The Story of the Land Beneath Talon Village
Full Narrative
A Crossroads in the Mountains
Long before Talon Village welcomed its first residents, this stretch of ground was already a meeting place. Tucked into the foothills of the Blue Ridge, in the shadow of Mount Yonah, the land here has always sat where old paths cross — trails once connecting the Cherokee towns of the Nacoochee Valley to the ridges beyond, and later, wagon roads linking the mountain crossroads settlement that grew here to Clarkesville to the east, Gainesville to the south, and Dahlonega to the west. That crossroads settlement, originally known as Mount Yonah, would eventually be renamed Cleveland in 1870 in honor of General Benjamin Cleveland — and Talon Village would one day rise within sight of its heart.
Gold in the Hills
Few people realize that the hills surrounding Talon Village were ground zero for one of America's first gold rushes — decades before the more famous rush to California. In 1828, gold was discovered near Duke's Creek, not far from here, and prospectors and fortune-seekers streamed into the area. For more than a century afterward, nine separate gold mines operated across the county. The rugged, beautiful terrain that once drew miners with pickaxes and pans would, more than a century later, draw a very different kind of industry to this exact site.
The Zipper That Put Cleveland on the Map
In the summer of 1952, word arrived that would change this property — and the whole county — forever: Talon, Inc., the Pennsylvania company that had invented and perfected the modern zipper, had chosen this ground in Cleveland for a new manufacturing plant. It was the first industry of any real size ever to come to White County, and the town celebrated accordingly, with the local paper running the announcement in two-inch headlines.
It was very much a community effort from the start. Residents pooled their own money to help purchase the site, the county graded the land, and the state pitched in to help build the roads leading to it. Construction broke ground that August, and by early 1953 the plant was open for business — its very first shipment of zippers rolling out the door on March 17, 1953.
For decades, the factory built right here on this property hummed with the precise, exacting work of zipper-making, where a single component just a hair off spec could mean the difference between a zipper that worked and one that didn't. Talon executives relocated from Pennsylvania to manage the operation and quickly became part of the fabric of the community, working alongside local families who were, in many cases, holding their very first "public job." Zippers made on this ground shipped all over the world — and one, fittingly, found its way onto America's first space suit, now preserved in the Smithsonian Institution.
As decades passed and the zipper industry shifted overseas, the Cleveland plant eventually wound down. But its legacy as one of the most transformational chapters in White County's history has never faded — it's still remembered locally as the moment this small mountain town joined the wider world of American industry.
A Chapter in City Hands
After the factory era came to a close, the City of Cleveland saw promise in this ground and purchased the property in 2011, with plans to one day build a new home for City Hall and the Cleveland Police Department here. But as engineers studied the site, they discovered the land held far more solid rock beneath the surface than expected — enough to make constructing those planned municipal facilities impractical. The city held onto the property for over a decade before ultimately deciding to part with it and let it find its next purpose.
In 2026, Cleveland's City Hall and Police Department instead settled into a new municipal complex elsewhere in town — and this storied property, once again, was free to begin a new chapter.
A New Chapter, Same Mountain Spirit
Today, Talon Village sits just steps from the same downtown crossroads that travelers, miners, and factory workers have passed through for nearly two centuries — walkable to local restaurants and the heart of Cleveland, yet wrapped in the same mountain views that have drawn people to this land since long before it had a name on a map. The gold has long since been mined, the zippers have stopped rolling off the line, and the rocky ground that once stumped city planners is now the very bedrock this neighborhood stands on — but the spirit of this place, a welcoming crossroads at the foot of the mountains that has always brought people together, lives on in every home built here.
Talon Village is proud to carry the name of the industry that once called this ground home, and to be the newest chapter in a story that began with the mountains themselves.