 The town (and the lake) was named after local prominent citizen Jeremiah Burton, the first postmaster, and was situated along the road from Clayton, Georgia to the Nacoochee Valley.As a young man, Andrew Jackson Richie, founder of Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, carried the daily mail to Burton by mule.With the introduction of hydroelectric power to America in the 1880s and due to the fact that the Tallulah River has the greatest verticality of any river in the east, a series of six stair step dams was constructed in the period 1914–1927 over a distance of 28 miles.