Northeast

When Habersham County’s homegrown jail cell business, SteelCell of North America, needed to expand, CEO Mike Smith looked at neighboring counties in Georgia, nearby states, even some out west. “I didn’t want to move, but we were going to have…

The little town of Blue Ridge in Fannin County has become a refuge of sorts for an assortment of expatriates fleeing the congested cities and big corporations of America. Take a walk down the narrow historic Main Street and you’ll…

Just south of Hartwell is a monument to the Center of the World. The designation by the Cherokee Indian Tribe was prophetic, as Hart County’s particular geography makes it a midpoint between Atlanta and Greenville, SC, and easily accessible to…

For the last decade a steady stream of people have been traveling north up Georgia Highway 515 bound for Union County and its lush forests and rushing streams. Many have stayed, fueling a home building boom that has transformed this…

Not since the brutally destructive 1936 tornado has so much of Gainesville been reduced to rubble, but this time the broken bricks, glass shards and shredded lumber that mark the landscape along one downtown stretch of Jesse Jewell Parkway are…

Established as a lumber town on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in the early 1900s, the White County city of Helen, struggling by the mid-20th century, decided to adopt an Alpine theme and devote itself – with much success…

Jackson County is like no other county in Georgia. With four cities straddling county borders, and one city in four different counties, it also happens to be next in line for exurban growth coming from two cities – Atlanta to…

Lumpkin County was blindsided this spring by the announcement that Mohawk, a carpeting manufacturer, was closing its Dahlonega carpet fiber plant, where some 366 were employed – two for more than 50 years. “They were our largest private employer,” says…

Many Georgia cities can vie for relevance to music history. Savannah has Johnny Mercer; Augusta, James Brown; Albany, Ray Charles; Macon, Otis Redding and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Atlanta is the world’s black entertainment Mecca. But Athens has…

Even when you’re tucked away in the scenic hill country of Northeast Georgia amid verdant forests and crystal clear waters, you can’t ignore the rest of the world. Hart County has learned that lesson the hard way over the past…