Historic Sites in Floyd County

The history of Floyd County

Floyd County was established on December 3, 1832, as one of ten large counties Georgia carved from Cherokee territory, and it is named for General John Floyd, a Georgia militia commander and statesman. The Cherokee had long made this river country home, and leaders Major Ridge and John Ross operated ferries here; Ridge's house survives as the Chieftains Museum. Rome was founded in 1834 at the Cherokee settlement called Head of Coosa, where the Etowah and Oostanaula rivers join to form the Coosa, and it soon replaced Livingston as county seat. The first steamboat reached Rome in 1836, and the rivers carried cotton to markets that eventually connected with ports in Europe. In 1855 James Noble Sr. and his sons opened a foundry that built a locomotive by 1857 and later cast cannon for the Confederacy. Union troops under William T. Sherman occupied Rome from May to November 1864 and burned the foundry and parts of downtown. After the war, lumbering and textile mills at places such as Lindale and Shannon expanded the economy. The 1871 Clocktower, first built as a water reservoir, still rises over the city, Martha Berry founded the school that became Berry College in 1902, and First Lady Ellen Axson Wilson is buried in Rome's Myrtle Hill Cemetery.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiaencyclopedia.org