Historic Sites in Coweta County

The history of Coweta County

Coweta County was created in 1825 from Muscogee (Creek) land ceded in the Treaty of Indian Springs, signed that year by Creek leader William McIntosh. The county's name comes from Coweta, McIntosh's town and one of the largest centers of the Muscogee Nation. The first county seat was Bullsboro, established in 1826, but it soon shifted about two miles west to Newnan, named for General Daniel Newnan. Plantations and farms drove the antebellum economy, and by 1860 the county's nearly 15,000 residents were almost evenly divided between white and Black people; about one in four white farmers owned both land and enslaved workers. During the Civil War, Newnan's rail connections and distance from the major battlefields made it known as the hospital city of the Confederacy. Seven hospitals eventually treated more than 10,000 soldiers, and 269 Confederates who died there are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. In 1864 the Battle of Brown's Mill was fought just outside town. After the war, the Willcoxon Manufacturing Company opened the county's first cotton plant in 1866, and more textile mills and manufacturers followed in the early 1900s. Newnan, long called the City of Homes, is known for its preserved historic houses. Notable people from the county include Governor Ellis Arnall, novelist Erskine Caldwell, humorist Lewis Grizzard, and country singer Alan Jackson.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.org