Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian National Scenic Trail known as the Appalachian Trail or the A. T. is a marked hiking trail in the Eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. The trail is about 2,200 miles long, though the exact length changes over time as parts are modified or rerouted; the Appalachian Trail Conservancy describes the Appalachian Trail as the longest hiking-only trail in the world. More than 2 million people are said to take a hike on part of the trail at least once each year; the idea of the Appalachian Trail came about in 1921. The trail itself was completed in 1937 after more than a decade of work, although improvements and changes continue, it is maintained by 31 trail clubs and multiple partnerships, managed by the National Park Service, United States Forest Service, the nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Most of the trail is in forest or wild lands, although some portions traverse towns and farms, it passes through 14 states: Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine.
Thru-hikers attempt to hike the trail in its entirety in a single season. The number of thru-hikes per year has increased with 715 northbound and 133 southbound thru-hikes reported for 2017. Many books, documentaries and fan organizations are dedicated to the pursuit; some hike from one end to the other turn around and thru-hike the trail the other way, known as a "yo-yo". An extension known as the International Appalachian Trail continues northeast, crossing Maine and cutting through Canada to Newfoundland, with sections continuing in Greenland, through Europe, into Morocco. Other separate extensions continue the southern end of the Appalachian range in Alabama and continue south into Florida, creating what is known as the Eastern Continental Trail; the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail form what is known as the Triple Crown of Hiking in the United States. The trail was conceived by Benton MacKaye, a forester who wrote his original plan—called "An Appalachian Trail, A Project in Regional Planning"—shortly after the death of his wife in 1921.
MacKaye's idea detailed a grand trail that would connect a series of farms and wilderness work/study camps for city-dwellers. In 1922, at the suggestion of Major William A. Welch, director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, his idea was publicized by Raymond H. Torrey with a story in the New York Evening Post under a full-page banner headline reading "A Great Trail from Maine to Georgia!" The idea was adopted by the new Palisades Interstate Park Trail Conference as their main project. On October 7, 1923, the first section of the trail, from Bear Mountain west through Harriman State Park to Arden, New York, was opened. MacKaye called for a two-day Appalachian Trail conference to be held in March 1925 in Washington, D. C; this meeting inspired the formation of the Appalachian Trail Conference. A retired judge named Arthur Perkins and his younger associate Myron Avery took up the cause. In 1929, a member of the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and its Blue Blazed Trails committee, found Ned Anderson, a farmer in Sherman, who took on the task of mapping and blazing the Connecticut leg of the trail.
It ran from Dog Tail Corners in Webatuck, New York, which borders Kent, Connecticut, at Ashley Falls, 50 miles through the northwest corner of the state, up to Bear Mountain at the Massachusetts border. Anderson's efforts helped spark renewed interest in the trail, Avery was able to bring other states on board. Upon taking over the ATC, Avery adopted the more practical goal of building a simple hiking trail, he and MacKaye clashed over the ATC's response to a major commercial development along the trail's path. Avery reigned as Chairman of the ATC from 1932 to 1952. Avery became the first to walk the trail end-to-end, though not as a thru-hike, in 1936. In August 1937, the trail was completed to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, the ATC shifted its focus toward protecting the trail lands and mapping the trail for hikers. Many of the trail's present highlights were not part of the trail in 1937: Roan Mountain, North Carolina and Tennessee. Except for places where the Civilian Conservation Corps was brought in, the original trail climbed straight up and down mountains, creating rough hiking conditions and a treadway prone to severe erosion.
