Historic Sites in Chattooga County

The history of Chattooga County

Chattooga County was created on December 28, 1838, from parts of Floyd and Walker counties and named for the Chattooga River, which flows through it. The ridges and valleys of this corner of northwest Georgia were home first to Muscogee (Creek) people and later to the Cherokee Nation, whose members were forcibly removed from Georgia in the same years the county was organized. Summerville, the county seat, was established in 1839 under the name Selma and renamed in 1840. Industry came early to Trion, where the Trion Factory, built between 1845 and 1847, became the first cotton mill in northwest Georgia. During the Civil War, one of its owners, Andrew Perry Allgood, is said to have hosted General William T. Sherman in October 1864 and received protection papers in exchange for a promise to close the mill, which survived the campaign. The factory burned in 1875 and was rebuilt, and the Trion mill later became one of the world's largest producers of indigo denim. Other towns grew up around the county, including Lyerly, incorporated in 1891, and Menlo, incorporated in 1903. In the twentieth century, Baptist minister and self-taught artist Howard Finster transformed his property near Summerville into Paradise Garden, a sprawling folk art environment that is now a public park devoted to his life and work.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orghmdb.orgen.wikipedia.org