LULA — A project that began with scattered stories and years of notes has become a 300-page account of two Northeast Georgia communities shaped by the arrival of the railroad.
Local author Mark Lusink recently published The Lula Belton Story Book: A Tale of Two Competing Railroad Towns, bringing together approximately 15 years of research into the people, events and transportation routes that influenced Lula, Belton and surrounding communities.
Lusink said he did not begin collecting information with a firm plan to publish a book.
“I wanted to preserve it,” he said.
Over time, however, his computer filled with notes. Turning that collection into a chronological history presented another challenge because many of the stories did not include dates or recognizable modern addresses.
Early descriptions often identified a location only by its proximity to someone’s house, a river, a road or even a cornfield.
“There was no date on any of these stories that I had,” Lusink said. “I had to try to pull these locations together to where someone who’s reading this history now can understand where it is.”
More Than a History of Two Towns
Although the book centers on Lula and Belton, Lusink said its historical reach is much broader.
The story begins before either community existed, examining the Creek and Cherokee presence in the area and the changes that followed European settlement. It also touches on the Revolutionary War and the policies and conflicts that eventually displaced Native American communities.
From there, the book follows the people and decisions that brought rail transportation into Northeast Georgia. Lusink discusses Athens businessman Rufus Moss, the Northeast Railroad and the development of the Tallulah Falls Railroad.
That history brings the book directly into Habersham County. Cornelia served as mile marker zero for the Tallulah Falls Railroad, a short-line railroad that became an important transportation link through Northeast Georgia and the mountains of western North Carolina. The book also explains how Cornelia received its name.
“It’s strictly about Lula and Belton, which is why I say it’s a tale of two competing railroad towns,” Lusink said. “But it also encompasses how all this came together.”
According to Lusink’s account, Belton existed as a small settlement before Lula emerged. He described early Belton as a community of one-story, wood-frame stores where merchants often operated businesses in the front of a building and lived behind them.
Lula developed differently.
When a railroad connection was planned for the area, Lusink said the Banks brothers recognized an investment opportunity. Rather than growing gradually from an existing settlement, Lula developed quickly around the railroad junction.
“Lula was just an investment; it was not a settlement,” Lusink said. “The existence of Lula was overnight.”
Lusink traces Lula’s beginnings to 1872 and the completion of the railroad junction in 1873. The new transportation connection spurred rapid development and helped establish the community as an important railroad town.
The book continues through the decline of the cotton economy, the boll weevil, the Great Depression and the years when Lula’s growth slowed. It concludes by examining the community’s more recent resurgence.
Fifteen Years of Notes Become a Book
Once Lusink decided to turn his research into a book, he contacted publishers inside and outside the area. Other local authors recommended BookLogix, which helped scan and organize his manuscript, insert page numbers and prepare the material for publication.
The publisher also offered to design the cover, but Lusink chose to create it himself.
He initially considered print runs ranging from 100 copies to 1,000 before settling on 250. Lusink worried that 250 might be too many, but the response quickly eased those concerns.
After the book had been available for approximately three weeks, Lusink estimated that only about 60 copies remained.
The book sells for $35 and is available at Lula Mercantile Vintage Shop and Lula Pharmacy.
For Lusink, the finished volume accomplishes the goal that first motivated him to save the stories: preserving a complicated local history before its details disappear.
What began as a computer full of notes is now a permanent record of how two competing railroad towns—and the communities surrounding them—came to be.