The ATC's trail crews and volunteer trail-maintaining clubs have relocated or rehabilitated miles of trail since that time. In 1936, a 121-day Maine to Georgia veteran's group funded and supported thru-hike was reported to have been completed, with all but three miles of the new trail cleared and blazed, by six Boy Scouts from New York City and their guides; the completed thru-hike was much recorded and accepted by the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association. In 1938, the trail sustained major damage from a hurricane; this happened right before the start of World War II
Tugaloo River
The Tugaloo River is a 45.9-mile-long river bordering the U. S. states of South Carolina. It was named for the Cherokee town of Tugaloo at the mouth of Toccoa Creek, near present-day Toccoa and Travelers Rest in Stephens County, Georgia, it is fed by the Tallulah River and the Chattooga River, which each form an arm of Lake Tugalo, on the edge of Georgia's Tallulah Gorge State Park. The Tugaloo flows out of the lake via Tugaloo Dam, passing into Lake Yonah and through Yonah Dam; the river ends as an arm of Lake Hartwell, as does South Carolina's Seneca River. After flowing out of Lake Hartwell, it is called the Savannah River. Territorial claims to the river and its islands were settled with the Treaty of Beaufort in 1787, as interpreted in the two Georgia v. South Carolina cases before the U. S. Supreme Court in 1922 and 1989; the river is one of the boundaries of the Treaty of New York. The river's watershed is home to some of the most challenging whitewater in the Southeast, luring sport kayakers and canoeists from all over the country.
The name of the river comes from Tugaloo, a Cherokee town, located on the river near the mouth of Toccoa Creek. U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Tugaloo River South Carolina DHEC
Cornelia, Georgia
Cornelia is a city in Habersham County, United States. The population was 4,160 at the 2010 census, up from 3,674 at the 2000 census, it is home to one of the world's largest apple sculptures, displayed on top of an obelisk-shaped monument. Cornelia was the retirement home of baseball legend Ty Cobb, born nearby, was a base of operation for production of the 1956 Disney film The Great Locomotive Chase, filmed along the Tallulah Falls Railway that ran from Cornelia northward along the rim of Tallulah Gorge to Franklin, North Carolina. Cornelia is located in southern Habersham County at 34°30′49″N 83°31′51″W, it is bordered to the southwest by Baldwin. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.0 square miles, of which 0.04 square miles, or 1.06%, are water. Cornelia was called "Blaine", under the latter name had its start in the early 1870s when the Charlotte Airline Railroad was extended to that point; the Georgia General Assembly incorporated the place in 1887 as the "Town of Cornelia".
Cornelia abounds in historical lore. Near the city is the Wofford Trail, on which many stagecoach robberies occurred; the last railroad holdup in Georgia took place at Cagle's Crossing, a few miles south of Cornelia. The whole of Habersham County was loyal to the Confederacy and was known, along with the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and countless other fertile, out-of-the-way places as the "breadbasket of the Confederacy", as thousands of bushels of wheat and corn were supplied to the troops from this area alone. After the fall of Atlanta, a detachment of Sherman's cavalry was sent to raid the county. By making considerable noise and stirring up clouds of smoke, they scared off the enemy and saved the area from complete devastation. Today this skirmish is remembered as "The Battle of the Narrows". A few years after the war, a young school teacher named William Herschel Cobb and his wife Amanda settled near the site of this skirmish, she gave birth in 1886 to one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Ty Cobb.
Cornelia has been helped in its growth by its good schools. In the early days, the school system was operated by the town of Cornelia; each student provided their books and paid a tuition fee, half payable before Christmas, with the balance due after Christmas. The school principal would determine what books would be needed and would send someone to Atlanta to order books and supplies from the publishers. Among the first schools was the Kimsey Institute, located on land given by T. J. Kimsey; the First Baptist Church was organized there. Willie Grant and J. T. Wise were two of the early teachers. After attendance outgrew the early frame building in 1897, another school was built with Professor A. E. Booth elected as principal. According to the document published by the Habersham County Department of Education in 1937, Professor Booth added a training course for teachers, students were attracted to this school from all sections of northeast Georgia. Cornelia Normal Institute was chartered on May 27, 1901.
