Image credit: Sarah Ridley

Marker Text: For the next 25 miles southward this highway coincides closely with the course of the Old Federal Road, the first vehicular and postal way to join Tennessee and Georgia across the Cherokee Nation. Beginning on the southeast Indian boundary in the direction of Athens, the route led this way by Tate, Jasper and Talking Rock.

Rights to open the trace were granted informally by the Cherokees in 1803 and confirmed by the Treat of Tellico, Tenn. in 1805. Prior to that period the thoroughfare served as an Indian trading path to Augusta.