With $25,000 in working capital, ten local businessmen saw the need for a bank in Hiawassee, Georgia.

So on June 14, 1909, the bank charter authorizing Bank of Hiawassee, was signed by the Secretary of the State of Georgia.

A site for the bank was designated when T.J. Hooper and John H. Davis each donated ten feet of property on the south side of the town square in Hiawassee. The building blocks used in the construction of the bank were formed under a large oak tree across from the construction site on the town's square. Bank of Hiawassee would be the first building in the county constructed from these blocks. When construction was completed in August 1909, Bank of Hiawassee opened to serve the Towns County area.

As the Bank continued to grow and serve the community, a new building would soon be needed to accommodate its needs. In 1955, a new Bank building was erected on the southwest corner of the town square. Additional remodeling and further expansions occurred in 1964, 1975, and 1986. By 1996, a totally new facility was built on South Main Street in Hiawassee. The building on the southwest corner of the town square was remodeled in 2007 to house the Bank's operations department.

Bank of Hiawassee grew and prospered throughout the next decades. Its customers and strong bank leadership are credited with keeping the Bank stable during the turbulent years leading up to and including the Great Depression.

Bank of Hiawassee was the oldest business in existence in Towns County, as well as the oldest financial institution in several surrounding counties.

Assets grew from $25,000 to more than $377 million in 2010. The Bank employed 138 residents from the tri-county area making Bank of Hiawassee one of the largest employers.

For more than 100 years, Bank of Hiawassee continued as a locally-owned and operated community bank with over 250 shareholders, and five branches; Hiawassee, Ingles Supermarket in Hiawassee, Young Harris, Blairsville and Blue Ridge.

Unfortunately the bank's century-old history came to a tragic end on Friday. Bank of Hiawassee, Hiawassee, Georgia, was closed by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver.

To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Citizens South Bank, Gastonia, North Carolina, to assume all of the deposits of Bank of Hiawassee.

The five branches of Bank of Hiawassee will reopen on Saturday as branches of Citizens South Bank. This transaction includes a branch office of Bank of Hiawassee in Blue Ridge, Georgia, operating under the business name of Bank of Blue Ridge, and the branch office in Blairsville, Georgia, operating under the name of the Bank of Blairsville. Depositors of Bank of Hiawassee will automatically become depositors of Citizens South Bank, the FDIC said in a statement issued Friday night. Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance coverage. Customers should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from Citizens South Bank that it has completed systems changes to allow other Citizens South Bank branches to process their accounts as well, the FDIC statement said.

Over the weekend, depositors of Bank of Hiawassee can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.

As of December 31, 2009, Bank of Hiawassee had approximately $377.8 million in total assets and $339.6 million in total deposits.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $137.7 million. It was one of three banks in Georgia to cease trading on Friday.