Hightower (Etowah) Trail

Hightower (Etowah) Trail is a Georgia historical marker in Fulton County, dedicated 1985.

At the intersection of Azalea Drive and Club Drive in Roswell.

Get directions ↗Start a road trip Historical trails

At this point the noted Hightower (Etowah) Indian Trail crossed today's Azalea Drive. With connections from Charleston, via Augusta, the old thoroughfare ran through this section to reach the Indian towns of present-day northwest Georgia. The Hightower Trail was once recognized as an early boundary between the Cherokee and Creek Indian Nations. The old road was used as the dividing line between Indian cessions of 1819 and 1821, and remains today as the Gwinnett - Dekalb boundary. After northwest Georgia was opened for settlement in 1832, numerous pioneers migrated over the old trace and many built their homes along it. The name of the trail is believed to come from the Cherokee, Ita-Wa, but the first English to visit this section pronounced and recorded the name as Hightower. Today, most of the visible remains of the trail have been erased by urban settlement, but parts of it survive as modern roads.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1816 · Georgia. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1816 · Georgia (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1816 · The Southern States and Mississippi Territory (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1824 · Georgia. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1827 · Georgia. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Georgia, 1816, covering the location of Hightower (Etowah) Trail, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Georgia, 1816, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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This historical marker is part of the Georgia Historical Marker Program and was erected by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Marker texts and locations come from the Society's own marker database.

Hightower (Etowah) Trail

Historical maps covering this location

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