It was supported by many progressive citizens, including D. A. York, J. T. King, J. A. Walker, W. D. Burch, L. J. Ragsdale, J. T. Peyton, L. L. Lyon, J. W. Peyton, J. J. Kimsey, I. T. Sellers, J. C. McConnell, J. W. McConnell, A. J. Brown, R. C. Moss, T. S. Wells, John S. Crawford, George Erwin, J. C. Edwards. In 1952, the schools in Habersham were consolidated; the elementary schools had been kept in each town but two high schools were built, one to serve each end of the county. Prior to 1952, Cornelia Public School served all the students residing in Cornelia; the high school curriculum included college preparatory and business classes, athletics for both males and females, "expression". The school's first graduates were in the Class of 1899 and included Martin L. York, Charles Crunkleton, Calvania T. York, Albert N. McConnell, Wylie G. Light, Ida K. Baugh. German and Swiss immigrants used their wine-making skills to create an industry in the 1880s that flourished until a prohibition law stopped it. Cotton and lumber products, the apple and peach industries were important to the success of the area.
Riegel Textile built one of the region's first major industrial facilities in 1966 with what was an ultra-modern, cutting edge textile mill designed by Bill Pittendreigh in the neighboring community of Alto. As with any city, there were a number of businesses, but hotels contributed to the growth and development of the city in its early history. Cornelia's Big Red Apple, located at the old train depot in downtown, pays homage to the apple and apple growers of the county. Built of steel and concrete in 1925, the statue, according to Habersham County, weighs 5,200 pounds and is 7 feet high. Towards the end of World War I, "extension agents" began to play a important role in northeast Georgia; these people, as a group, supported the end of the one-crop economy. Throughout the state they began to educate farmers in crop diversification so that if one crop failed income from other crops could support the family. In Gwinnett and Hall counties, farmers increased production of dairy products; the peach crop in Bartow County was expanded.
In Habersham and Gilmer counties farmers increased production of peaches. The extension agents' push for this diversity seemed prescient, for in 1922 the boll weevil began the sy
U.S. Route 441 in Georgia
U. S. Route 441 in the state of Georgia is a north–south United States Highway, it runs from the Florida border near the Fargo city area to the North Carolina state line, north of Dillard. It is a spur route of US 41, it does have an intersection with another spur route of US 41 however US 341 in McRae-Helena. US 441 is signed concurrently with various state routes; the route is concurrent with State Route 89 for the first 56.9 miles. Other concurrencies include SR 64 in the Pearson area, SR 31 from south of Pearson to Dublin, SR 30 in the vicinity of McRae-Helena, SR 117 from near Rentz to south of Dublin, SR 19 within Dublin, SR 29 from Dublin to Milledgeville, SR 24 from Milledgeville to northwest of Watkinsville, SR 15 from the Watkinsville area to the North Carolina state line, SR 365 from Cordelia to Mount Airy. Concurrencies of US 441 with US Routes in Georgia include US 221 from south of Pearson state line to Douglas, US 319 from the south of Jacksonville to Dublin, US 280 in the vicinity of McRae-Helena, US 129 from Eatonton to Athens, US 278 in the Madison area, US 29 and US 78 within Athens, US 23 from Cornelia to the North Carolina state line, US 76 in Clayton.
US 441/SR 89 begins at the Florida state line in Echols County, but has no major junctions in the county. US 441 enters Clinch County southwest of Fargo. South of Fargo, it concurs with SR 94. SR 94 splits off in downtown Fargo. SR 89 heads north. In Homerville, US 441 junctions with US 84, SR 38, SR 187. North of Homerville, SR 89 junctions with SR 122. SR 89 enters Atkinson County south of Pearson. Just south of town, SR 89 terminates at US 221/SR 31/SR 64, however US 441 continues north along that multiplex until it reaches the town where SR 64 leaves at US 82. North of US 82, US 221/US 441/SR 31 becomes a four-lane undivided highway that runs northeast after the bridge over Pudding Creek curves to the northwest along the left bank of the Satilla River turns straight north to cross that river. Six miles the routes enter Douglas. Right at Douglas Municipal Airport US 221 leaves the US 441 multiplex at the intersection of SR 135/SR 32 Truck/SR 158 Truck and the southern terminus of SR 206. Shortly after this, US 441/SR 31 splits into a one-way pair just south of Trojan Lane.
