Imagine it: thousands of long-haired rafters, armed with beer and more, floating downstream on homemade crafts, while hundreds of thousands more gawked from the riverbanks.
One weekend every summer for much of the 1970s, this was the scene on the Chattahoochee River, just north of Atlanta. It all started in 1969, when Tech student Larry Patrick organized an end-of-the-year outing for his fraternity brothers. By 1980, when the last Chattahoochee Ramblin’ Raft Race made its last run, it had become “the world’s biggest floating party,” according to Clifford Kuhn, a Georgia State University history professor.
Yesterday, Kuhn appeared on WABE, Atlanta’s local NPR station, to talk about the Raft Race with host Steve Goss. Listen to their full conversation here.
A reminder of the illustrious (some would say notorious) event seems to bubble up in local news every once in a while; the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Creative Loafing and Atlanta have all made their tributes in recent years.
The event, of course, took its name from Tech’s very own vehicular mascot.
These days, the closest you can get to recapturing the race’s glory days is through one of the Chattahoochee’s many raft- or tube-rental services, which Kuhn suggests popped up in the wake of the race’s wild popularity.
Patrick, meanwhile, went on to found the American Rafting Association, which helped popularize recreational rafting around the country. Though we’re pretty sure no other river has ever looked quite like this. (Warning: Mild nudity there, and lots of misadvised mustaches.)
Above: Spectators behold the 1979 Ramblin’ Raft Race, via the AJC.
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