New mural to depict 100 years of Helen’s story
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Passers-by along South Main Street in Helen will get a view of a new mural in the works that depicts a century of the community’s history. (Photo/Stephanie Hill) -
Anna Wilkins paints some of the details on the new mural in Helen. (Photo/Stephanie Hill) -
Anna Wilkins was focused on her painting of the new mural in Helen. (Photo/Stephanie Hill) -
Anna Wilkins works on adding the river to the mural. (Photo/Stephanie Hill) -
When completed, the new mural by Anna Wilkins will show 100 years of Helen's history. (Photo/Stephanie Hill)
A picture might be worth 1,000 words, but the newest mural in Helen tells a lot more.
It’s a visual story of the city’s history, going back about 100 years, says Anna Wilkins, a Helen artist who is painting the mural.
“We tend to forget history. We tend to not learn it, and that’s always what drives me to do these things,” she says.
The mural is on a wall near Randy’s Helen Pharmacy, facing Main Street south of downtown. Wilkins chose the spot because it doesn’t get direct sun, which can fade the image.
“I just started with the beginning of Helen, not the whole area,” she says. “It’s just kind of the way of life back then – the lumberjacks, mining, panning for gold, and the sawmill – which was kind of the heart of everything.”
Wilkins has been painting the mural for about a month, adding that she’s enjoyed the process.
“It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve met a lot of people,” she says. “They come by and I get to tell them a little bit about the history of Helen and about the arts center and about the history museum down there.”
When facing the roughly 17-feet-wide by 8-feet-tall mural, the top left part shows Helen from around the early 1900s. The timeline transitions down into the Mountain Ranch that was in Helen.
“A lot of people don’t know about that (Mountain Ranch). It was a pretty amazing place for this point in time,” Wilkins says. “It was near the Helen library and where the kids’ playground is. That was located there, and it was quite a hotel/ranch back in its time. They actually had indoor plumbing, and people from everywhere came. It had a swimming pool, they played golf there, and they rode horses, a lot of different things.”
The mural scene continues into the 1960s and industrial development in Helen, which involved the Wilkins family.
“I’m going to put them in because they started the industrial part of Helen, so the argyle socks, and then Orbit factory,” Wilkins says.
The right side of the mural will feature the transformation of the city into Alpine Helen, one of the top tourist destinations in Georgia. That part of the painting will include the “founding fathers” of Alpine Helen’s concept: Jim Wilkins, Bob Fowler, Pete Hodkinson and John Kollock. Wilkins says Kollock – a renowned local artist who developed the city’s Bavarian-themed styling – will be on a scaffold in the mural. She is also going to add other elements synonymous with Helen, including the pedestrian bridge, river tubers, hot air balloons and more.
Wilkins says she can only paint a few hours each day because of the summer temperatures and her work schedule, but she hopes to be done with the main mural by the end of October. Though, she says she’ll probably make some later additions.
“All the people that were surrounding Helen, there were a ton of characters, and I hope that maybe when I finish everything, I’ll have space to go back and put some of those characters in,” she said. “Who knows how long I’ll be coming back and adding to it, because an artist is never finished.”