides for children. Educational exhibits include an authentic Civil War encampment, working antique engines and Peacock Alley, a clothesline display of hand-tufted bedspreads.

Continuous entertainment on stage features Appalachian-style clogging teams, country bands and gospel singers. Wandering musicians, jugglers, dulcimer players and storytellers perform throughout the festival area.

In many minds, the highlight of the Fair is the food. The Dalton Pike Church of God serve authentic Southern dishes chicken and dumplings, collard greens, and corn bread cooked on a wood stove near the 1898 Praters store (located just across the road from the mill). Other regional favorites are served at various points on the festival grounds. These include delicacies such as Johns Family pit-cooked barbecue, Cochran Family fried apple pies, North Georgia apple cider, and even fresh-churned ice cream.

The Praters Mill Country Fair is sponsored by the Praters Mill Foundation, a non-profit organization of volunteers dedicated to historic preservation and education. Nearly 40 civic clubs, churches and schools also participate in the community event.