Toccoa, Georgia Toccoa, Georgia Stephens County Courthouse in Toccoa Stephens County Courthouse in Toccoa Nickname(s): Toccoa the Beautiful Location in Stephens County and the state of Georgia Location in Stephens County and the state of Georgia Toccoa is a town/city in, and the governmental center of county of, Stephens County, Georgia, United States, positioned approximately 50 miles (80 km) from Athens and approximately 90 miles (140 km) northeast of Atlanta.
Native Americans, including the Mississippian culture mound builders and later the Cherokee, were the initial inhabitants in what is now Toccoa and the encircling area.
George Chicken was one of the first citizens to mention Toccoa in his journal from 1725. The first inhabitants of European descent were a small number of American Revolutionary War veterans led by Col.
Wofford is buried near Toccoa Falls.
Wofford, was born near Toccoa (then part of Habersham County), and was an officer amid the Mexican-American War and a general in the Confederate States Army amid the American Civil War.
The Georgia Land Lottery of 1820 spurred the migration of Scots-Irish from North Carolina and the Georgia coast.
Toccoa means "beautiful" in the Cherokee language, and is derived from the Cherokee term for "where the Catawbas lived." The town/city was established in 1873 around an region formerly called Dry Pond, titled for a pond that was waterless most of the time. Three investors - Dr.
The City of Toccoa was officially chartered in 1874 and the names of downtown streets reflect the visionary trio; Sage, Doyle, and Alexander Streets still crisscross downtown Toccoa today. The Georgia General Assembly created Stephens County in 1905, and Toccoa was established as the county seat. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Toccoa on March 23, 1938.
Roosevelt's train made a brief stop in Toccoa, where he made remarks from the rear platform of the presidential train before moving on to Gainesville to bring a primary speech, then on to Warm Springs for a vacation. Camp Toccoa, a World War II paratrooper training base, was positioned nearby.
Toccoa is also home to the Travelers Rest Inn, known locally as Jarrett Manor, and Toccoa Falls College.
The resulting flood killed 39. Toccoa Falls is positioned on the ground of Toccoa Falls College.
Toccoa is positioned at 34 34 29 N 83 19 12 W (34.574725, 83.319865). Climate data for Toccoa, Georgia, normals 1981 2010, extremes 1891-present As of the census of 2010, Toccoa had a total populace of 8,491.
The median age of a Toccoa resident is 35.4.
The number of companies in Toccoa is 1,135.
The total housing units in Toccoa is 4,009.
Stephens County Development Authority (SCDA) was established in 1965 to continue and sustain the expansion of Northeast Georgia. SCDA is responsible for the recruitment of new businesses such as industrial, manufacturing, distribution, corporate and county-wide command posts and customer service centers. SCDA serves the following cities: Toccoa, Eastanollee, Martin, and Avalon.
Major industrialized parks in the region are Toccoa Industrial Park, Meadowbrook Industrial Park, and Hayestone Brady Business Park. The top employers in descending order are the Stephens County School System, Caterpillar, Patterson Pump, ASI (GEM Industries), American Woodmark Corp., Standard Register, Sage Automotive Interiors, Habersham Plantation, Toccoa Falls College, Coats & Clark, Eaton Corporation, and PTL Company (an elevator fixtures and parts manufacturer). Annual affairs include the Currahee Military Weekend, Taste of Toccoa, Cinema on Sage, Costume Parade, Harvest Festival, Christmas - Fest, Christmas Parade, and Roots Rhythm And Rails Music Fest.
Toccoa is the center of a grow music scene and the home of a county-wide orchestra.
The Toccoa Symphony Orchestra is made up of volunteer musicians from the encircling community, South Carolina, and Atlanta.
The ensemble has premiered works by young composers, presents a annual Christmas concert with a one hundred voice choir, and incorporates budding performers from close-by Toccoa Falls College.
The Currahee Military Museum, positioned in downtown Toccoa at the initial train station where arriving GIs would disembark, is dedicated to the paratroopers of World War II who trained at Camp Toccoa.
Camp Toccoa was positioned just outside the town/city proper, at the foot of Currahee Mountain, and was formerly known as Camp Toombs.
Only one building remains of the initial Camp Toccoa (the building is believed to be a former food supply storage facility, based on its position near the former camp's gates and the foundation's construction), and it was donated to the exhibition in 2011 by the Milliken company, which was using it as a machine shop.
The race is part of the Currahee Military Weekend, which features World War II military reenactments in a staged military camp, weapons demonstrations, book signings by veterans, a parade through the downtown historic district, a hangar dance at the airport, and a special banquet featuring keynote speakers and veterans.
Local lore includes the Hanging Tree, positioned on the side of the Stephens County Courthouse.
The Toccoa Casket Company, now out of business, was the biggest supplier of caskets to the military until Vietnam.
Its building, positioned on the chief road dominant into Toccoa from the south, on the route from Toccoa to Currahee Mountain, was razed in 2014.
The Georgia Baptist Conference Center is positioned near Toccoa.
Toccoa also has a grow classic car culture, as evidenced by incessant car shows.
Stephens County High School (SCHS) (grades 9 12) Toccoa Elementary (grades 3-4) Stephens County High School rather than building its new facility in the spring of 2012.
Mountain Education Center is an online evening school that grants full Georgia high school diplomas.
