Etowah, Tennessee: A Railroad Town With a Borrowed Name

Etowah, Tennessee, was built from scratch by the L&N Railroad, and even the city’s own history says nobody’s sure why the new town got the name Etowah. The best-known story involves a sign, a train crew and a river in Georgia.

A railroad’s third choice

In 1902 the Louisville and Nashville Railroad announced plans for a more direct line, and it needed a terminal along the way, with a depot and shops for maintenance and repair. According to the City of Etowah, the L&N’s first pick was Tellico Junction, now Englewood, but local leaders there opposed it. Wetmore was second, and its landowners wouldn’t sell.

That left a less than ideal site along Cane Creek, wetland included, at a place then called Stumptown. Twelve landowners agreed to sell, and by the end of 1904 the railroad had land in McMinn County, 1,454 acres in all. L&N engineers designed a canal to drain the streams that fed Cane Creek. The line was finished in 1906, the year the city counts as its founding, and the depot became the hub of a new town “that was named ‘Etowah.’” It was incorporated in 1909.

The sign from the Etowah River

Here’s where the paper trail runs out. The city’s own page says “the etymology of the town name is unclear.” What it offers instead is folklore: “a train crew brought a sign reading ‘Etowah’ from the Etowah River, and the name stuck.” The Etowah River is in Georgia. The story is told as local legend, though, and you won’t find a railroad order or a dated document behind it in anything we read.

What the word means, if anything

The meaning of the word is its own argument. The city says Etowah “comes from the Muskogee/Creek word italwa meaning ‘town.’”

The older federal sources weren’t so sure. James Mooney, who studied the Cherokee for the Bureau of American Ethnology, listed a Cherokee settlement on the Etowah River in Georgia that lasted until the Removal of 1838. Of the name, “commonly written Etowah and corrupted to Hightower,” he wrote in 1900 that it “cannot be translated and seems not to be of Cherokee origin.” Five years later, Henry Gannett’s Geological Survey bulletin called Etowah, the Georgia river and the Alabama county, “a Cherokee Indian corruption, meaning unknown.”

So you’ve got a modern city page that gives a Creek meaning, an ethnologist who said it couldn’t be translated, and a government geographer who said nobody knew. None of that tells you why the L&N’s new town in Tennessee ended up with the word on its sign.

Quick answers

How did Etowah, Tennessee, get its name?

Nobody knows for certain. The city calls the origin unclear and passes along a local story that a train crew brought a sign reading “Etowah” from the Etowah River.

What does Etowah mean?

There’s no agreement. The City of Etowah gives the Muskogee/Creek word italwa, “town,” while Mooney (1900) said the name couldn’t be translated and Gannett (1905) said its meaning was unknown.

What was Etowah called before the railroad came?

The land the L&N bought was at a place called Stumptown, according to the city’s history.

Why did the L&N build a town in McMinn County?

It needed a terminal with a depot and repair shops on its new line, and after Tellico Junction and Wetmore fell through, landowners at Stumptown agreed to sell.

Key dates

1. 1902The Louisville and Nashville Railroad announces its plan for a more direct line.
2. 1904By the end of the year, the L&N has bought land in McMinn County for its new terminal.
3. 1906The new line is completed, and Etowah is founded.
4. 1909Etowah is incorporated.

Getting there

Open Etowah in Google Maps

• Map
• Directions
• Satellite
• Terrain

Opens in a new tab. The pin is the center of Etowah in the USGS place-name record.

The closest airports, Amtrak stations and intercity bus stops, measured in a straight line from the center of Etowah.

Airports

• Lovell Field (CHA) Chattanooga 43 mi 70 km
• McGhee Tyson (TYS) Alcoa 45 mi 72 km
• Hartsfield/Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 117 mi 188 km

Amtrak trains

• Gainesville station (GNS) 82 mi 132 km
• Toccoa station (TCA) 85 mi 137 km

Intercity buses

• Greyhound Athens Exxon 12 mi 19 km

Distances are as the crow flies, not by road. We don't list schedules or fares because they change; check with the airline, Amtrak or the bus company before you go. Official data (FAA commercial service airports (2025), FAA airport locations, Amtrak stations and Intercity Bus Atlas) from the FAA and the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, checked Nov 6, 2026.

Historical Sources & References

• City of Etowah, “History of Etowah”. The 1902 plan, Tellico Junction and Wetmore, the twelve Stumptown landowners, the Cane Creek drainage canal, the depot and the 1906 line.
• City of Etowah, “Demographics: The City of Etowah”. “The etymology of the town name is unclear”; the train crew and the sign; italwa, “town”; 1,454 acres; founded 1906, incorporated 1909.
• James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (1900), glossary, pp. 522-523. The Cherokee settlement on the Etowah River; the name “cannot be translated and seems not to be of Cherokee origin.”
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (1905), p. 121. Etowah, county in Alabama and river in Georgia: “A Cherokee Indian corruption, meaning unknown.”
• GNIS feature 1328151 (U.S. Geological Survey). The gazetteer record for Etowah, in McMinn County.