Excavations suggest the Spanish searched for gold in the valley as long ago as the sixteenth century. The second gold search began in , and once the stream beds were exhausted, miners began tunneling into the hills. Just four years before the second gold rush, the first dam was built on the Chattahoochee to power a grist and lumber mill.
In , John Martin built the present Nora Mill, and he replaced the original dam in Today, this northernmost dam on the river is one of only 50 or so in the country still operating a water-powered mill. Nora Mill grinds cornmeal, grits, and whole wheat, rye, and buckwheat flours. After it leaves this headwaters area, the Chattahoochee passes through at least 14 more dams on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Origin of the name "Chattahoochee" isn't nearly as certain as the birthplace of the river that carries the name.
The most generally accepted story comes from the travel log of Benjamin Hawkins, an Indian agent:. Exact location of that old town remains a mystery, but most historians place it near the present town of Franklin in Heard County. Living in the headwaters area, the Cherokee had named the river "Chota," which was also the name of a town in the Nacoochee Valley. When the river flowed into Creek territory, it became the "Chattahoochee. When the Cherokees were forced out of their homeland, the name "Chota" disappeared with them.
The Chattahoochee, though, carried on, just as it had during the times of the mound builders hundreds of years before and just as it does today, when it helps grow peanuts and cotton in southwest Georgia, powers turbines, and flushes every toilet in Atlanta.
Over the centuries it served as possibly the most important route for connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of the nation.
It allowed for Indian tribes to travel and trade, and it provided entry for white explorers and settlers. The Spanish traveled up the river as early as and tried to establish exclusive trade with the Creeks. By , the federal government already had begun to "improve" the Apalachicola for commercial navigation. With the forced removal of the Indians, hundreds of steamboats began traveling the mile waterway between the port town of Apalachicola and the Columbus wharf. Stopping at any number of the more than landings along the way, the boats carried cotton bales downriver and brought back manufactured goods and food, including Apalachicola Bay oysters kept alive with cornmeal sprinkled in wooden barrels.
The last steamboat to dock in Columbus was the George W. Miller in In addition to the steamboat trade, grist, lumber, and textile mills flourished on the river, especially along the "fall line" between West Point and Columbus. During the s, Columbus erected a dam to divert water to its business district, enabling it to become one of the South's most prominent industrial centers by the s. The fall line designates a dramatic change in character for the Chattahoochee, as it stops flowing from the mountains and starts running to the sea.
Dropping more than feet over 38 miles, the river historically raced over a long series of waterfalls and shoals created by the transition from Piedmont to Coastal Plain. The fall line provided the perfect setting for mills, as well as marked the end of navigable waters from the Gulf of Mexico.
Millions of years before, the fall line had marked the edge of that same ocean body. The richest land for farming along the river is just below the fall line.
There the Chattahoochee drops its soil load across the bottomlands, and it was there that most of the Indian settlements occurred. The lower Chattahoochee, in fact, probably has the largest collection of archeological sites in Georgia, ranging from Paleo-Indian to Creek.
Farther upriver, the waterfalls and rocky creeks of the Brevard Fault also enabled mills to operate. The area around Hilly's Mill Creek and Red Bone Creek marks the point where the fault continues on into Alabama and the river turns south, forming the boundary between Georgia and Alabama. Since steamboats couldn't travel this far north, poled barges frequently moved cotton downstream to Columbus during the nineteenth century.
The Brevard Fault, which cuts diagonally from northeast Georgia to Alabama, probably is the Chattahoochee's most important geological feature and has contributed much to the scenic beauty of the river, both above and below Atlanta. A "fault" is the result of one part of the earth's crust moving or slipping in relation to another.
In this case, the river flows through miles of ridges, valleys, palisades, and waterfalls because of the fault. Just as important to the character of the river is the fact that the Brevard Fault serves as the dividing line between the Appalachian Mountains and the Piedmont Plateau. The fault itself serves as a natural barrier to movement of flora and fauna between the two distinct geological regions.
But plants and animals have migrated up and down the aquatic highway connecting the two, and thus have moved far outside of what might have been their natural range. Some species of salamanders and birds, for example, have made their way from the mountains to the Piedmont along the Chattahoochee, as have numerous species of trees. Beech, white oak, umbrella magnolia, tulip popular, black locust, and mountain laurel are but a few species that grow farther south than they might have if not for the Chattahoochee River and Brevard Fault.
Most all of the river along the fault lies exclusively in Georgia, but when the fault continues on past Heard County and into Alabama, the Chattahoochee turns more southerly, forming a mile boundary with Alabama and a small portion of Florida. On its way to flush 16 billion gallons of water a day into Apalachicola Bay, the Chattahoochee drains an estimated 8, square miles.
The Flint drains another 8, square miles and the Apalachicola 2,, so that the combined watershed of the system is an impressive 19, square miles. More than 70 percent of that lies in Georgia. The Cities. Cherokees, Creeks, and other tribes built cities along the Chattahoochee River long before Europeans arrived. The most prominent were south of the fall line, and included Coweta Town, Cusseta Town, and Apalachicola Town, all of which probably had thousands of inhabitants during the s and s.
