The town of Burton,

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

now lies underwater, covered by Lake Burton. The town was located at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

of Dicks Creek and the

Tallulah River The Tallulah River ( ) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 26, 2011 river in Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and North Carolina. It begins in Clay County, North Car ...

Rabun County, Georgia Rabun County () is the northeasternmost county in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,883, up from 16,276 in 2010. The county seat is Clayton. With an average annual rainfall of over , Rabun County has the ...

and was established in the first half of the 19th century as a result of the

Georgia Gold Rush The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant gold rush in the United States and the first in Georgia, and overshadowed the previous rush in North Carolina. It started in 1829 in present-day Lumpkin County near the county seat, Dahlonega, ...

. The first discovery of gold in Rabun County was just north of Burton, at the confluence of Moccasin Creek and the Tallulah River. The town was named after Jeremiah Burton, who owned the post office and general store there. The Burton Post Office was established in 1875 and discontinued in 1916.Helbock, Richard W. (2007) ''United States Post Offices, Volume VIII - The Southeast'', p. 48 Scappoose, Oregon: La Posta Publications Burton was located along the road from

Clayton, Georgia Clayton is a city in Rabun County, Georgia, United States. Its population was 2,003 at the 2020 census. The county seat of Rabun County, it is in the Blue Ridge Mountains. History The area that eventually became Clayton was called the Dividi ...

to the Nacoochee Valley and became more than just a gold rush town – it served the

corundum Corundum is a crystalline form of aluminium oxide () typically containing traces of iron, titanium, vanadium, and chromium. It is a rock (geology), rock-forming mineral. It is a naturally transparency and translucency, transparent material, but ...

mines of Tate City. Eventually, the logging industry built a railway to the town so that lumber from the mountains could be transported to the mill in

Helen, Georgia Helen is a city in White County, Georgia, United States, located along the Chattahoochee River. The population was 531 at the 2020 census. The city has now been made over, as a tourist attraction, to look like an old-world Bavarian village. T ...

. By the early 20th century, the town of Burton had a population of approximately 200, making it the second largest town in Rabun County. In 1917, the Georgia Railway and Electric Company (predecessor of the Georgia Power Company) purchased the town of Burton and the surrounding homesteads. The dam for Lake Burton was closed on December 22, 1919, and before long the town was submerged.

References

Sources

*
Burton profile on Ghosttowns.com
{{coord, 34.83452, -83.55326, display=title Ghost towns in Georgia (U.S. state) Geography of Rabun County, Georgia