Sunrock Lodge

​

The area known as Fannin County and Blue Ridge was once the home of the Cherokee Indians. The first white settlers in the area near the turn of the nineteenth century are believed to have come from the north down the Toccoa River valley which separates what is now the Cohutta Wilderness and the mountains of the Blue Ridge. The area is unique in this regard because most of the rest of Georgia was settled from the south and east.

​

Blue Ridge arose primarily from a decision by the Marietta and North Georgia railroad to avoid steep grades near Morganton and follow the relatively flat Toccoa valley through Blue Ridge where they established a terminal. This rail terminal launched Blue Ridge as the commerce center for the region bringing tourists to the area and taking logging and farming products south. By the late 1950s with the demise of passenger rail service, tourism in the area languished. The completion of the four-lane Georgia Mountain Parkway from Atlanta in the late 1980s resulted in a flood of new tourism. Today, Blue Ridge is a hub of commerce and tourism for the northern part of Georgia. The tourism industry has brought thousands of visitors to the area, many from Florida seeking cooler climates in the summer and temperate winters. Tourism has spawned a massive building boom in the past ten years According to US Census data; the number of housing units in Fannin County grew 32% from 1990 to 2000. Much of that growth and much of the growth since 2000 have been in investment properties. There are now over ten cabin rental companies operating in Fannin County and hundreds of owner-managed short term rental properties available in the Blue Ridge area.