Oktoberfest Comes to Georgia
Near Helen, Georgia
Soon after Alpine Helen opened, the town launched its Oktoberfest. It was a logical extension of the Bavarian theme, and a way to fill out the fall tourism calendar and give visitors a reason to return after the leaf color first drew them in. In Munich, the original Oktoberfest began in eighteen ten as a celebration of a royal wedding and grew into the largest folk festival in the world.
Helen's version is smaller, but not by as much as you might expect. It grew into one of the best known Oktoberfest celebrations in the United States, drawing visitors to the Chattahoochee River gorge for German beer, pretzels, lederhosen, polka bands, and a genuine enthusiasm for a borrowed tradition. The festival runs for weeks through the fall, spread across many weekends.
During peak Oktoberfest weekends, Helen becomes one of the most crowded places in Georgia. A town that had been searching for an identity in the nineteen sixties found one in a piece of Bavaria that Bavaria itself never built in the Blue Ridge mountains of Georgia.
