Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Mount Airy, GA

Mount Airy is a town in southern Habersham County in the foothills of northeast Georgia, bordered by the city of Cornelia to the west and the Chattahoochee National Forest to the south.

The Georgia General Assembly incorporated Mount Airy as a town in 1874, and its name may be descriptive of its high setting or a transfer from Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Mount Airy sits directly on top of the Eastern Continental Divide: rain falling on its northern half drains toward the Soquee and Chattahoochee rivers and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico, while the southern half drains to the Broad River and the Savannah River, reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

At 1,539 feet above sea level, Mount Airy is the highest point on the old Southern Railway line between New Orleans and Washington, D.C., a distinction confirmed by a U.S. Geological Survey marker on the tracks behind town hall.

The 2020 census counted 1,391 people in Mount Airy living in 473 households.

Mount Airy's population more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, rising from 604 to 1,284 residents, after hovering between about 100 and 700 people for the town's first 130 years.

Lawton Place, a historic house in Mount Airy once lived in by baseball legend Ty Cobb, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Mount Airy covers about 2.4 square miles at an elevation of roughly 1,453 feet, making it one of the higher small towns in Georgia's mountain region.

The 2020 census found Mount Airy to be a notably diverse small town for the region, with Hispanic or Latino residents making up about 21 percent of the population.

Mount Airy lies in Habersham County, whose seat is Clarkesville, in Georgia's mountainous northeast corner near Tallulah Gorge.