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Before white settlement, the People of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture developed a village and a platform mound on Tugaloo Island about 800 CE. The village and mound, both known as Tugaloo, were later occupied by other peoples until about 1700. Numerous other villages also developed along the river and its tributaries. Descendants of the Mississippians have been identified as the proto-Creek (Muscogee people). Allied with them in historic times were the Yuchi, who occupied the village known as Tugaloo, where they were replaced by the Cherokee.
While Cherokee began to move into this area from Tennessee under pressure by European Americans during and after the Revolutionary War, the Muscogee Creek continued to dominate the southern part of the county until they ceded their land to the United States in a treaty of 1794.
It was not until after the American Revolutionary War that whites began to settle here. The first were veterans who had been given land grants in lieu of pay; they migrated up the Savannah River and the Tugaloo River after the war.
The county was created on August 18, 1905, and was named for Alexander Stephens, U.S. representative, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, and fifty-third governor of Georgia.
Adjacent Counties
Communities
- Avalon
- Eastanollee
- Martin
- Toccoa (County Seat)
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