Sisson Company was founded not as the result of foresight, but of pleasant circumstance. In 1958, the family of Joe and JoAnn Sisson, hoping to someday build a small cabin for rest and relaxation, purchased a one-half acre tract of land near Shallowford Bridge in the mountains of Georgia’s Fannin County.

​

By 1968 Joe, JoAnn, and their family were residing in Athens, Georgia, where Joe was pursuing graduate studies at the University of Georgia. Tiring of the confinement of student housing and the sight of imposing buildings in every direction, they decided that the time had come to build the cabin in the mountains they had envisioned ten years before. In a short time, Joe, JoAnn, Joe’s brother Jim and JoAnn’s mother and stepfather were busy building their rustic mountain getaway.

​

Once their cabin was completed, friends and acquaintances of the Sissons were soon joining them for visits to their new mountain home. Almost invariably, the visitors felt a great attraction to the area and would ask Joe and JoAnn to help them search for their own piece of land. Before long, the Sissons found themselves spending their spare time assisting in the erection of cabins on home sites they had helped to locate and purchase for friends.