Historic Sites in DeKalb County

The history of DeKalb County

DeKalb County was created in 1822 from parts of Henry, Gwinnett, and Fayette counties, on land the Muscogee (Creek) had been forced to give up in the 1821 Treaty of Indian Springs. It honors Johann de Kalb, a German-born officer who died fighting for American independence. Decatur, established as the county seat in 1823, was named for naval hero Stephen Decatur and laid out on high ground where two Native trails crossed. In 1853 Fulton County was carved from DeKalb's western half, placing the growing railroad town of Atlanta in the new county. The Civil War reached DeKalb in the summer of 1864, when much of the Battle of Atlanta was fought within its borders along the railroad; Union soldiers entrenched around Decatur's square, and William T. Sherman spent a night in Lithonia. Mary Harris Gay recorded those months in her 1892 memoir Life in Dixie during the War. Granite quarries and dairy farms later defined the local economy, and in the 1940s and 1950s the county led the Southeast in dairy production. Emory University and Agnes Scott College are among its institutions, and the DeKalb History Center, founded in 1947, is based in the historic courthouse on Decatur Square. Stone Mountain Park and the Arabia Mountain preserve showcase the county's granite landscape.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.org