Fort Mountain is a mountain in northern Georgia, just east of Chatsworth. It is part of the Cohutta Mountains, a small mountain range at the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains. It also lies within the Chattahoochee National Forest.Fort Mountain takes its name from a peak that has remnants of a stone formation around part of that peak. The stones, which are from the local area around the summit, are piled in a 928ft-long discontinuous zig-zag line. Stone piles may be formed naturally by the thrust that causes a ridge to crest during the mountain's formation.Early visitors referred to the formation as a fort, speculating that it was built by Hernando de Soto to defend against the Creek Indians around 1540. However, this theory was contradicted as early as 1917, as a historian pointed out that de Soto was in the area for less than two weeks.The original construction and function of the formation as a fort is less accepted today and its origin remains unknown. The formation has been attributed to pre-Columbian native Americans. Early historians attributed the stone piles to a race of moon-eyed people, said to predate the Cherokee. The earliest known mention of this was by Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815).
