New Echota State Historic Site will be open only on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays beginning June 16 due to major cuts in the Georgia Department of Natural Resources budget.

The former capital of the Cherokee nation, on Ga. 225 northest of Calhoun, also will lose at least two staff positions because of the budget cuts.

The DNR announced Wednesday that New Echota and 11 other state historic sites will scale back their hours of operation and that five state parks also will reduce their services and access.

“This will limit the availability of the site to visitors during the summer and to school tours once school starts back in August,” said Chief Ranger David Gomez.

Layoffs and unpaid furlough days are also coming for state parks employees. That means fewer rangers and game wardens to police the state’s waterways and woods as recreation season swings into gear.

At New Echota, two positions — Donna Myers, interpretive Ranger, and Gary Greene, a tour guide — will be eliminated, an employee said.

“I am losing the best job I ever had,” Greene said in an e-mail to the Calhoun Times. “State school children will no longer get guided tours at New Echota.” Greene, who has worked at New Echota for the past eight years, said his last day will be June 13.

Gomez said he was not able to discuss any personnel cuts. “I just learned about this Wednesday,” he said.

Some of New Echota’s special events, including the annual garden tours, interpretive tours and the annual Christmas candlelight tours will be scaled back, Gomez said.

“I hope volunteers and friends of New Echota will be able help with these events, but we will have to sit down and analyze what we can do,” he said.

Hours will also be reduced at a number of North Georgia historic sites: The Dahlongega Gold Museum, Chief Vann House in Chatsworth, Etowah Indian Mounds in Cartersville, and Pickett’s Mill Battlefield in Paulding County.