09/21/2026
Georgia's highest mountain is named after a mistake. 🏔️
The Cherokee called this peak Enotah, and the village below it Itse'yi, which means something close to new green place. English speaking settlers heard that word and thought of Untsaiyi, the Cherokee word for brass. So the settlement became Brasstown, and the mountain has carried the name ever since, built on a word nobody meant to say.
At 4,784 feet this is the highest ground in the state, and the weather up here behaves nothing like the rest of Georgia. Fog fills the valleys most mornings. Snow falls while the coast is still in shirtsleeves. On a clear day you can pick out the Atlanta skyline about eighty five miles off, with ridges rolling away into North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina.
The word bald in the name is literal. The summit carries open ground where thick forest ought to be, and the Cherokee had a story for it. A great flood covered the land, and a few families rode it out in an enormous canoe that ran aground on this very peak. There was no game to hunt and nowhere to plant, so the Great Spirit killed the trees on the crown of the mountain to make room for crops, and the people lived on what they grew until the water went down.
Have you ever made it to the top of Brasstown Bald, and what could you see that day?
Photo: Thomson200, CC0
