1890s through the 1920s. Low prices during the Great Depression resulted in a cessation of cotton farming in the area and throughout Cobb County. During segregation, the railroad tracks served as a racial divide, with African Americans living to the northeast of the tracks and the whites to the southwest. There were few common public events. When a movie theater was erected in the 1930s, Blacks were allowed to access the balcony from a separate entrance. Whites sat on the main floor. Volunteers formed a fire department in 1907. There were eventually a total of three textile mills in town from 1905 through the 1980s. They employed about 800 workers at their peak. In 1926, Main Street was paved. When the entire Dixie Highway (old U.S. Route 41 and part of the Cherokee Peachtree Trail) was paved in 1929, over 800 tourist vehicles entered the city daily. When the Etowah River was dammed, forming Lake Allatoona, citizens feared that land near the town would become a swamp. They successfully petitioned for a second dam, resulting in Lake Acworth in the 1950s. This became a tourist attraction. The town made a major improvement in its water and sewage lines in the late 1940s. The city elected its first woman mayor, Mary McCall, in 1956 and 1961–66. African-American students were schooled separately from white children until 1967. Acworth was recognized as a 2010 All-America City Award winner by the National Civic League. In 2011, the filming of several scenes for the Footloose remake took place in downtown Acworth. The Acworth Presbyterian Church was used as the primary church, and the house of Mayor Tommy Allegood was used as Julianne Hough's character's home. In 2017, the city was the site of the WWA Wakeboarding National Championship. Geography Acworth is located in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains along the southeastern banks of Lake Acworth and Lake Allatoona on the Etowah River. It is bordered by the city of Kennesaw to the southeast and by Bartow and Cherokee counties to the north. Interstate 75 runs through the northern part of the city in Cherokee and Bartow counties, with access from exits 277 and 278. Via I-75, downtown Atlanta is 34 mi (55 km) southeast, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, is 88 mi (142 km) northwest. U.S. Route 41 and Georgia State Route 92 also run through the city, with GA-92 leading east 12 mi (19