Northbound US 441/SR 31 now runs along Madison Avenue, while southbound US 441/SR 31 runs along South Peterson Avenue. The streets intersect College Park Road, which leads to South Georgia State College off to the west, but three blocks intersects its first major intersection as the one way pair, SR 158. One block after the intersections with Cherry Street and Peterson Avenues enter the Downtown Douglas Historic District where they both cross Seaboard Coast Line Railroad grade crossings. Two to three blocks after the tracks, it has intersections with SR 32, a one-way pair along Ashley Street and Ward Street. Leaving the historic district at Jackson Street, South Peterson Avenue moves away from Madison Avenue, but the two streets start to move closer together again north of Church Street; the one-way pair ends north of North Chester Avenue and McNeal Drive, US 441/SR 31 crosses the Private First Class DeWayne King U. S. M. C. Memorial Bridge over Twenty Mile Creek. After Frank Vaughn Road, the route crosses an underground petroleum line right-of-way and an abandoned railroad line right-of-way next to it.
From there the street name changes from North Peterson Avenue to Douglas–Broxton Highway. North of a power line right-of-way. US 441/SR 31 continues straight north until it reaches the intersection of Leroy Sapp Road turns to the north-northeast before crossing a bridge over Seventeen Mile River. North of Riverbend Road, the routes curve from north-northeast to northwest and runs through local farmland. Within Broxton, the road is named Alabama Avenue, it makes a turn to the west just after the intersection with South Railroad Street and has a brief concurrency with SR 268 between Ocmulgee Street and west of Porea Street. Curving back to the northwest, it approaches the eastern terminus of former SR 706, resumes its presence in Southern Georgia farm and ranch territory; the road turns straight north before encountering an intersection with SR 107, which joins US 441/SR 31 in a short concurrency turns northwest again. Right after the bridge over Mill Creek, the concurrency with SR 107 is replaced by the one with US 319, as westbound SR 107 turns onto southbound US 319, northbound US 319 joins US 441/SR 31.
The first major landmark along US 319/US 441/SR 31 is the Jacksonville Ferry Bridge over the Ocmulgee River at the Coffee–Telfair county line the routes curve from northwest to northeast as they enter Jacksonville itself, where the road has a signalized intersection with SR 117. North of SR 117, US 319/US 441/SR 31 runs straight north and the first intersection is with Old Scotland Road, a de facto connecting road with SR 149, it continues to run straight north until it crosses a bridge over Alligator Creek, another one over Horse Creek, before curving north-northeast. The route curves to the northeast again as it runs through Workmore, which has a blinker light intersection with Telfair CR 240, a high school named for the community. North of there, the surrounding retain their rural status, with untouched forest land on the west side and random farm and ranch land, on the east side. A pair of roadside parks can be found south of Telfair CR 108. North of there, the road encounters the northern terminus of Telfair County Road 152 right n
Chattahoochee River
The Chattahoochee River forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida - Georgia border. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a short river formed by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers and emptying from Florida into Apalachicola Bay in the Gulf of Mexico; the Chattahoochee River is about 430 miles long. The Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers together make up the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River Basin; the Chattahoochee makes up the largest part of the ACF's drainage basin. The source of the Chattahoochee River is located in Jacks Gap at the southeastern foot of Jacks Knob, in the southeastern corner of Union County, in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains; the headwaters of the river flow south from ridges. The Appalachian Trail crosses the river's uppermost headwaters; the Chattahoochee's source and upper course lies within Chattahoochee National Forest. From its source in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Chattahoochee River flows southwesterly to Atlanta and through its suburbs.
