Dalton

History

Woodland Indians and Creek Nation initially held the area of present-day Dalton, Georgia. The first recorded white man in the area was Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto (1540). By the mid-18th century, when the Cherokee forced the Creek Nation out of their homelands, to the west and south, the Cherokee Indians called the mountains of north Georgia their "Enchanted Land" until their own forced removal in 1838. By the time the last Cherokees were removed from the land, work was underway for a railroad, the Western and Atlantic Railroad (W&A), to join the Tennessee River with the Georgia Railroad then under construction. In 1847, Dalton was defined as a mile radius from the city center, the Western and Atlantic Depot. The final segment of this pivotal railway was completed in Tunnel Hill, Whitfield County in 1850. A second railroad, East Tennessee and Georgia, was completed in 1852. Catherine Evans Whitener's revitalization of the pre-Civil War-era craft of candlewicking gave rise to a cottage chenille bedspread industry. Homes along U.S. Highway 41 displayed brightly patterned homemade bedspreads on front yard clotheslines in hopes of luring tourists into a purchase. The stretch of highway passing through Whitfield County became known colloquially as "Peacock Alley" in reference to one of the most common patterns depicted on the bedspreads. The bedspread business boomed to a multimillion-dollar industry by the 1950s, and from this early origin, the carpet tufting industry grew in Dalton after Glenn Looper developed an adaptation that allowed the mechanism used to tuft yarn into muslin or cotton for bedspreads to tuft into jute, shifting the nation's carpet manufacturers from woven wool products in the northeast to tufted synthetic carpets in northwest Georgia. Today,…

Geography

Dalton is located at (34.771088, -84.971553). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.10%) is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,626
• Carolina Wren

  Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  2,407
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  2,168
• Carolina Chickadee

  Poecile carolinensis (Audubon, 1834) · Aves
  2,158
• Tufted Titmouse

  Baeolophus bicolor (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  2,110
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,050
• Northern Mockingbird

  Mimus polyglottos (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,791
• Eastern Towhee

  Pipilo erythrophthalmus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,756

Largest nearby schools

• Southeast Whitfield County High School
  High · Dalton · 1,492 students · 17.6:1 ratio
• Dalton High School
  High · Dalton · 1,382 students · 15.7:1 ratio
• Northwest Whitfield County High School
  High · Tunnel Hill · 1,219 students · 16.7:1 ratio
• Dalton Jr. High School
  Other · Dalton · 1,162 students · 13.7:1 ratio
• Hammond Creek Middle School
  Middle · Dalton · 1,086 students · 12.3:1 ratio
• Coahulla Creek High School
  High · Dalton · 986 students · 17.3:1 ratio
• North Whitfield Middle School
  Middle · Dalton · 815 students · 15.1:1 ratio
• Brookwood Elementary School
  Elementary · Dalton · 724 students · 12.9:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.58 — 2025-02-25
  8 km N of Menlo, Georgia
• M 2.58 — 2024-03-10
  14 km W of Graysville, Tennessee
• M 2.58 — 2024-02-29
  9 km NNW of Graysville, Tennessee
• M 2.5 — 2023-12-23
  7 km ENE of Stevenson, Alabama
• M 2.52 — 2023-06-21
  6 km SSE of Sewanee, Tennessee
• M 2.94 — 2022-01-21
  16 km NNE of Eton, Georgia