Chestatee River

It begins at the confluence of Dicks Creek and Frogtown Creek (near the junction of U.S. 19 and U.S. 129) in northeastern Lumpkin County, flowing down by the county seat and former Georgia Gold Rush town of Dahlonega, and then under the northern terminus of the Georgia 400 expressway from Atlanta.

The river was used as a defining line in the Cherokee Treaty of Washington 1819[4] and the eastern border of the Hickory Log District of the Cherokee Nation before removal[1] It is a major tributary of the Chattahoochee River, into which it ended at a point now under the waters of Lake Lanier, since Buford Dam was finished in 1956.

The northwestern arm of the lake, which flooded the lower 18 miles (29 km) of the river,[2] is called Chestatee Bay, which destroyed the town of Chestatee (called Atsunsta Ti Yi by the native Cherokee people) when it was submerged.

At this point, the river forms an extremely small portion of the Lumpkin/Hall county line for about 1 mile (1.6 km).

There is one stream gauge (NWS location identifier DGAG) along the river, installed in 1907 at State Route 52 near Dahlonega.