had not yet ceded this area to the United States. Scots-Irish who acquired land in the lottery moved to this area from the backcountry of North Carolina and the Georgia coast. The Georgia Gold Rush, starting in 1828, also attracted many new settlers to North Georgia. European Americans pressed the government to take over the land of the Five Civilized Tribes, seeking cheaper land to develop for cotton plantations. Short-staple cotton, which could be grown in the uplands through this area, had become profitable since the invention of the cotton gin for processing it. At the urging of President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, authorizing the government to force cessions of land by Southeast tribes in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi River, in what became known as Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The 1838 removal of the Cherokee on the infamous "Trail of Tears" extinguished most of their land claims to this area. The US government released former Cherokee and Creek (Muscogee) lands for sale and settlement by European Americans in Georgia. Toccoa means "beautiful" in the Cherokee language; it is derived from the Cherokee term for "where the Catawbas lived." A more substantial bridge was built across the Tugaloo River in 1850. That year James D. Prather supervised the construction of his plantation house known as Riverside, on a hill overlooking the upper Tugalo River. The Greek revival antebellum house was built by his enslaved African-American workers, and the timber for the house was harvested from his plantation. The Prather family cemetery was developed to the right of the house. During the Civil War, General Robert Toombs, a close friend of Prather, used this house as a refuge from Union troops. The soldiers pursued him to Riverside, but he hid and escaped capture. The Prather Bridge was burned in 1863 by Confederate troops during the Civil War to keep the Union enemy from crossing. James Jeremiah Prather and his son, James Devereaux Prather, rebuilt the bridge in 1868. This bridge lasted until 1918, when it was washed away. It was rebuilt in 1920 by James D. Prather. It was afterward replaced by a concrete bridge, but the wooden bridge was kept as a landmark. Vandals burned it down in 1978. According to historical accounts, the Johns House, a Victorian cottage near Prather Bridge Road, was built in 1898. When the Georgia General Assembly