Toccoa is the home of Toccoa Falls College, a private Christian college.
North Georgia Technical College has a ground (the Currahee campus) just south of Toccoa.
Toccoa Amtrak Station Amtrak's Crescent joins Toccoa with the metros/cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Charlotte, Atlanta, Birmingham, and New Orleans.
Before Amtrak, Toccoa was a stop on the Airline Belle from 1879 to 1931.
Toccoa is also home to the Toccoa Airport, a small executive airport to the northeast of town.
State highway 17 bypasses Toccoa, and highway 17 Alt runs through Toccoa.
US highway 123/state highway 365 runs through Toccoa as well.
Downtown Toccoa is positioned near the courthouse and the train depot, which joins to Atlanta.
Each day citizens would flood to shop in downtown Toccoa.
Several nationwide retail outlets were then positioned in downtown Toccoa, including the Belk Gallant department store.
As an answer to the depressed conditions in downtowns, Toccoa and many other suburbs erected concrete canopies and closed streets to problematic a pedestrian mall.
When the Belk Gallant department store announced it was going to move along a four lane road called Big A, improve leaders organized Main Street Toccoa in 1990.
During that time, Main Street Toccoa implemented many shifts and improvements to the downtown mall area.
Efforts that helped contribute improve support for the universal encompassed county-wide enhance surveys, a University of Georgia market study, a UGA design charrette, and renderings of individual buildings without the canopies provided by the GA Trust for Historic Preservation and UGA Community Design Planning and Preservation.
To gather the necessary funds for the project, Toccoa partnered with six state agencies (Appalachian Regional Commission, Georgia Department of Community Affairs, One Georgia Authority, United States Department of Agriculture, and Georgia Department of Transportation) that provided $1.3 million, with additional small-town funding of $552,000.
In 2008, downtown saw 33 storefronts renovated (under the guidance of the Georgia Mountains Regional Development Center Historic Preservation Planner), 11 new business, 17 new jobs, 28 part-time jobs and 68 full-time equivalent jobs retained, and private investment of $3.5 million.
Toccoa's Main Street was re-opened to vehicular traffic.
Now it has been transformed to a publicly owned building that is home to the Chamber, Welcome Center, Stephens County Historical Society Museum, the Currahee Military Museum, and Amtrak.
Enhancing Toccoa as a Northeast Georgia destination is the newly restored courthouse, which anchors the downtown district.
Funded entirely by SPLOST dollars, the $2 million renovation universal brought a historic 1907 building back to life while adding green space to the historic precinct and retained government offices and downtown customers in the city's square.
Toccoa is the place of birth of singer Ida Cox, philanthropist and Olympic gold medalist Paul Edward Anderson, former 100 Black Men of America President Thomas W.
Dortch Jr., former Clemson and NBA basketball player Dale Davis, former Georgia Tech and NFL football player Pat Swilling, and All-American (Georgia Tech) football player Ken Swilling.
James Brown, nicknamed the "King of Soul," lived in Toccoa a short time before his big break as a singer, and worked as a janitor at Toccoa High School. Bobby Byrd was a gospel musician and songwriter, and a sideman to James Brown.
Paul Anderson, world weightlifting champion in 1955, and Olympic gold medalist in 1956 in weightlifting known as "the world's strongest man," was born in Toccoa.
Ramblin' "Doc" Tommy Scott, composer of "Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms," was born and lived in Toccoa. Toccoa is the home of former Georgia Tech and NFL football player Billy Shaw.
Internationally noted civil rights and civil justice activist Reverend Douglas Demetrius Prather, a native of Atlanta, also has family ties to the town/city of Toccoa.
The following list includes notable citizens who were born or have lived in Toccoa.
Billy Shaw (born 1938) former Georgia Tech and NFL football player The novel Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff was presented by St.
A day-long celebration was held in Toccoa culminating in a fireworks display at Boyd Field in the evening.
The documentary Southern Comfort was filmed in Toccoa about resident trans man Robert Eads.
The Weather Channel remembers the 1977 Toccoa Falls dam break and flood. On May 7, 2000, Mary Ann Stephens of Toccoa was shot to death outside a Ramada Inn in Jacksonville, Florida while on vacation with her husband.
On November 6, 1977, the Kelly Barnes Dam floundered and released over 170 million gallons of water above the Toccoa Falls College campus.
Official Website for the City of Toccoa.
"Profile for Toccoa, Georgia, GA".
City of Toccoa.
"FDR Extemporaneous Remarks, Toccoa, March 23, 1938".
USGS-Georgia: Toccoa Dam Break "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015".
Stephens County Georgia Stephens County Industrial Parks Stephens County Top Employers Georgia Baptist Conference Center Stephens County Schools Georgia Board of Education, Retrieved June 26, 2010.
School Stats, Retrieved June 26, 2010.
: Toccoa.
"Music Box Meets the Toccoa Band: The Godfather of Soul in Appalachia".
Caholla (2014-07-12), Toccoa Falls Dam Break - 1977, retrieved 2016-04-26 Georgia History Timeline / Chronology 2000 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Toccoa, Georgia.
Main Street Toccoa website Municipalities and communities of Stephens County, Georgia, United States
Categories:
Cities in Stephens County, Georgia - County seats in Georgia (U.S.
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