Is It Walker Mountain or Wauka Mountain?

One of the most interesting things about digging out old history comes when you find one place that is identified with two different names. Give you an example: there's a mountain in the North end of Hall County, almost in White County ... or is it in White County, almost in Hall ... that shows on some Georgia maps as "Walker Mountain"-Walker. Then there are the local folks who insist its proper name is "Wauka Mountain" - Wauka.
Up in Washington, D. C., there is a government agency named the United States Board of Geographic Names, apparently a part of the U. S. Geological Survey, that approves official names for government maps and the like. In their records the official name is Walker Mountain. But the Board On Geographic Names (which I had never heard of before) gets a request from one Robert S. Davis, from the history department at Wallace State College, in Hanceville, Alabama, requesting the official name be changed from Walker to Wauka ... and this government agency in Washington is seriously considering making the change. Locally, a number of people have named businesses and local landmarks with the Wauka name, and Mr. Davis says there is enough local usage to warrant the change. Some say the name Wauka derives from an old Indian word, but nobody seems to know what that word meant. But ... the 1994 edition of Kenneth Krakow's book entitled Georgia Place-Names, Their History and Origins, says this: "Walker Mountain. White County. With an elevation of 2,585 feet, it is located six miles southwest of Cleveland. Named for early settler, Richard Walker."
I don't know where the old boy from Alabama got on this thing, but I think he is right. And I'll bet so do the folks at Wauka Mountain Elementary, and Family Dentistry, and Family Medicine, and Feed and Seed and Pharmacy, and several other folks, too.
This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.