Eastern Continental Divide Tourism!?
Decatur Metro | April 10, 2010
Get on this Decatur! Apparently there’s tourism dollars in dem dar Divide. 
Ripped from the AJC’s recent article entitled “Duluth hopes to cash in on Eastern Continental Divide”…
“Any community [in Georgia] could mark the path the [Eastern Continental] divide takes, but I can almost guarantee that no other location along the divide presents the unique opportunity for personal interaction that this one does,” said Chris McGahee, the city’s economic development manager.
Personal interaction with the continental divide?
“It’s in the most scenic part of town.”
Oh. Um, OK.
“Hopefully, we can find a way to market and identify this,” Duluth Mayor Nancy Harris said. “We’re always looking for ways for Duluth to be a destination.”
Oh man, I really hope they’re about to say something about railroad tourism, since you know, the railroad follows the Eastern Continental Divide and established many of the cities along its route as regional centers.
“We might sell some Eastern Continental Divide ice cream,” McGahee said. “Who the heck knows. We can sell pizza with Gulf shrimp and Savannah shrimp.”
D’oh! So close.
Latest from Decaturish
Hmmm. hanging out at the CSX tracks to eat seafood.. Hasn’t that been tried recently?
It runs through Decatur at the East Lake MARTA station.
here’s a link to a (large) map that a guy made as he’s trying to estimate the location of the divide in Georgia:
http://www.gpsinformation.org/jack/Divide/DV.jpg
interesting how they basically built the railroad tracks from past Clarkston to Atlanta on the divide:
http://www.gpsinformation.org/jack/Divide/DivideCommunities.html
Railroad engineers love divides between watersheds. Until the divide reaches the mountains, they are relatively flat (fewer cuts to dig and grades to build up), but the best part is no expensive bridges to build over creeks and rivers.
Their second favorite is next to rivers. They’re really, really flat (lower fuel costs), have lots of destinations like cities, but the trade-off is there are more bridges to build.
Just looked at proofs last week of a map we plan to install at Glenlake Park and also at the railroad crossings showing where the continental divide travels through our city.
I felt elevated as I rode MARTA from Decatur to downtown this morning.