Lester Maddox served as the parade's grand marshal. Later that year in November 1972, in part because of the festival and other improvements to the city, Ball Ground won the "1972 Stay & See Georgia" contest, which was a program designed to help highlight and expand tourism within the State of Georgia. The spring festival was held annually until 1989. In 1997 developers began building new homes and communities within Ball Ground. Because of the growth of the city, residents and city officials began discussing the need for an improved sewer system to help modernize the septic systems of older homes and to attract new growth for the city. In 1998 a plan was put in place to begin work on a $2.8 million sewage system. The sewage system was completed in Fall 2003 amid ongoing development in and around Ball Ground. Geography Ball Ground is located at the foothills of the North Georgia mountains in the northeastern portion of Cherokee County. The city is northeast of the city of Canton and south of Nelson. It is the northernmost city in Cherokee County that is fully within the county limits, as the city of Nelson is partially within Pickens County. Ball Ground is north of Georgia's capital city of Atlanta's northernmost city limits and from downtown Atlanta. Ball Ground lies within the Upper Piedmont Physiographic Province in a narrow band of land called the Hightower-Jasper Ridge District, which has a different land structure and lithology than the surrounding areas. The bedrock underneath the city consists of igneous and metamorphic rocks such as gneiss and schist. The land in and around Ball Ground is rich in marble deposits as well as talc, pyrite, and gold. According to the United States Census Bureau as of 2020, Ball Ground has a total area of , of which , or 0.63%, is water. The city's elevation averages around above sea level, ranging from just over in the valleys to around on several hilltops within the city. Unlike most other parts of Cherokee County, Ball Ground is not in a floodplain and has no typically flood prone areas. To protect the water and surrounding lands, the city government has ordinances in place for stream buffer protection, watershed protection, and wetland protection. Climate The climate of Ball Ground, as with most of the southeastern United States, is humid subtropical (Cfa) according to the Köppen classification, with