Cobb County, Georgia facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cobb County
County
From top: Blackjack Mountain
Seal
Location within the U.S. state of Georgia
Georgia's location within the U.S.
Country	United States
State	Georgia
Founded	December 2, 1832; 193 years ago (1832)
Named for	Thomas W. Cobb
Seat	Marietta
Largest city	Mableton
Area
• Total	345 sq mi (890 km2)
• Land	340 sq mi (900 km2)
• Water	5.0 sq mi (13 km2)  1.4%
Population  (2020)
• Total	766,149
• Estimate  (2023)	776,743
• Density	2,221/sq mi (857.4/km2)
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Congressional districts	6th, 11th, 13th, 14th

Cobb County is a county in the U.S. state of Georgia, and is a core county of the Atlanta metropolitan area in the north-central portion of the state. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 766,149. It is the state's third most populous county, after Fulton and Gwinnett counties. Its county seat is Marietta; its largest city is Mableton.

Along with several adjoining counties, Cobb County was established on December 3, 1832, by the Georgia General Assembly from the large Cherokee County territory—land northwest of the Chattahoochee River which the state acquired from the Cherokee Nation and redistributed to settlers via lottery, following the passage of the federal Indian Removal Act. The county was named for Thomas Willis Cobb, a U.S. representative and senator from Georgia. It is believed that Marietta was named for his wife, Mary. Cobb County is included in the Atlanta metropolitan area and is situated immediately to the northwest of Atlanta's city limits. Its Cumberland District, an edge city, has over 24 million square feet (2,200,000 m²) of office space. Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves have played home games at Truist Park in Cumberland since 2017.

In 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked Cobb County as the most educated in the state of Georgia and 12th-most in the United States. It has ranked among the top 100 highest-income counties in the United States. In October 2017, Cobb was ranked as the "Least Obese County in Georgia." Cobb County is one of the fastest growing counties in Georgia according to the 2020 US Census.

History

Cobb County was one of nine Georgia counties carved out of the disputed territory of the Cherokee Nation in 1832. It was the 81st county in Georgia and named for Judge Thomas Willis Cobb, who served as a U.S. Senator, state congressman and Superior Court Judge. It is believed that the county seat of Marietta was named for Judge Cobb's wife, Mary. The state started acquiring right-of-way for a railroad in 1836. A train began running between Marietta and Marthasville (now Atlanta) in 1845. Before the Civil War, Marietta was a summer resort for residents of Savannah and Charleston fleeing Yellow Fever.

Painting of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

During the American Civil War, some confederate troops were trained at a camp in Kennesaw. There were battles of New Hope Church May 25, Pickett's Mill May 27, and Dallas May 28. The Battle of Allatoona Pass on October 28 occurred as Sherman was starting his March through Georgia. Union forces burnt most houses and confiscated or burnt crops. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain June 27, 1864, was the site of the only major Confederate victory in General William T. Sherman's invasion of Georgia. Despite the victory, Union forces outflanked the Confederates.

In 1915, Leo Frank, the Jewish supervisor of an Atlanta pencil factory who was convicted of murdering one of his workers, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, was kidnapped from his jail cell and brought to Frey's Gin, two miles (3 km) east of Marietta, where he was lynched.

Cotton farming in the area peaked from the 1890s through the 1920s. Low prices during the Great Depression resulted in the cessation of cotton farming throughout Cobb County. The price of Cotton went from 16 cents a pound in 1920 to 9.5 cents in 1930. This resulted in a Cotton Bust for the county, which had stopped growing the product but was milling it. This bust was in turn, followed by the Great Depression. To help combat the bust, the state started work on a road in 1922 that would later become US 41.

F-47 Thunderbolt - 128th Fighter Squadron - Marietta Army Airfield, 1946

In 1942, Bell Aircraft opened a Marietta plant to manufacture B-29 bombers and Marietta Army Airfield was founded. Both were closed after World War II, but reopened during the Korean War, when the air field was acquired by the Air Force, renamed Dobbins AFB, and the plant by Lockheed. During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Lockheed Marietta was the leading manufacturer of military transport planes, including the C-130 Hercules and the C-5 Galaxy. "In Cobb County and other sprawling Cold War suburbs from Orange County to Norfolk/Hampton Roads, the direct link between federal defense spending and local economic prosperity structured a bipartisan political culture of hawkish conservatism and material self-interest on issues of national security."

Kennesaw State University

When home rule was enacted statewide by amendment to the Georgia state constitution in the early 1960s, Ernest W. Barrett became the first chairman of the new county commission. The county courthouse, built in 1888, was demolished.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Cobb transformed from rural to suburban, as integration spurred white flight from the city of Atlanta, which by 1970 was majority-African-American. Real estate booms drew rural white southerners and Rustbelt transplants, both groups mostly first-generation white-collar. Cobb County was the home of former segregationist and Georgia governor Lester Maddox (1966–71). In 1975, Cobb voters elected John Birch Society leader Larry McDonald to Congress, running in opposition to desegregation busing. A conservative Democrat, McDonald called for investigations into alleged plots by the Rockefellers and the Soviet Union to impose "socialist-one-world-government" and co-founded the Western Goals Foundation. In 1983, McDonald died aboard Korean Air Lines Flight 007, shot down by a Soviet fighter over restricted airspace.