Historians believe Cusetta Town might have been the largest Indian settlement in the Southeast by and may have rivaled Charleston in population. Up near present-day Atlanta, Standing Peachtree was one of the most important trading villages. During the War of , Fort Peachtree was built to protect white settlers from the Creeks, who were allied with the British.
Sitting at the head of navigable waters, Columbus quickly became the most prominent Georgia town established by white settlers on the Chattahoochee. Cotton and other goods produced in Georgia and Alabama were brought in by wagons and barges for shipment by steamboat to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.
As railroads began to compete with steam in the s, Columbus lost some of its importance as a transportation center. Its riverine location, though, allowed it to continue to thrive, harnessing the river with dams to power textile, grain, and lumber mills. Dams still play an important role in Columbus today, as four in the city and five more to the north provide hydro power and help control floods that traditionally inundated the area. While railroads diminished the importance of Columbus, they established Atlanta as an important business center.
Even though the Chattahoochee was nearby, the city paid little attention to her until midway through the twentieth century. Since then, this fast-growing metropolitan area has awakened to the importance of the river for water supply, waste disposal, and recreation. Additionally, it has begun to sprawl nearer and nearer to the 48 miles of river that runs between Buford Dam and Peachtree Creek. Because of this ill-planned growth, raw sewage from Atlanta's antiquated and inadequate sewer system has been degrading the river for more than a decade and destroying quality of life for those who live along the Chattahoochee.
Foul odors and fish consumption advisories keep many away from the river for miles downstream of Atlanta. It smells like chlorine. Or sewage. Others ran flatboats between Franklin and West Point as early as The various settlements in the present-day Atlanta area grew up around taverns at ferries that allowed travelers to cross the river and continue on into Tennessee by land.
Northeast of present-day Atlanta the Chattahoochee River resembled a swift creek and powered a number of sawmills and gristmills. By the late s the towns located at the fall line along the Chattahoochee also used the river as an industrial power source for textile mills and gristmills. Its mills were vitally important to the Confederacy, and defense of the river was crucial, because it represented the easiest route to the fall line mills from the Gulf of Mexico, especially after Union naval forces took possession of Apalachicola in April Cobb directed the obstruction of the river, which was effective in keeping out the enemy by water.
However, Union land forces did invade the river valley in , when General William T. As the war was ending in April , General James H. Opulent new passenger boats replaced the workhorse freighters of the antebellum period. Innovations in service made river travel more reliable, and technological breakthroughs made it safer.
Freight became more diversified, with lumber products, fertilizer, and honey crowding the ubiquitous cotton bales. Instead of calling on every homestead or business along the river, by steamboats stopped at only twenty-eight major communities or railroad junctions. Sixteen years later, the steamers made only five stops as the river trade shifted to the lower river south of Eufaula, Alabama , where navigation was unimpeded by seasonal low water and natural obstructions.
In the post— World War I era, rail lines and improved roads proved to be the most direct and dependable form of transportation. The river was relied on less as a transportation conduit than as a hydroelectric power provider.
After these early modern dams were in place, the public began to see the need for other dams for flood control. At West Point especially, residents were so accustomed to high waters that the town raised the wooden sidewalks five feet above street level.
In Congress authorized the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Project, which set out to construct four dams for flood control, power generation, and navigation. After a particularly devastating flood in , Congress finally authorized a dam for West Point in , which was completed in Today the Chattahoochee River is valued more as a source of drinking water and recreation than as a transportation artery.
The water it supplies underpins the regional economies of today and tomorrow. While Georgia, Alabama, and Florida squabble over the unrestricted right to use the river, the Chattahoochee continues to follow its ancient route to the sea.
Willoughby, Lynn. George Lock and Dam, George W. A portion of the Chattahoochee River shared between Alabama and Georgia has seen a huge whitewater recreation sport resurgence beginning in , when the a river restoration project in downtown Columbus, GA and Phenix City, AL removed two historic dams Eagle and Phenix Dam to reveal the natural rocky riverbed below the previously inundated area.
After several devastating floods to the river town of West Point , , and ; Congress authorized a dam to be built in because the town was continuously rebuilt, which resulted in West Point Lake. The Chattahoochee Basin is home to several federally threatened and endangered freshwater mussel species such as the purple bankclimber , shiny-rayed pocketbook , Gulf moccasinshell , and the oval pigtoe.
Historically, the now federally-threatened Gulf sturgeon an anadromous fish swam from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Apalachicola River to the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers to spawn in freshwater. However, dams, particularly the construction of Jim Woodruff Dam in , has blocked the upstream movement of the Gulf Sturgeon. In , it was discovered that the purple bankclimber largely depends on the Gulf sturgeon as a larval host.
The wood stork , a large and prehistoric looking bird, is another Chattahoochee Basin resident. The wood stork is the largest wading bird that breeds in the United States. Although it is federally listed as threatened and state listed as endangered in Alabama, if you visit Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge in the summer or early fall, you have a good chance of a wood stork encounter!
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