East Ellijay, GA

East Ellijay is a small city in Gilmer County, bordered on its north and west sides by Ellijay and stretched along Georgia 5/515. The 2020 census counted 650 residents. The highway is the present-day orientation point, a four-lane bypass running north–south through the city, while the Cartecay River places East Ellijay in the river valley that shaped the larger Ellijay community.

ATTRHarrison Keely / CC BY-SA 4.0

That landscape also carries one of Georgia’s painful removal histories. Fort Hetzel was built in 1837 near the Ellijay–Cartecay junction, in what is now East Ellijay, to hold Cherokee people before their forced removal. Between May and June 1838, 884 Cherokee were captured and removed from the fort; a historical marker near Georgia 515 and First Avenue keeps that location in public view. East Ellijay is a modern highway city with a much older Cherokee geography beneath it, and its map connects current movement through the valley with a place that must be remembered as part of the Trail of Tears.