The Old Sautee Store cash register now sits empty

Old cash register in an 1872 store. Located on Hwy 17 South in Sautee, GA. The Old Sautee Store is one of a handful of pre-1900 retail establishments in northeast Georgia. When it was built in 1872 it was a true general store. Local residents would come to the store to purchase food, seed, or farm equipment. It served as a local post office for Sautee-Nachoochee until 1913 and as post office for Sautee until 1962.
Today it is still in business and part of the store is as it was many years ago.

Through the Nachoochee Valley and directly in front of the store ran the old Unicoi Turnpike, a major thoroughfare from the navigable end of the Tugaloo River to the Unicoi Mountains in Tennessee. Unicoi State Park, which is located near the highway north of Helen, Georgia, takes its name from the road. A second major road connected the Nachoochee Valley with Rabun County. Appearing on maps as early as 1837, portions of this highway are now part of Georgia Highways 197 and 255, and U. S. Highway 76. It used the Stovall Covered Bridge over Chickamauga Creek. The bridge can still be seen today if you take a side trip down the road a few miles. At the time the store was complete it sat at what was the biggest intersection of roads in these parts.