The Old Federal Road was northwest Georgia’s earliest vehicular route, crossing east and west at this point. It ran across the Indian County from the southeast boundary of the Cherokees in the direction of Athens toward Nashville by way of Rossville, while another branch extended from a fork at Ramhurst, Ga., toward Knoxville, Tenn. Formal permission to use the trace was granted by the Cherokees in the 1805 Treaty of Tellico. This route became the first postal route in this section of Georgia and the earliest emigrant trace from the lower Southeast to Tennessee and north Alabama.