High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Etowah River is a 164-mile-long (264 km) waterway that rises northwest of Dahlonega, Georgia, north of Atlanta. Its name is the Cherokee version of the original Muskogee word Etalwa, which means a "trail crossing". On Matthew Carey`s 1795 map the river was labeled "High Town River". On later maps, such as the 1839 Cass County map, it was referred to as "Hightower River", a name that was used in most early Cherokee records.