The expanse of what was all at one time GA 318 extends across much of Dawson County. At slightly over 11 miles, the highway follows what is today Dawson Forest Road east of Dawson Forest WMA and Warhill Road, joined by a former overlap with GA 53.

Regardless of the direction, Old GA 318 is basically the highway from nowhere to nowhere. The west end of the former route is basically the gated entrance to Dawson Forest. The east end is at Warhill Park on Lake Lanier. Inbetween are two distinctly routes. Warhill Road is mountainous and scenic with views of the lake. Dawson Forest Road is mostly a bee line with little more than suburban spraw moving in the area to distract. This is most evident today by the local attraction of the huge outlet mall now residing at the intersection of GA 318 where it crosses GA 400.

In the late 1950's, the City of Atlanta bought property up in Dawson County planning for a second Atlanta airport. Planning far ahead for future growth in the region, the city believed it was a necessary investment. Since the land in the area was remote and any construction if at all was years in the future, the land was turned into a state forest and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources became the steward of the property. It was in this that beautiful Dawson Forest was born in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

When Dawson Forest was created, a new highway was built spurring from GA 53 to the east into the tract. The new highway, now known as Dawson Forest Road exclusively, was designated GA 318. Commissioned by the beginning of 1960, the new highway extended west of GA 53 until it ended where the roadway enters the Atlanta property. In all, the original highway served no other purpose since it does connect to any population base or relieve major highways. This did not mean, however, that the highway would be short-lived for the highway did at least exist for future needs.

The original GA 318, shown in this 1962 map clip a couple years after it was commissioned, included all of present-day Dawson Forest Road from GA 53 west into the forest.

In 1963, GA 318 was stretched a bit further, this time along Warhill Road, a county road that partly had been GA 53, submerged only a few years before by Lake Lanier. The rest of Warhill Road was new alignment built around the sections of the old highway submerged by the lake. Extending nearly four miles and creating an overlap with GA 53, this brought GA 318 to its maximum length. It also created a unique scenario where both ends of GA 318 did not terminate into other highways. While the west end terminated in Dawson Forest, the east end stopped at a boat ramp and parking area in Warhill Park. This effectively created a highway from nowhere to nowhere and highlighted the excesses of county roads taken over by the state in the 50's and 60's.

The early 1960's highway boom included an eastward extension of GA 318 that made the highway a double spur. The extension was on the Warhill Road portion that partly follows Old GA 53. That section is the part of the highway right of GA 53 on the mapclip from a 1964 GHD map.

In 1971, GA 318 saw its first trimming as the highway west of GA 9 and then U.S. 19 was decommissioned, truncating the highway back to U.S. 19. By the following year, Bannister Road just to the south in Forsyth County between Silver City and Matt became GA 369 Connector, joining the nearby newly-completed mainline GA 369 (originally part of GA 141) and adding legitimacy to GA 318 since it was then possible to use the two highways as a cutoff to Canton to the west.

In the late 1970's, while Disco Fever was sweeping the country, the Georgia D.O.T. had a different kind of fever: decommissioning state highways. While the majority of GA 318 survived the first rounds of turnbacks in the late 70's, the early 80's caught up with it. First to go was Warhill Road, decommissioned on August 20, 1980 nearly 17 years after it was added on as the eastern leg of GA 318. It was also during this time that GA 400 opened up in the area, beginning a process of change that is now in full swing suburbanizing the area. As noted on the last map, GA 400 crosses the highway near GA 53, providing a high-speed mostly limited access highway from Atlanta into the county.

After completely disappearing for a couple months in 1982, GA 318 was briefly restored until the mid-1980's. By that time, both spur endings were trimmed off, leaving only the through portion between GA 9 and GA 53. This clip here is from the 1984 GDOT map, which was the last to show GA 318.

What had been 11 miles was now scaled back to around five. The Great Decommissioning of 1982 came along soon after and was not kind to Dawson County. Georgia D.O.T. decommissioned nearly every route except for the most important ones. The cuts included GA 318, which died off completely on January 18, 1982. However, only two months later GA 318 was back! Joined by a re-commissioned GA 136 north of Dawsonville, the two-lane highway to nowhere was restored along the remaining portion from GA 53 to GA 9, representing an obvious backlash against the unloading of roads on this one county, which at the time still lacked the resources to adequately maintain those roads.

The restoration of GA 318 is believed to have been the result of a grander plan that took shape that year. Discussion was ongoing at the time to build a new highway from the western end of Dawson Forest Road to the newly constructed Jasper By-Pass (current GA 372) in Pickens County. The By-Pass opened in 1982 as well and the plans for such a road were concrete enough that a partial interchange exists today where the old Jasper By-Pass terminates into Old GA 5 north of Ball Ground. While still badly needed today, the project lost steam when GDOT turned their attention on the highly-controversial Outer Perimeter project around Atlanta and planned near enough to the roadway as to mostly eliminate the need for the highway except as a spur from the beltway.

Needless to say, not long after GA 318 was recommissioned, the highway only lasted a brief time longer. By 1985, GA 318 was once again turned over to local control along its entire length. While those plans for the highway have sat dormant, discussion is again resurfacing on the reason the road existed in the first place: the City of Atlanta tract of Dawson Forest. With growth and congestion filling in the hills and woods of the region and the Atlanta airport overwhelmed as one of the world's busiest, discussion has surfaced again on what to do with the property. This is unfortunately a time when GDOT should take action and build a new highway through that tract, but only time will tell. This site features a proposal for the completion of GA 318 across Dawson and Pickens Counties.