Chatuge Lake

Chatuge Dam is a flood control and hydroelectric dam on the Hiwassee River in Clay County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The dam is the uppermost of three dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1940s for flood storage and to provide flow regulation at Hiwassee Dam further downstream. The dam impounds the 7,000-acre (2,800 ha) Chatuge Lake, which straddles the North Carolina-Georgia state line. While originally built solely for flood storage, a generator installed at Chatuge in the 1950s gives the dam a small hydroelectric output. At the time it was built, Chatuge Dam was the highest earthen dam in the world until the Aswan Dam was built in Egypt in 1964. The dam and associated infrastructure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. Chatuge Dam is named for an 18th-century Cherokee village once situated near the dam site.

Hamilton Rhododendron Gardens is the only public botanical garden in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia specializing in Rhododendrons and Native Azaleas. The protected area encompasses 33.0 acres (13.4 ha) on land sloping to Lake Chatuge. Hamilton Gardens at Lake Chatuge, Inc. was a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that successfully restored the garden and operated it for six years. Located near the city of Hiawassee, Georgia, the gardens have the largest collection of native azalea and rhododendron in the Southeast U.S.

The Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds, which opened in 1978, is home to several popular events throughout the year including the Georgia Mountain Fair, Georgia Mountain Moonshine Cruiz-In, Georgia Mountain Fall Festival, Superstar concerts, and Georgia's Official State Fiddlers' Convention. Located on a 161-acre (0.65 km2) tact along the shores of Lake Chatuge in the north Georgia mountain community of Hiawassee, the Fairgrounds offers a glimpse into the past with its historic Pioneer Village, an expansive and comfortable music venue in the Anderson Music Hall, the Hamilton Rhododendron Gardens and 189 RV camp sites with lake views and modern conveniences.

Hiawassee is the county seat of Towns County, Georgia, United States. The community's population was 880 at the 2010 census. Its name is derived from the Cherokee—or perhaps Creek—word Ayuhwasi, which means meadow, (A variant spelling, "Hiwassee," is used for the local river and some other Appalachian place names.) Hiawassee is also known in the novel "Restart" by Gordon Korman.

The Towns County Jail, also known as Old Towns County Jail, in Hiawassee, Georgia was built in 1935-36 by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and modified in 1981. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. As of 1985, the building served as Hiawassee City Hall.It is a two-story rock building with a hipped roof.The Towns County Herald noted in 1936 that the completed jail was a "'modern, safe, sanitary, and commendable structure'" and praised Ordinary J. F. Johnson for his work building the jail, which cost $4,353 in total. It served as Towns County's jail until the 1970s, when a joint jail shared with Union County was built.It was one of seven county jails reviewed for National Register listing in 1985.

The Towns County School District is a public school district in Towns County, Georgia, United States, based in Hiawassee. It serves the communities of Hiawassee, Tate City, and Young Harris.

Hayesville High School is a school located in Hayesville, North Carolina and is part of the Clay County School District. It is the only public high school in Clay County. According to its website, the school has a current enrollment of 380 students and 37 teaching staff members. That is an average of 10.27 students per teacher.The high school moved into its current two-story brick facility in 1991. A new gymnasium was added in 1999. The cafeteria was built in 1966.

Tennessee militia established Fort Hembree 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of the present town of Hayesville, North Carolina, in October 1837 to prepare for deporting local Cherokee Native Americans during the Trail of Tears. The fort was under the command of General Winfield Scott. Within two week Scott's forces captured around 1,000 Cherokee people who were held prisoner at the fort. A number of Cherokees were stricken with illness (thought to be measles) while at Fort Hembree and died at the site. The remainder were marched from there to Fort Butler near present-day Murphy and then to deportation camps in Tennessee.

The Spikebuck Town Mound and Village Site is a prehistoric and historic archaeological site on Town Creek near its confluence with the Hiwassee River within the boundaries of present-day Hayesville, North Carolina. The site encompasses the former area of the Cherokee village of Quanassee (also spelled Qunassee on a 1725 colonial map) and associated farmsteads. The village was centered on what is known as Spikebuck Mound, an earthwork platform mound, likely built about 1,000 CE by ancestral indigenous peoples during the South Appalachian Mississippian culture period. Quanassee was known by the English in the colonial period as one of the historic Cherokee "Valley Towns". At one time, it had a population of several hundred, but by 1721 had declined, in part because of the Creek-Cherokee War (c. 1716–1752). It was razed at the beginning of the American Revolution by state militias during the Rutherford Light Horse expedition of fall 1776, because the Cherokee were allied with the British when colonial rebels launched the war. The area was known as Quanassee into the early 1800s. Most of the Cherokee were forcibly removed from North Carolina and the Southeast. The mound and village site was listed as an archeological site on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Hayesville is a town in Clay County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 311 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Clay County.

The Clay County Courthouse is located on Main Street in Hayesville, Clay County, North Carolina. The T-shaped two-story brick building was built in 1888, and is a prominent local example of vernacular Italianate architecture. Its most visible feature is a three-story square tower, which projects for half its width from the main facade, and through which entry to the building is gained.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Clay County Schools (CCS) is the school district in North Carolina, that manages the county's public school system. It is the only school system in Clay County, with about 1,200 students attending a total of 4 separate schools, located on a central campus in Hayesville, North Carolina. The system covers all of Clay County. After county government, Clay County Schools is the largest employer in the county with a staff of 205 people.The district is run by the Clay County School's superintendent. The current superintendent is former Hayesville Elementary principal Melissa Godfrey. The present school board has five nonpartisan members who are elected by popular vote and are limited to a four-year term. Because of its county-wide coverage, there are some students in the system that have an hour-long bus-ride to and from school.