Historic Sites in Cobb County

The history of Cobb County

Cobb County was created in 1832 as one of the counties carved from Cherokee lands in northwest Georgia, and it is named for Thomas W. Cobb, a U.S. senator from Greensboro. Marietta, chartered in 1834, is the county seat. The upper Piedmont terrain favored small family farms rather than large plantations. The Western and Atlantic Railroad ran through Marietta, which became a resort town before the Civil War, and the rail line put the county at the center of two famous wartime episodes. In 1862 Union raiders stole the locomotive General at Big Shanty, now Kennesaw, setting off the Great Locomotive Chase; the engine is displayed today at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History. On June 27, 1864, a major Union assault at Kennesaw Mountain failed to dislodge Confederate defenders, but Sherman's forces occupied Marietta on July 3. In 1915 Leo Frank, a Jewish Atlanta businessman convicted of murdering Mary Phagan, was lynched near Marietta, an act of antisemitic mob violence that drew national attention. World War II transformed the county when Bell Aircraft opened a Marietta plant in 1942 to build B-29 bombers, employing more than 28,000 people by 1945. Lockheed took over the plant in 1951 and produced the C-130 Hercules, first rolled out in 1955, and later the C-5 Galaxy.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.org