The First Remington

Out in the middle of nowhere, Georgia, before Granada Lake spread wide and black across the land, there was Remington.

Back then, the lake was smaller—more marsh, red clay, and lowland than water.

Not the Remington people know now, with its cleaner streets, newer buildings, and prettier lies. The first Remington was something older. Something built from survival.

The story begins with a Native man and a Black woman running through the woods, hand in hand, hunted by torchlight and angry voices. With nowhere left to go, they slipped into a dark marshy lake and dove beneath the surface, holding each other in the black water while the mob waited on the shore.

But something else waited in the trees.

A pack of red wolves emerged from the dark and chased the mob away.

One wolf lingered behind, taller than the others, watching the couple as they broke the surface and dragged air back into their lungs.

From that moment on, the red wolf became more than an animal.

Guardian.
Omen.
Witness.

The couple survived. Years passed. Cabins became homes. Homes became roads. Roads became shops, churches, porches, farms, and laughter. Black families, Native families, and others who knew how to live among them built a thriving Reconstruction-era settlement in Red Vista County.

They called it Remington.

Named for Abi Remi and her husband, Eagleton.

But survival has always made certain people angry.

In 1912, racial terror drove many of Remington’s Black residents from the land. Decades later, in the 1950s, what remained of the first town was drowned beneath the widening and construction of Granada Lake.

The water did not rise cleanly.

Porches vanished beneath black water. Church bells drowned mid-swing.

Streets became currents. Homes became graves.

The new Remington was later rebuilt miles away, but the old one never truly left.

At the bottom of Granada Lake, the first Remington still lingers.

Not in peace.

In rage.

Some say if you stand too close to the water at night, you can still hear them.

Wailing.
Cursing.
Praying.
Screaming names no one above the water remembers anymore.

Welcome to Red Vista County.

Some stories refuse to stay buried.

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