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     How long does is take for a canyon to form?  Millions of years? Many people believe it takes that long except the people who live near a small town called Lumpkin in southwest Georgia.  Where 150 years ago there were once rolling hills and untouched pines, today there is a deep, massive gully known to many as "Georgia's Little Grand Canyon".

     Providence Canyon - GA's Little Grand Canyon - is a deep chasm with nine-finger like canyons.  These canyons range in size from 1,300 feet long, 180 feet wide and 160 feet deep.  On visiting the site, one will see beauty like never seen before.  Colored rocks including bright red clay, white kaolin and 43 different colors of sand in colors of pink, orange, purple, yellow, tan, and black are everywhere. 

      Trees such as maples, weeping willows, blackjack oaks, and sweet gums grow in abundance in the canyons base. Different species of wildflowers and the rare red and orange plumleaf azaleas find a haven in the base as well.

 WHAT HAPPENED TO CAUSE THIS CANYON?

     There was a dramatic change from the rolling hills of the early 1800's to today's beautiful canyons.  The canyons were started when farmers cleared the land of its native forest so that they could grow crops.  The properties of the soil and sediments underneath the area and the layout of the land caused extreme erosion once the trees were gone.

     Today the canyons are not growing deeper but they are growing wider with every rain the area receives.

 

 

DID YOU KNOW?

  • The residents of Lumpkin in the 1940's spoke about lying in bed on cold winter nights during heavy rains and hearing bangs that sounded like cannon fire.  What they were hearing were big chunks of earth as it fell from the side walls into the bottom of the canyon.

  • Records show that the Providence United Methodist Church had to be moved in 1859 to the other side of the road because the canyon had come too close!

  • If you stand at the edge on top of the canyons and speak in a normal tone, people who are visiting the bottom of the canyon can hear every word you have spoken.  

 

Dodge County Middle School

5911 Oak Street, Eastman, Georgia  31023  ~ (478) 374 - 6492 ~ FAX (478) 374 - 6484