Historic Sites in Cherokee County

The history of Cherokee County

Cherokee County was created by the Georgia legislature on December 26, 1831, from lands of the Cherokee Nation and named for the Cherokee people who lived there. Its original boundaries covered much of northwest Georgia, and in December 1832 that territory was divided into additional counties, among them Cobb, Floyd, Forsyth, Lumpkin, and Paulding. The discovery of gold in north Georgia in 1828 and the state's 1832 land lottery drew white settlers onto Cherokee land. Before the forced removal on the Trail of Tears in 1838 and 1839, Cherokees from the area were held at Fort Buffington, east of present-day Canton. The county seat, first called Etowah, was later renamed Canton. Cotton, corn, gold mining, and marble quarrying supported the nineteenth-century economy, and industry expanded after a railroad was completed in 1879; Canton Cotton Mills, founded by R. T. Jones in 1899, operated until 1981. The county's fourth courthouse, finished in 1929, was built of white Georgia marble, and the 1906 Rock Barn was constructed from stone quarried along the Etowah River. Joseph E. Brown, who was elected governor in 1857 and led Georgia through the Civil War, made his home and law practice in Canton, and his son Joseph M. Brown also became governor. Dean Rusk, U.S. secretary of state in the 1960s, was born in the county.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orgen.wikipedia.org