It turns due-south to form the southern half of the Georgia/Alabama state line. Flowing through a series of reservoirs and artificial lakes, it flows by Columbus, the second-largest city in Georgia, the Fort Benning Army base. At Columbus, it crosses the Fall Line of the eastern United States. From Lake Oliver to Fort Benning, the Chattahoochee Riverwalk provides cycling and walking along 15 miles of the river's banks. Farther south, it merges with the Flint River and other tributaries at Lake Seminole near Bainbridge, to form the Apalachicola River that flows into the Florida Panhandle. Although the same river, this portion was given a different name by separated settlers in different regions during the colonial times; the name Chattahoochee is thought to come from a Muskogean word meaning "rocks-marked", from chato plus huchi. This refers to the many colorful granite outcroppings along the northeast-to-southwest segment of the river. Much of that segment of the river runs through the Brevard fault zone.
A local Georgia nickname for the Chattahoochee River is "The Hooch". The vicinity of the Chattahoochee River was inhabited in prehistoric times by indigenous peoples since at least 1000 BC; the Kolomoki Mounds, now protected in the Kolomoki Mounds Historic Park near present-day Blakely in Early County in southwest Georgia, were built from 350 AD to 650 AD and constitute the largest mound complex in the state. Among the historical Indigenous nations, the Chattahoochee served as a dividing line between the Muscogee and the Cherokee territories in the Southeast; the Chattahoochee River became the dividing point for the Creek Confederacy, which straddled the river and became known as the Upper Creek Red Sticks and the Lower Creek White Sticks. The United States accomplished the removal of Native Americans, to extinguish their claims and make way for European-American settlement, through a series of treaties, land lotteries, forced removals lasting from 1820 through 1832; the Muscogee were first removed from the southeastern side of the river, the Cherokee from the northwest.
The Chattahoochee River was of considerable strategic importance during the Atlanta Campaign by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman of the American Civil War. Between the tributaries of Proctor Creek and Nickajack Creek on the Cobb and Fulton county lines in metropolitan Atlanta, are nine remaining fortifications nicknamed "Shoupades" that were part of a defensive line occupied by the Confederate Army in early July 1864. Designed by Confederate Brigadier General Francis A. Shoup, the line became known as Johnston's River Line after Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A month prior to the Battle of Atlanta, Shoup talked with Johnston on June 18, 1864 about building fortifications. Johnston agreed, Shoup supervised the building of 36 small elevated earth and wooden triangular fortifications, arranged in a sawtooth pattern to maximize the crossfire of defenders. Sherman tried to avoid the Shoupade defenses by crossing the river to the northeast.
The nine remaining Shoupades consist of the earthworks portion of the original earth and wooden structures. Two of the last battles of the war, West Point and Columbus took place at strategically important crossings of the Chattahoochee. Since the nineteenth century, early improvements and alterations to the river were for the purposes of navigation; the river was a major transportation route. In the twentieth century, the United States Congress passed legislation in 1944 and 1945 to improve navigation for commercial traffic on the river, as well as to establish hydroelectric power and recreational facilities on a series of lakes to be created by building dams and establishing reservoirs. Creating the manmade, 46,000-acre Walter F. George Lake required evacuating numerous communities, including the majority-Native American settlement of Oketeyeconne, Georgia; the lakes were complete in 1963, covering over numerous historic and prehistoric sites of settlement. Beginning in the late twentieth century, the nonprofit organization called "Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper" has advocated for the preservation of the environment and ecology of the northern part of the river the part traversing Metropolitan Atlanta.
In 2010, a campaign to create a whitewater river course was launched in the portion of the Chattahoochee River that runs through Columbus, Georgia. Between 2010 and 2013, const
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is used in Canada, Romania and the United States. County towns have a similar function in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, in Jamaica. In most of the United States, counties are the political subdivisions of a state; the city, town, or populated place that houses county government is known as the seat of its respective county. The county legislature, county courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, hall of records and correctional facility are located in the county seat though some functions may be located or conducted in other parts of the county if it is geographically large. A county seat is but not always, an incorporated municipality; the exceptions include the county seats of counties that have no incorporated municipalities within their borders, such as Arlington County, Virginia. Ellicott City, the county seat of Howard County, is the largest unincorporated county seat in the United States, followed by Towson, the county seat of Baltimore County, Maryland.
