High Shoals was established in the mid-1840s when a cotton textile mill was built on the banks of the Apalachee River (an Oconee River estuary), using its water to operate. During the Civil War, the company, then named High Shoals Manufacturing, produced cotton uniforms for the Confederate armies. In 1928, the mill was destroyed by fire but the historic district lived on. It is a small town with barely three square miles of land and a population of less than 500. In 2006, the town was given the distinction of "Historic District" by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR).