Historic Sites in Dade County

The history of Dade County

Dade County, in Georgia's far northwest corner, was created in 1837 from the western part of Walker County and named for Major Francis Langhorne Dade, a Virginia officer killed in the Second Seminole War. Its county seat, Trenton, was originally called Salem and was incorporated in 1854; the present courthouse dates to 1926. The area had been Cherokee country associated with the leader Wauhatchie, and in 1838, only a year after the county was organized, his people were forced out during the removal remembered as the Trail of Tears. During the Civil War more than 40,000 soldiers passed through on their way to Chickamauga, and local men formed a company called the Raccoon Roughs. Despite a popular legend, Dade County never seceded from the Union on its own. Coal mining and coke production began before the war, halted during the fighting, and resumed in the 1880s with the use of convict labor, and mining continued in some form until the 1980s. Lookout Mountain, which the county shares with Tennessee and Alabama, dominates the landscape, and more than 160 caves have been recorded here. Cloudland Canyon State Park, established in 1939, protects a deep gorge on the mountain's western edge.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orgdadecounty-ga.gov