Sixes, home to approximately 14,540, is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in western Cherokee County,

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 ...

, United States, located about three miles west of Holly Springs and near the eastern shore of current-day

Lake Allatoona Lake Allatoona (officially called Allatoona Lake) is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir on the Etowah River in northwestern part of the State of Georgia. This reservoir is mostly in southeastern Bartow County and southwestern Cherokee C ...

. The community is located in the Georgia Gold Belt, which runs southwest to northeast along the southern edge of the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...

. The Sixes Gold Mine, a now-defunct gold mine dating back to the early 19th century, was located just to the northwest. In addition, the community is home to the Sixes Mill, which was originally built around 1820 by early gold prospectors and later rebuilt ''circa'' 1880. The mill has been well preserved and is still located off Sixes Road. There are two theories on how Sixes derived its name. The first theory attributes the name to Fort Hinar Sixes, a

Cherokee Indian The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

removal fort that was located in the area along the

Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of about 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their black slaves within that were ethnically cleansed by the U ...

. The second holds that the name is derived from an old Cherokee village that was located near the

Etowah River The Etowah River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 27, 2011 waterway that rises northwest of Dahlonega, Georgia, Dahlonega, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, ...

named "Sutali" — the Cherokee word for the number six. Sixes also lent its name to Fort Sixes, an 1830s US Army fort that served as a removal collection point for

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

prior to the Trail of Tears. Sutallee, a community that sits on the opposite side of the Etowah River (now Lake Allatoona) in western Cherokee County, also derives its name from this Native American village. Today, Sixes is a growing suburban community with many large, upscale residential neighborhoods, including BridgeMill. The area is served by two elementary schools (Sixes & Liberty); one middle school (Freedom); and two high schools (Woodstock & Cherokee).

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Cherokee County, Georgia Unincorporated communities in Georgia (U.S. state)