Some county seats may not be incorporated in their own right, but are located within incorporated municipalities. For example, Cape May Court House, New Jersey, though unincorporated, is a section of Middle Township, an incorporated municipality. In some of the colonial states, county seats include or included "Court House" as part of their name. In the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the term "shire town" is used in place of county seat. County seats in Taiwan are the administrative centers of the counties. There are 13 county seats in Taiwan, which are in the forms of county-administered city, urban township or rural township. Most counties have only one county seat. However, some counties in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont have two or more county seats located on opposite sides of the county. An example is Harrison County, which lists both Biloxi and Gulfport as county seats; the practice of multiple county seat towns dates from the days.
There have been few efforts to eliminate the two-seat arrangement, since a county seat is a source of pride for the towns involved. There are 36 counties with multiple county seats in 11 states: Coffee County, Alabama St. Clair County, Alabama Arkansas County, Arkansas Carroll County, Arkansas Clay County, Arkansas Craighead County, Arkansas Franklin County, Arkansas Logan County, Arkansas Mississippi County, Arkansas Prairie County, Arkansas Sebastian County, Arkansas Yell County, Arkansas Columbia County, Georgia Lee County, Iowa Campbell County, Kentucky Kenton County, Kentucky Essex County, Massachusetts Middlesex County, Massachusetts Plymouth County, Massachusetts Bolivar County, Mississippi Carroll County, Mississippi Chickasaw County, Mississippi Harrison County, Mississippi Hinds County, Mississippi Jasper County, Mississippi Jones County, Mississippi Panola County, Mississippi Tallahatchie County, Mississippi Yalobusha County, Mississippi Jackson County, Missouri Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Seneca County, New York Bennington County, Vermont In New England, the town, not the county, is the primary division of local government.
Counties in this region have served as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems. Connecticut and Rhode Island have no county level of thus no county seats. In Vermont and Maine the county seats are designated shire towns. County government consists only of a Superior Court and Sheriff, both located in the respective shire town. Bennington County has two shire towns. In Massachusetts, most government functions which would otherwise be performed by county governments in other states are performed by town or city governments; as such, Massachusetts has dissolved many of its county governments, the state government now operates the registries of deeds and sheriff's offices in those counties. In Virginia, a county seat may be an independent city surrounded by, but not part of, the county of which it is the administrative center. Two counties in South Dakota have their county seat and government services centered in a neighboring county, their county-level services are provided by Fall River Tripp County, respectively.
In Louisiana, divided into parishes rather than counties, county seats are referred to as parish seats. Alaska is divided into boroughs rather than counties; the Unorganized Borough, which covers 49 % of Alaska's area, has equivalent. The state with the most counties is Texas, with 254, the state with the fewest counties is Delaware, with 3. County seat war Administrative center County town, administrative centres in Ireland and the UK Chef-lieu, administrative centres in Algeria, Luxembourg, France and Tunisia Municipality, equivalent to county in many c
Toccoa, Georgia
Toccoa is a city in, the county seat of, Stephens County, United States, located about 50 miles from Athens and about 90 miles northeast of Atlanta. The population was 8,491 as of the 2010 census. Native Americans, including the Mississippian culture mound builders and the Cherokee, were the original inhabitants in what is now Toccoa and the surrounding area. Indian agent Col. George Chicken was one of the first people to mention Toccoa in his journal from 1725; the first residents of European descent were a small number of American Revolutionary War veterans led by Col. William H. Wofford who moved to the area when the war ended; the area was referred to Wofford's Settlement. Col. Wofford is buried near Toccoa Falls, his son, William T. Wofford, was born near Toccoa, was an officer during the Mexican–American War and a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War; the Georgia Land Lottery of 1820 spurred the migration of Scots-Irish from North Carolina and the Georgia coast.
