Sweetwater Creek History Hike and Mill Ruins (Last Minute)

Let’s hike some of the trails at Sweetwater Creek State Park on both the Eastside and Westside of the creek.  This will be a History Hike, so I will be stopping from time to time during the hike to share some of the history of ruins we will encounter along the way.  

Our hike will start by crossing Sweetwater Creek and hiking the Yellow Trail Loop.  As we descend the Yellow trail back towards the river, we will pass an old cave that was used by Native Americans many centuries ago.  We will also take a short detour off the Yellow trail to view the Manchester Mill Ruins from across the creek. From there we will follow the Yellow trail back up steam and cross the Iron bridge over Sweetwater Creek.

Now on the Westside of the creek, we will follow the red trail downstream all the way to the old Mill Ruins.  When these mills were operating in the mid 1800’s, the five story Mill was the tallest structure in the entire Atlanta region.  Like most of the other mills operating in the area during the Civil War, they were also burned by Sherman during his 1864 campaign to take Atlanta. They were never rebuilt after the war.  Next we will continue downstream beyond the mill ruins on the Red and White trails all the way to the Brown Trail. This trail section received some rehab during the recent trail renovations but parts of it are quite rocky and technical hiking.  We will be taking our time in this section but if you are not a fan of rocky, technical hiking, this hike might not be for you.  We will then take parts of the Green and White trails back to the Visitors Center. 

In total, we will cover approximately 7 miles in about 3.5 hours.  This is a solid D-3 hike.  Due to the elevation gain on this hike, its length and rocky trails on portions of our hike, I would not recommend this hike for new beginners or those who are not comfortable traversing rocky, technical trails.  However those with multiple D-2 and D-3 experience should be fine.

This hike is located in a State Park so parking will cost $5 or use of an annual GA State Park parking pass. There are bathroom facilities in the Visitor Center near where we will depart.

Coordinates for Parking Lot are 33.753299, -84.628643