Dalton's Creative Arts Guild is the oldest arts center in Georgia. Founded in 1963, it now offers exhibits, performances and a variety of classes for all ages including watercolor and oil painting, pottery, ballet, tap and jazz dance, violin, strings, guitar and private voice lessons. The Guild's annual fall Festival features concerts, international performers and exhibits.

The Prater's Mill Country Fair is another local tradition. This celebration of music, Southern food, handmade crafts and exhibits is held annually at the site of a still-operating, water-powered grist mill built in 1855. The fair is one of the Southeast's most visited Autumn festivals. Other community events include bluegrass festivals, civil war battlefield reenactments, classic car shows and more.

Dalton's Little Theater has been "getting caught in the act" for over 120 years and the organization produces approximately four season plays and three special productions each year. The Artistic Civic Theater (ACT) also offers dinner theater and large cast musicals.

The $2 million Dalton Regional Library serves 50,000 subscribers and offers more than 200,000 books and reference resources, as well as regular children's stories and a Current Events Discussion Series for adults.

Local historic sites include the Dalton Depot (once a site of the Civil War's Great Locomotive Chase and now an elegant restaurant), the entire Downtown area (also now a wireless hotspot), Crown Gardens and Archives, two designated residential areas and the antebellum Hamilton House.

Historic Prater's Mill