What does a town do when its main industry wanes? If it's Helen, Georgia, it reinvents itself! Once the center of Cherokee Indian culture, in 1813 the Cherokees approved the construction of the Unicoi Turnpike, a wagon road running from the Savannah River headwaters to northeast Tennessee. Now known as Highways 17 and 75, this road ran through the Helen valleys toward Hiawassee. When the Cherokees were relocated via the Trail of Tears, white settlers moved into the area. Then in 1828 gold was discovered on Dukes Creek in Nacoochee Valley. The ensuing rush brought thousands of miners into the valley, but by the end of the century they had moved on.

Next came the timber companies, impressed by the extensive virgin growth. The railroad followed, and the town was named Helen after the daughter of the railroad surveyor. Then when all the timber was gone, the settlers again moved away, leaving nothing behind by a dreary row of concrete block structures. In the 1960s, local businessmen decided the town must be improved, and Helen converted itself into an alpine village, with cobblestone alleys and old-world towers. This creative approach revitalized the town, and it now hosts millions of visitors each year.

Dahlonega, Cherokee for Gold, was first known as Licklog, because deer used it as a watering hole. It is a major entry point into the Chattahoochee National Forest and the North Georgia mountains, and it has a history as colorful as its name. Its primary mine was owned and operated by South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun. The US began construction of a mint here, but by the time it was completed in 1838, the Gold Rush had passed; North Georgia College's Price Memorial Building now occupies the site. One of the town's most interesting characters was "General" Riley, a wealthy businessman who owned a hotel and tavern in the city; he frequently got into fights, especially with the fathers and husbands of Dahlonega women. Captain Frank Hall discovered gold in the basement of the house he was building just off the square in downtown (now known as the Smith House), but town fathers refused to grant a mining permit for a location so close to town center. The local newspaper, the Nugget, was published by W. B. Townsend, who refused to let poor spelling and grammar get in his way. Perhaps the most notable Dahlonegan was Graham C. Dugas, an orphan who attended the College of Notre Dame, was a decorated World War I pilot who married three times, served as a legislator, worked as a miner, and tried to build a hospital for Appalachian women. He bankrupted himself trying to develop a coin sorting machine.