The name Chestatee is from the Cherokee word meaning "place of the lights."

[2] CRLS is a member of PINES, a program of the Georgia Public Library Service that covers 53 library systems in 143 counties of Georgia.

This program offers residents in supported libraries access to over 100 databases indexing thousands of periodicals and scholarly journals.

[5] The Chestatee Regional Library System was first founded in 1953 as a two-county regional library system serving the communities of Hall and Lumpkin Counties.

In 1994, in an effort to mutually expand the resources of their libraries, Dawson County joined with Hall and Lumpkin to make the library system a tri-county consortium.