The Plateau Above Peachtree Creek: How VAHI Got The High Ground

Lyrics

[Intro]


[Verse 1]
Before the names, there was the land.
Peachtree Creek to the north, Clear Creek to the south.
Always talking to themselves in the low places.
Muddy banks, humid air, the scent of rot and river water.
But between them, a shelf.
A plateau of red clay and pine.
Where the air was drier and the ground held firm.
The Mvskoke knew the path.
The high road, the dry road.

[Verse 2]
Then came the men from the Highland Land Company.
Around 1888.
With their maps and their surveyor's chains.
They weren't looking for beauty, not really.
They were looking for a bargain with gravity.
A place that wouldn't swallow foundations whole.
George Collier's farm, high and dry.
They saw profit in the well-drained dirt.
You could say a developer's greatest fear is a wet basement.

[Chorus]
It's the simple story of the high ground.
Fifty feet of elevation is a kind of grace.
Peachtree Creek keeps its distance.
Clear Creek knows its place.
And the streetcar came rattling up the spine of the ridge.
The path of least resistance.
The driest line on the map.

[Verse 3]
So the grids were drawn and the hammers rang.
A different sound up here.
Not the squelch of construction down by the water.
A solid thud on solid earth.
They say these bungalows have good bones.
Well, the bones of this land were good first.
Sturdy, reliable.
Built on a foundation that water couldn't argue with.

[Bridge]
You still feel it, walking on Greenwood Avenue after a July storm.
The sidewalks aren't slick with mud.
The porch posts on St. Charles aren't swollen with damp.
This isn't an accident of history.
It's geology.
A decision made by water and rock, long before the first deed was signed.

[Outro]

The creeks still whisper.
Down below.
In their damp beds.
And up here, the plateau holds steady.
A hundred years of dry floors.
A hundred years of staying put.