Historic Sites in Troup County

The history of Troup County

Troup County was organized in 1826 on Muscogee (Creek) land given up under the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs, and it carries the name of Governor George M. Troup, whose administration secured that cession. LaGrange, the county seat, was incorporated in 1828 and borrows its name from the Marquis de Lafayette's country estate in France. Cotton grown on fertile Piedmont soil made Troup one of antebellum Georgia's wealthiest counties, and by 1860 it was among the state's largest slaveholding counties. LaGrange also developed as a college town, with LaGrange College dating to 1831. During the Civil War its position on the railroad between Atlanta and Montgomery made it a hospital center. Local women organized a militia known as the Nancy Harts, drilling with firearms while nursing wounded soldiers in their homes; when Union cavalry reached LaGrange in April 1865, they surrendered the town without a fight. The day before, on April 16, Confederate defenders at Fort Tyler fought the Battle of West Point, one of the war's last engagements. Bellevue, the 1850s home of statesman Benjamin Harvey Hill, is now a National Historic Landmark. Textile mills reshaped the economy in the late nineteenth century, and a Kia automobile plant opened in West Point in 2010.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiaencyclopedia.orgtroupcountyga.gov