Historic Sites in Chattahoochee County

The history of Chattahoochee County

Chattahoochee County was created on February 13, 1854, from parts of Muscogee and Marion counties and named for the Chattahoochee River, which forms its western boundary. The land had been home to the Muscogee (Creek) people, who were forced west to Indian Territory in the 1830s, and the county seat, Cusseta, takes its name from the Cussetah, one of the most prominent Muscogee towns. The county's first courthouse, a two-story frame building constructed in 1854 by enslaved laborers, was moved in 1974 to the historic village of Westville and replaced with a brick courthouse. The old county jail, built in 1902, has been restored by a local preservation society. No single force has shaped the county's modern history more than the Army post founded in 1918 as an infantry training school. Originally named Fort Benning for Confederate general Henry L. Benning, it grew from a small site on Macon Road to include the 1,800-acre Riverside Plantation and some 115,000 adjoining acres, and it has occupied most of the county's land ever since. The post was renamed Fort Moore in 2023, then restored to the Fort Benning name in 2025, this time honoring Corporal Fred G. Benning, a World War I recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross. In 2003 Cusseta and Chattahoochee County consolidated into a unified government.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orgen.wikipedia.orgarmy.mil