The Georgia Gold Rush, starting in 1828, the 1838 removal of the Cherokee on the infamous "Trail of Tears" further changed settlement patterns in the area. Toccoa means "beautiful" in the Cherokee language, is derived from the Cherokee term for "where the Catawbas lived." The city was established in 1873 around an area called Dry Pond, named for a pond, waterless most of the time. Three investors - Dr. O. M. Doyle of Oconee County, South Carolina, B. Y. Sage of Atlanta, Thomas Alexander of Atlanta - anticipated the construction of a new railroad through Dry Pond, they purchased 1,765 acres. The City of Toccoa was chartered in 1874 and the names of downtown streets reflect the visionary trio. According to historical accounts, the Johns House, a Victorian cottage near Prather Bridge Road, was built in 1898. Nearby, on a hill overlooking the valley of the upper Tugalo River, is Riverside, a Greek revival antebellum home, built in 1850 by James D. Prather with slave labor and timber from his plantation.
The Prather family cemetery is about fifteen yards from the porch. During the Civil War, General Robert Toombs, a close friend of Prather, used the house as a refuge from northern troops; the soldiers pursued him to Riverside, where he was able to hide in a double closet and escape capture. The first Prather's Bridge was a swinging bridge built in 1804 by James Jeremiah Prather; until travelers crossed the Tugalo River at fords and by ferries. The first bridge was washed away during a freshet. A more substantial bridge was built in 1850, but was burned in 1863 during the Civil War to keep the enemy from crossing. James Jeremiah and his son, James Devereaux, rebuilt the bridge in 1868; this bridge was washed away in 1918, was rebuilt in 1920 by James D. Prather, it was afterwards replaced by a concrete bridge, but was kept as a landmark until burned by vandals in 1978. The Georgia General Assembly created Stephens County in 1905, Toccoa was established as the county seat. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Toccoa on March 23, 1938.
Roosevelt's train made a brief stop in Toccoa, where he made remarks from the rear platform of the presidential train before moving on to Gainesville to deliver a major speech on to Warm Springs for a vacation. Camp Toccoa, a World War II paratrooper training base, was located nearby, it was the first training base for the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, whose Easy Company was subject of the non-fiction book and subsequent HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. Toccoa is home to Travelers Rest, known locally as Jarrett Manor. Toccoa is home of Toccoa Falls College. On November 6, 1977, the Kelly Barnes Dam, located above the college, failed; the resulting flood killed 39. First Lady Rosalynn Carter visited Toccoa the next day. Toccoa Falls is located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College. Toccoa is located at 34°34′29″N 83°19′12″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.4 square miles, of which 8.3 square miles is land and 0.1 square miles is water.
Altitude is 313 m. As of the census of 2010, Toccoa had a total population of 8,491; the 2014 population estimate was 8,257. The median age of a Toccoa resident is 35.4. The number of companies in Toccoa is 1,135. In educational attainment, high school graduate or higher percentage was 84.1%. The total housing units in Toccoa is 4,009; the median household income was $34,047. The foreign-born population was 213; the percentage of individuals below poverty level was 24.4%. Stephens County Development Authority was established in 1965 to continue and sustain the growth of Northeast Georgia. SCDA is responsible for the recruitment of new businesses such as industrial, distribution and regional headquarters and customer service centers. SCDA serves the following cities: Toccoa, Eastanollee and Avalon. Major industrial parks in the area are Toccoa Industrial Park, Meadowbrook Industrial Park, Hayestone Brady Business Park; the top Stephens County employers in descending order are the Stephens County School System, Patterson Pump, ASI, American Woodmark Corp.
Standard Register, Sage Automotive Interiors, Habersham Plantation, Toccoa Falls College, Coats & Clark, Eaton Corporation, PTL Company. Founded
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Habersham County, Georgia
