Toccoa

The James B. Simmons House, also known as the Simmons-Bond House, was built in 1903 by the noted Georgia architect E. Levi Prater for James B.... Simmons, a successful lumberman. The main occupants of the house have been the James B. Simmons and the Julius Belton Bond families. The property was add to the United States National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The house, located in downtown Toccoa, Georgia across from the county courthouse, is representative of the frame Queen Anne Style Greek Revival houses built in Northern Georgia around the turn of the Twentieth century. Lumberman Simmons' utilized oak extensively throughout the house. Features include a built-in oak china cabinet, carved oak newel posts, dentil molding, extensive oak panels, oak pocket doors, and oak flooring.
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Ida Cox was an African American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as "The... Uncrowned Queen of the Blues". Cox was born in February, 1896 as Ida Prather in Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia, United States , the daughter of Lamax and Susie Prather, and grew up in Cedartown, Georgia, singing in the local African Methodist Church choir. She left home to tour with traveling minstrel shows, often appearing in blackface into the 1910s; she married fellow minstrel performer Adler Cox. By 1920, she was appearing as a headline act at the 81 Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia; another headliner at that time was Jelly Roll Morton. After the success of Mamie Smith's pioneering 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues", record labels realized there was a demand for recordings of race music. The classic female blues era had begun, and would extend through the 1920s.
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Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. Named after King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 21, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15,... 1870. Georgia is the 24th most extensive and the 9th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. Atlanta is the state's capital and its most populous city. Georgia is bordered on the south by Florida; on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina; on the west by Alabama; and on the north by Tennessee and North Carolina. The northern part of the state is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mountain range in the Appalachian Mountains system.
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