Historic Sites in Fayette County

The history of Fayette County

Fayette County was one of five counties Georgia created in 1821 on land taken from the Muscogee (Creek), and both the county and its seat, Fayetteville, honor the Marquis de Lafayette, the French general who served in the Continental Army. After the Creek were forced out, the land was surveyed into 202.5-acre lots and distributed by lottery, with Revolutionary War veterans and widows with minor children among those eligible. White settlement began in 1822. Georgia later drew on Fayette's original territory to form parts of Campbell, DeKalb, Spalding, and Clayton counties, reducing it to about 197 square miles. The courthouse in Fayetteville, built in 1825 and topped with a clock tower in 1888, is regarded as the oldest courthouse building in the state; it was damaged by fire in 1983 and restored. Nearby, the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House was built in 1855 by John Stiles Holliday, uncle of the gunfighter Doc Holliday, and today displays county history and Civil War artifacts. Early settler Phillip Fitzgerald, great-grandfather of author Margaret Mitchell, arrived in the late 1820s, and Matthew Yates developed the Yates apple here. Later residents included Governor Hugh M. Dorsey and physician Ferrol Sams. Peachtree City, chartered in 1959 as a large planned community, signaled the county's shift toward suburban growth.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.org