The Lake Russell Wildlife Management Area (LRWMA) is located in The Chattahoochee National Forest and encompasses approximately 17,000 acres. The lay of LRWMA is about equally divided in the southwestern corner of Stephens County and the southeastern corner of Habersham County. The Middle Broad River, heads within the boundaries of the management area, flows thru approximately center of the area and makes its exit into Banks County as a full flowing river at Wells Shoals near the southern boundary. This area of the Chattahoochee National Forest is rich in local history of both counties, The State of Georgia and The United States. All one has to do is research some of the treaties with Native American Tribes, local battles fought in wars of our country or the family history of residents that settled and lived in this area to discover the importance of this history. This was a thriving community into the late thirties until Franklin D. Roosevelt with help of The Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act July 22, 1937 (sometimes referred to as "Resettlement Act") and U.S. Department of Agriculture caused the area to be surveyed, (Upland Game Bird Survey) Northeast Georgia Development Project, for the purpose of acquiring the land for conservation uses. The owners and residents, some of which had been there all of their life, were given two choices by our Federal Government. The first choice was sell the property to The Federal Government and move. The second choice was have land condemned and be evicted. I guess that these were fairly good choices considering what had happened about one hundred years earlier when the then owners and residents were rounded up like cattle and herded off to a distant land, by our Federal Government, to live on reservations. The plans for this area, under the Resettlement Act, was for reforestation and restoring grassland areas to stop erosion. Lakes were to be built, along with cabins, trails and recreation areas. The area was to be restocked with the native wildlife which was once abundant in the area. Some of these things did take place, with trees being planted, native grassland being reestablished, some recreation areas built and two small lakes, on Nancy Town Creek, being built. Cabins were never built to attract tourist to the area to spend their money as planed. Some wild birds were released but due to the area being open and hunting regulations difficult to enforce with no gates to control entry to the area these birds were soon gone. Roads in the National Forest were open, even during the time that troops were training in the area for World War Two, and anyone could just go into the area. A number of years later a teenage descendant of one of the original families that came to the area was squirrel hunting with a influential business man from Toccoa. They were hunting in an area near Farmer Mountain and Allen Mountain when the adult, who was an avid deer hunter, made a startling discovery. He found fresh deer tracks. No deer had been seen in this area for years and the teenager had never seen one out in the wild. This is all it took for the adult to start the process for getting deer reintroduced to the area. He was told that a group of interested people would need to get together and back the stocking of deer in the area. The Toccoa Sportsman Club was formed and the teenager was a member. After a lot of pushing by the club, The State of Georgia decided to set the area up as a wildlife management area but the club would have to purchase the first pairs of deer to be released. The club started having activities to raise the needed funds and soon enough money was available to purchase the first deer to be released. This was when the first full time ranger was assigned to the area and gates were installed on all of the entrance roads. At this time the area became a state wildlife management area and was named Lake Russell Wildlife Management Area, referring to Lake Russell located within its boundaries. Lake Russell was one of the small lakes built under the Resettlement Act and was named for Georgia Senator Richard Russell.

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