Pre-Columbian

What is now Flat Shoals Avenue was a major trade route for the Native Americans. It was called Sandtown Trail and connected the coastal area near Savannah with the Chattahoochee River. The Sandtown Trail crossed the Peachtree Trail at what later became Five Points in downtown Atlanta. Soapstone bowls crafted from boulders mines on the ridge just south of East Atlanta were brought up the smaller trail (Bouldercrest Road) that joined the Sandtown route. By tribal trading they found their way as far north as Minnesota. The Creek tribes to the south and east of the Chattahoochee and the Cherokee tribes north of the river were the dominant cultures until implementation of the Indian Removal Act forced them from all of North Georgia