Kelpen Homestead and Old Main Road to Roswell
Just across the street you can still see the standing remnants of the chimney from the old Kelpen Homestead. In your view was a Delta formed by the stream known as Butler´s Branch where it joined the Chattahoochee River. In the 1850s, William Kelpen began farming the land that lies on both sides of the stream and built his house on the delta. He and his family lived here until the Georgia Power Company purchased the land prior to construction of a power dam downstream at Morgan Falls. The dam, then known as the Bulls Sluice dam, was completed in 1904 and caused Kelpen´s bottomland and home site to flood. An old, now abandoned, road led from the River Road (Azalea Drive), past the Kelpen house and up the hill to town. It was the main road from Roswell to the river, prior to the construction of the covered bridge.
Plaque courtesy Lat34North.com.
Original page, with additional info, here.
Photo credit: Byron Hooks of Lat34North.com.