


|
|
Photo Gallery: Historic Tallapoosa
Marker
text:
Tallapoosa was a place of great ceremonial importance to the Indians. Here
in 1826 settlers discovered "Charles Town," and Indian village named for one
of their great warriors. Several Indian trails intersected here and the
Choctaw, Creek and Cherokee tribes frequently assembled here in a grove of
"Seven Chestnuts" to trade or make war. A local farmer, William Owens, found
gold here in 1842, and some 100,000 pennyweights were mined. Tallapoosa
achieved international renown in 1890 when Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of
Massachusetts and other notables including two United States Treasurers --
A.U. Wyman and James W. Hyatt -- organized the Georgia-Alabama Investment
and Development Co., to build a new city along the tracks of the Georgia
Pacific Railroad, which had been built in 1882. The new city of Tallapoosa
attracted some 15,000 investors, 3,000 new inhabitants and a billion dollars
in capitalization. It was a city "built as if by magic," Henry W. Grady
said, "one which challenged the attention and admiration of the world."
071-3 Georgia Historic Marker 1980 |