A Brief History of Cherokee County
During the first hundred years of Georgia's history, northwest Georgia was generally considered "Indian Country" and was bypassed by settlers going west. Georgia had made a treaty with the Federal Government in 1802 to relinquish its Western Territory for the removal of all Indians within its boundaries, and although other tribes had been removed, little was ever done about the Cherokee Indians. Since this was the heartland of the Cherokee Nation, the handling of this delicate problem had been avoided by the State and Nation. Following the discovery of gold near Dahlonega in 1829, settlers promptly ignored the Indian problems and began to move into the area north of Carrollton and west of the Chattahoochee River--sixty nine hundred square miles--that made up Cherokee County. The entire original county included all of the Indian territory that remained in the State of Georgia in 1831. The official birthday of Cherokee County was December 28, 1831. Examples of Indian influence in the names of various areas of Cherokee County can be easily found. The name of the Etowah River is taken from an Indian settlement called Itawa. Salacoa Creek derives its name from the Indian phrase selu-egwa, which is translated as "big corn." Sutallee and Sixes both apparently come from the word sutali, which means six. Hickory Log, Pine Log and Ball Ground were all named by the Indians and literally translated by the white settlers. The town of Waleska was named for an Indian maiden: Warluskee.
Created primarily as an emergency measure, the original county served the temporary purpose of holding the territory together under Georgia's laws while the survey was being made and while a more permanent arrangement could be worked out for its disposition into counties of normal size. Therefore, at the legislative session on December 3, 1832, the original Cherokee was divided into ten counties: Cherokee, Cass (now Bartow), Cobb, Floyd, Forsyth, Gilmer, Lumpkin, Murray, Paulding, and Union. On December 24, 1832, the same legislature added a small tract of land that had been left over in the lower part of the original Cherokee to Campbell County. Divisions made later increased the number of counties made from the original to twenty-two and parts of two others.
The Georgia Gold Rush greatly affected the formation of Cherokee County. It was because of the Gold Rush the fear of Indians was quickly forgotten and white men began to move into mine the area. The gold belt of Georgia passes through Cherokee County, from northeast to southwest, and is about ten miles wide. It is on this belt that the old gold mines of the county are located. In the summer of 1830, following the height of the Georgia Gold Rush, it was estimated that 3,000 men were digging gold in Indian Territory. When the California Gold Rush of 1849 began, most of these men set out West for its fabulous gold deposits. The gold business in Cherokee County went into a slump but there were already several mines in the county. One group of the important mines of Cherokee County were the Sixes Mines, which was said to have produced half a million's dollar worth of gold before the Civil War. Another of the most productive mines was the Franklin Mine, in the northeast corner of the county.
In the Gold Lottery of 1832, a widow, Mrs. Mary G. Franklin, drew a forty-acre lot in the northeast corner of the county. within a week, she had received over a dozen offers for her holding. With her curiosity piqued, Mrs. Franklin decided she should look at her new holding. When she arrived, she found a score of men at work on the lot, shoveling dirt and panning gold. Mrs. Franklin had the men removed and began working the lot, along with her family. She proved to be a good businesswoman and under her supervision, the mine was so productive, she bought the adjoining lots, built a large beautiful home and gave all her children a good education. Nothing definite can be given about the yield of the Franklin Mine, but around 1893, it was said to be producing $1,000 per day. Estimates of its total production after 1880 can go as high as $1,000,000.00.
Gold was not the only metal sought in Cherokee County. During the 1850's a copper- mining fever swept south from Tennessee and engulfed Cherokee County. As a result, there was a corporation formed by Joseph E. Brown and others to develop what later became the "Copper- Mine Hill." this was said to have been the first shaft sunk for copper in the state of Georgia. There were also attempts to open a large vein of iron that was supposed to exist in the northern part of the county. While those attempts were unsuccessful, Bartow and several other counties to the west found iron in "paying" quantities. Ford's Furnace, just across the line into Bartow County, turned out large quantities of pig iron (crude iron) before the Civil War.
From the Cherokee County Web Site
The Towns of Cherokee County
Cherokee County's population is expected to exceed 130,000 by the year 2000. In 1995, the population was already over 111,000. Here is a brief description of five of the communities that make up one of the fastest growing counties in the state of Georgia:
Cherokee County Real Estate
Currently there are approximately, 2,947 houses, 390 condos, and 647 land lots for sale in the Cherokee County, Georgia. The average sales price is currently $340,401, $183,253 and $149,083 respectively.