Clay County Courthouse (North Carolina)

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.

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.

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.

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 central township, and one of the six townships of Clay County, North Carolina, United States. The other five are Brasstown, Hiawassee, Shooting Creek, Sweetwater, and Tusquittee.

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.

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.

The John Covington Moore House is a historic house in rural Clay County, North Carolina. It is located on North Carolina Route 1307, about 4 miles (6.4 km) from the county seat, Hayesville. The 1+1⁄2-story log structure was built c. 1838 by John C. Moore, not long after the forced removal of the Cherokee from the area. The building is mounted on fieldstone piers, and has a porch extending across its front. There are shed-roofed rooms across the back of the house, and an exterior chimney at one end.John C. Moore is acknowledged as Clay County's first white settler. He began homesteading in the area as early as 1833, and claimed the land around this house after the Cherokee removal. He was one of Clay County's first commissioners.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.The John Covington Moore House appears to have been removed from the land it was on by 2019.

Lake Chatuge is a man-made reservoir in Towns County, Georgia, and Clay County, North Carolina. It lies along the Hiwassee River created by the Chatuge Dam which finished construction in 1942. The lake is relatively shallow with depths of 30 feet (9.1 m) and reaches 144 feet (44 m) by the dam. Lake Chatuge is the highest major lake in the state of Georgia. Chatuge Lake takes up 7,000 acres (2,800 ha). The construction of Chatuge Dam and its reservoir required the purchase of 11,641 acres (4,711 ha) of land, 1,904 acres (771 ha) of which had to be cleared. 278 families, 532 graves, and 40 miles (64 km) of roads (including part of U.S. Route 64) had to be relocated. One house relocated from the Elf community during the clearing of the land later became the Clay County School District superintendent’s office until 2005.Chatuge Dam was raised ten feet in 1954 so the lake level could rise an additional four feet.

Clay County is a county located in the far western part of U.S. state North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 11,089. The county seat is Hayesville.

Sweetwater Township is one of the six townships of Clay County, North Carolina, United States, located in the northwestern part of the county. The other five are Brasstown, Hayesville, Shooting Creek, Hiawassee, and Tusquittee.

Fires Creek is a recreational area located in the Nantahala National Forest in Clay County, North Carolina. It takes its name from Fires Creek, which runs through it. The area offers paved and unpaved hiking trails, swimming holes, camping spots, picnic tables, grills, scenic views, horseback riding, fishing.