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Dahlonega council blocks Butler building demolition
Owner wants to build hotel at site of KKK sign controversy
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The Parks, left, and Butler buildings stand in Dahlonega on Monday. The two structures are at the center of a debate over historic preservation in the Gold City, as the buildings' owner wants to tear them down and build a three-story hotel. - photo by Nick Bowman
The Butler building in downtown Dahlonega won’t be demolished any time soon. In a meeting on Tuesday, Dahlonega City Council members unanimously sided with the town’s Historic Preservation Commission over property owner Roberta Green Garrett, who hopes to demolish the building and an adjacent structure to build a 70-plus room hotel near the Gold City square. Green Garrett owns both the Butler and Parks buildings on East Main Street — found by the Dahlonega HPC to have historical value worth preserving in the town. The fate of the structures caught national attention in February when a sign advertising the Butler building as a former meeting place of the Ku Klux Klan was posted on the building along with a KKK banner.