Located in extreme northern Georgia in the mountains of Towns County, GA 69 formed the shortest of Georgia's routes at a mere 1 mile. Bordering part of Lake Chatuge, the highway is a due north-south highway that today carries parts of GA 17 and 515, which both overlap on the road today. GA 17 and 515 join the highway from different directions, both following U.S. 76/GA 2, which GA 69 historically ended into on the south. The purpose of the highway is to connect Hayesville, NC to Hiawassee, and to provide fast and direct access from U.S. 76 to U.S. 64 in North Carolina.

Former GA 69 continues into North Carolina as NC 69, thus Georgia deliberately broke the continuity of the highway when they extended GA 17 to the route. Despite its short length, former GA 69 intersects with one state route, GA 339, which is locally known as Crooked Creek Road.

A highway from Hayesville, NC to Hiawassee was planned from the beginning and made its initial appearance in 1921. While shown on the map, the route appears to originally have been an unnumbered state route, most likely named simply "Hayesville Road". Several early state routes were unnumbered, and the highest designation shown otherwise on the map was GA 68.

The early GA 69 took a more direct route out of Hiawassee, tying into NC 287 en route to Hayesville. Narrow and unpaved upon commissioning, both parts of the route were originally constructed by county forces. An old bridge on the North Carolina side was dated 1921, and built by Clay County. By the early 1930's, GA 69 was officially marked and paved into North Carolina, extending 1.5 miles on the original alignment.

Construction of Lake Chatuge was announced on July 17, 1941 (source) and made a big impact on GA 69, forcing a shift in the route further west to the route it follows today. While the route in North Carolina still exists in part as Chatuge Dam Road and is largely intact, the old highway ends at the base of the dam, which proves the deepest part of the reservoir swallowed a big part of the highway. The original route in Georgia is not exactly known, because much of the road was buried beneath the lake. It appears strongly that the highway followed the river and thus was buried when the area was flooded. It is assumed that the main entrance to the Georgia Mountain Fair was part of the original highway.

Early GA 69 in 1933 extending out of Hiawassee and later GA 69 further west in 1954. The later route is today GA 17/515.

According to NCRoads.com, North Carolina changed NC 287 to NC 69 to match the Georgia side in 1941, the same year that the project was started and around the time the highway was relocated. A 1938 official Georgia map suggests this relocation may have been sooner, but this is not certain. Regardless, North Carolina made a very nice gesture to promote intrastate route continuity, but it seems Georgia could have cared less. The Highway Department always seemed to have a lust for making state routes into roads like U.S. highways, extending lower numbered roads the entire length of the state. GA 17 originally had ended in Clarkesville, but the State Highway Department went ahead and expanded it all the way to the North Carolina line. There was just one problem: part of that route was GA 69.

GA 69 and GA 17 were overlapped in the mid-1950's before the GA 69 designation was dropped. No highway has carried the GA 69 designation since 1958.

From 1955-1957, the Highway Department decided to overlap the two highways, and the road became GA 17/69. Perhaps they were undecided on what to do, but it is generally believed that they planned to phase it out slowly with a marriage of some sorts (much like department store chains like to do). After that period, GA 69 disappeared from the map by 1958, and GA 69 ironically is the only two-digit state route to be fully decommissioned. This is, of course, considering the infamous significance of the number, although it is unknown if it had any factor in that decision or if it was a mere coincidence.