Historic Sites in Wheeler County

The history of Wheeler County

Wheeler County is one of Georgia's younger counties, established in 1912 from part of Montgomery County and named for Joseph Wheeler, the Confederate cavalry general who later served again in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The county sits in the three rivers area bounded by the Oconee, Ocmulgee and Little Ocmulgee rivers, and its first known inhabitants were people of the Lower Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Most white settlers arrived after the Revolutionary War, many of them from North Carolina. The area's modern growth began in 1890, when the Savannah, Americus and Montgomery Railroad extended its line from Abbeville to Lyons and new towns rose along the tracks. Alamo, the future county seat, opened a post office that same year and was incorporated in 1909; its name recalls a Spanish word for the cottonwood or poplar tree. Glenwood, the county's other railroad town, was incorporated in 1908. Sawmilling and naval stores, the turpentine and resin products drawn from longleaf pine forests, were the economic mainstays, and timber still covers much of the land. The Wheeler County Courthouse in Alamo was completed in 1917, five years after the county's creation.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orgen.wikipedia.org