It is a trade center for NE Georgia and has textile, furniture, and poultry-processing industries. Brenau College is there. Riverside Military Academy and Chattahoochee National Forest are nearby. It is the commercial and industrial hub of a farm and oil area. Dairy items, oil-field equipment, mobile homes, and furniture are among its manufactures.
Historical markers are on various houses, churches, and sites of early Native American raids.
The city has a community circus, founded in 1930.