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Dahlonega, Georgia

Dahlonega, Georgia is a gold-rush tourist town of a few thousand people, officially the "wine tasting room capital of Georgia" according to the state senate, home of the Spud Hut and the base for the party throughout The Things in Appalachia.
Type Location, town
Aliases Dahlonega
Region North Georgia mountains (Appalachia)
Notable institutions Dahlonega Sheriff's Station, Smith Hotel, the Spud Hut
First appearance Appalachia 01

Description

A former gold-rush center, Dahlonega is a small mountain town of roughly six by seven streets, with a gold mining museum, a McDonald's, a food mart, Stigley's Pub and an Express & Suites motel; there is no Walmart. The town's tourist industry is built on its mines. The Smith Hotel desk clerk delivers a tour-guide spiel about the wine tasting and the gold mining museum (Appalachia 01). Underground Gold Mine Tours advertises itself as one mile from downtown, and the town has a newsstand and a second hotel, the Hotel and Suites, which used to be a Best Western (Appalachia 02).

Notable places within

History of events there

October 1992. The team arrives to investigate a missing woman, Willow Greengrass, and reported Bigfoot sightings, and meets the Circle Chasers, Sheriff Burke and the local color (Appalachia 01). Over the arc the disappearances mount, with Willow, Edward Nick, Gene Cartwright, Aaron Richters and Frederick all vanishing. The sheriff laments "too many people going missing" (Appalachia 03).

The Clinton scandal. Presidential candidate Bill Clinton was campaigning in Dahlonega, and a Georgia State Police press conference alleged that the FBI was in town surveilling him (Appalachia 07). Reporters gathered in town, and a Fox 5 crew recognized Andrew Howard live on television (Appalachia 08). See Clinton Surveillance Scandal and Fox 5 Atlanta.

The finale. In Appalachia 09 the party crossed the mines beneath the town, ending at a ladder exit under a tarp in the woods outside the Spud Hut plant (Appalachia 09). The final session was never recorded; the epilogue in Walkers 01 says the Spud Hut facility exploded shortly after Jan fled.

Inhabitants

Sheriff Burke, the Circle Chasers, the Covenant of nearby Auraria, Jan Martense and the Spud Hut staff, and the Smith Hotel clerk. The Spud Hut's perfect-recall counter worker appears as the Spud Hut Counter Savant.

Trivia

  • The Smith Hotel clerk gives the population as about 4,000 in Appalachia 01; in Appalachia 03 Andre says the real-life figure at the time was about 4,500.

Appearances