DALTON, Ga. — Walking the streets of East Dalton, Edwin Cuna pushes a cart with “Paleteria La Reyna” stenciled in red letters on its side. He rings bells that beckon children from home to search for their favorite flavored icicles.

Near where the 16-year-old peddles his paletas, stores sell everything from pan dulce, quinceañera and wedding cakes, fresh meat, boots and every type of Mexican food — most with signs in Spanish and owned by Hispanics.

With the city’s influx of Hispanic immigrants in the 1990s, the East Side of Dalton has changed from a quiet, mostly American-born community into a bustling ethnic enclave.

Hispanic immigrants do live throughout the city. But the city’s Spanish-speaking population tends to congregate on the East Side of the railroad tracks, with its distinctly Hispanic character.

Back in the 1950s, the East Side of town was less developed and had few foreign-born residents.

“It was kind of a sleepy little neighborhood,” said Haynes Townsend, a Magistrate Court judge raised on the East Side. Mr. Townsend and his buddies — including current Sheriff Scott Chitwood — roamed the East Side of town back then, playing the occasional pick-up football game in a vacant lot.

Now, Mr. Townsend said, “Most of us have kind of migrated away from the East Side. It’s not anything bad. ... Things change.”

The city’s first Mexican restaurant opened in 1971 on the East Side, according to its owner, Mexican-born Adolfo Morones.

“When I arrived, there weren’t any other Hispanic families around the area,” Mr. Morones said, “at least, none that I know of.”

During the early 1980s more Hispanics started arriving here, predominantly Mexicans who had worked on the construction of a nearby dam, he said.

“They started to call their friends and say, ‘There’s work here. It’s a nice city,’” Mr. Morones said. “Soon after, more and more families came to the area, and later there were more restaurants and businesses opening.”

By the 1990s, carpet companies in Dalton started to recruit in Mexico and Latin America, attracting more and more Hispanics to the area, according to Dr. Marilyn Helms, a management professor at Dalton State College in Georgia.

Hispanics, who worked relatively low-wage jobs, flocked to the more affordable East Side of town, said Barnett Chitwood of the North Georgia Regional Development Center and Sheriff Chitwood’s brother.

The dramatically increased demand for rental units by the new residents spurred rapid development.

“Upwards of 1,500 units were built in a relatively short period of time, and they were basically occupied as soon as they were built,” Mr. Chitwood said.

Most Hispanics would arrive and move into an apartment complex on Fifth Avenue, said Maricruz Lugo, who moved from Texas to Dalton 20 years ago.

“It was basically the only place that had so many apartments, and you usually knew someone who already lived there,” she said, speaking in Spanish.

Although she doesn’t live in the area anymore, Ms. Lugo said she frequents the Latin American stores on East Morris Street and Murray Avenue to buy Mexican ingredients and meat for her cooking.

Ms. Lugo says the change in Dalton has been both good and bad.

“I like the fact that now you can buy a greater variety of Mexican products. Before it was all frozen food,” she said. “But I liked how the city looked before all the people started arriving. It was greener, quieter.”

For longtime Anglo residents, changes on the East Side can also be bittersweet.

Lifelong Dalton resident Gayle Gazaway, 49, recently discovered a Caribbean ice cream spot she adores on East Morris. But at the same time, she saw that the Southern-cooking restaurants she once patronized had disappeared.

“Everything has changed,” she said. “It just makes me feel really old.”

But for Mr. Cuna, the 16-year-old, the East Side’s Mexican stores and its ice cream carts are a familiar comfort in a foreign land. He came here from Mexico City seven years ago and said the East Side reminds him of his boyhood life back home.