The route veering southeastward is a remnant of the Old Federal Road, northwest Georgia’s earliest vehicular way and the first thoroughfare linking Tennessee and Georgia across the Cherokee Nation. Permission to open the highway was granted by the Indians in 1803 and confirmed by treaty in 1805. The trace, which followed the course of an early Indian trading path to Augusta, became a noted route down which Kentucky and Tennessee cattlemen drove stock to markets in Georgia and South Carolina. The site called “Bloodtown” was a resting point for stock drovers.