Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Clayton, GA

Clayton is a small city in the Blue Ridge Mountains of far northeast Georgia and the county seat of Rabun County.

Clayton stands on a site the Cherokee called 'the Dividings,' where several major Cherokee trails intersected; naturalist William Bartram passed through the Dividings in May 1775, and two of the old trails later became U.S. Highways 23/441 and 76.

The town was founded in 1821 as Claytonsville, with 67 acres purchased from Solomon Beck for $150, and in 1823 it was incorporated and renamed Clayton for Judge Augustin S. Clayton, a prominent jurist and congressman.

Clayton had a population of 2,003 at the 2020 census, living in 889 households — a far cry from 1845, when an almanac counted just 16 residents, a courthouse, a jail, a post office, one church and a general store.

Downtown Clayton sits at about 1,925 feet above sea level at the southern base of 3,640-foot Black Rock Mountain, with 3,000-foot Screamer Mountain immediately to its east.

Clayton lies in Rabun County, the rainiest county in Georgia, which averages more than 70 inches of rain a year; in 1936 Clayton recorded 30 inches of snowfall, the highest annual total anywhere in Georgia.

The Tallulah Falls Railway reached Clayton from Cornelia in 1904 and was extended to Franklin, North Carolina, by 1907, opening the isolated mountain town to tourism and trade.

Walt Disney came to Clayton in 1956 to film The Great Locomotive Chase, and part of Old Yeller was shot in Clayton the following year.

East of Clayton, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the Warwoman Dell recreation area during the 1930s, along with roads and trails across Rabun County's national forest lands.

Clayton is served by the Rabun County School District, and today its boutique-lined Main Street depends heavily on mountain tourism, the economic mainstay since the county's last textile mill closed in 2006.