Glover Park Bell, on the square in Marietta

In 1990, Republican Congressmen Newt Gingrich became Representative of a new district centered around Cobb County. In 1994, as Republicans took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in almost fifty years, Gingrich became Speaker of the House, thrusting Cobb County into the national spotlight. In 1993, county commissioners passed a resolution condemning homosexuality and cut off funding for the arts after complaints about a community theater. After protests from gay rights organizations, organizers of the 1996 Summer Olympics pulled events out of Cobb County. The county's inns were nevertheless filled at 100% of capacity for two months during the event.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Cobb's demographics changed. As Atlanta's gentrification reversed decades of white flight, middle-class African-Americans and Russian, Bosnian, Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, Mexican and Central American immigrants moved to older suburbs in South and West Cobb. In 2010, African-American Democrat David Scott was elected to Georgia's 13th congressional district, which included many of those suburbs. Cobb became the first Georgia county to participate in the Immigration and Nationality Act Section 287(g) enabling local law officers to enforce immigration law.

Geography

Union Trenches at Kennesaw Mountain, 1864

Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 345 square miles (890 km²), of which 340 square miles (880 km²) is land and 4.0 square miles (10 km²) (1.4%) is water.

The county is divided between two major basins. Most runoff flows into the Middle Chattahoochee-Lake Harding and Upper Chattahoochee River sub-basins of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin) along the southeastern border, directly via Willeo Creek, Sope Creek (Sewell Creek), Rottenwood Creek (Powers Creek, Poorhouse Creek, Poplar Creek), Nickajack Creek and others.

There are several high points in Cobb County.

• Sweat Mountain: in the extreme northeast portion, runs along the border with Cherokee County, and is the metro area's major antenna farm
• Blackjack Mountain: a low ridge between central and east Cobb
• Kennesaw Mountain: the highest point in the county and in the entire suburban area of metro Atlanta, located in the north-northwest between Kennesaw and Marietta
• Little Kennesaw Mountain: an offshoot of Kennesaw
• Lost Mountain: in western Cobb
• Pine Mountain: west-northwest of Kennesaw Mountain, between Kennesaw and Due West
• Brushy Mountain: near Kennesaw Mountain, just southeast of Barrett Parkway at Cobb Parkway
• Vinings Mountain or Mount Wilkinson: overlooks the town of Vinings

Adjacent counties

Metro Atlanta

• Cherokee County – north
• Fulton County – southeast
• Douglas County – southwest
• Paulding County – west
• Bartow County – northwest

Addressing

Despite the lack of a grid system of city blocks though the county, all street addresses have their numeric origin at the southwest corner of the town square in Marietta.

Geocodes and world's largest toll-free calling area

Originally in area code 404, the county was moved into area code 770 in 1995, and overlaid by area code 678 in 1998. Prior to 1995, those with phones tied to the Woodstock telephone exchange (prefixes 924, 926, 928, later 516 and 591) could also call the Canton exchange (479, later 445, then 704) as a local call. This became moot, along with other dual-zone exchanges in metro Atlanta, when the exurban exchanges (including Canton) were fully made a part of what was already the world's largest toll-free calling zone. It is a zone spanning 7,162 square miles (18,549 km²), with four active telephone area codes, and local calling extending into portions of two others.

Cobb's FIPS county code is 13067. Because the National Weather Service has not subdivided the county, its WRSAME code is 013067, for receiving targeted weather warnings from NOAA Weather Radio. The county is primarily within the broadcast range of one weather radio station: KEC80, on 162.550 MHz, transmitted to all of metro Atlanta and broadcast from NWSFO Peachtree City. The secondary station is the much newer WWH23 on 162.425 from Buchanan, which also transmits warnings for Cobb but has reception mainly in the western part of the county.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 766,149 people, 286,952 households, and 191,533 families residing in the county.

2010 Census

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 688,078 people, 260,056 households, and 175,357 families residing in the county. The population density was 2,026.4 inhabitants per square mile (782.4/km²). There were 286,490 housing units at an average density of 843.7 per square mile (325.8/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 62.21% white, 24.96% black or African American, 4.46% Asian, 0.34% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific islander, 5.28% from other races, and 2.71% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 12.26% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 10.4% were German, 10.0% were English, 9.3% were Irish, and 8.6% were American.

Of the 260,056 households, 36.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.2% were married couples living together, 13.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 32.6% were non-families, and 25.6% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.61 and the average family size was 3.17. The median age was 35.4 years.

The median income for a household in the county was $65,522 and the median income for a family was $78,920. Males had a median income of $55,200 versus $43,367 for females. The per capita income for the county was $33,110. About 7.6% of families and 10.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.5% of those under age 18 and 7.2% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Public schools

School districts include:

• Cobb County School District (serves all county locations except the city of Marietta)
• Marietta City Schools (serves the city of Marietta locations)

Private schools

• Cumberland Christian Academy, Austell (K–12)
• Dominion Christian School, Marietta (middle school–12)
• Midway Covenant Christian School, Powder Springs (preK–12)
• Mount Paran Christian School, Kennesaw (preK–12)
• North Cobb Christian School, Kennesaw (K–12)
• The Walker School, Marietta (preK–12)
• Whitefield Academy, Mableton (preK–12)
• East Cobb Christian School, Marietta (K–8)

Colleges and universities

• Chattahoochee Technical College
• Kennesaw State University
• Life University

Libraries

Cobb County maintains the Cobb County Public Library System. The libraries provide resources such as books, videos, internet access, printing, and computer classes. The libraries in the CCPLS are:

The Smyrna Public Library is a city-owned library in Smyrna and is not part of the county system.

Economy

The Cobb County School District is Cobb County's largest employer, employing over 15,000 people.

Private corporations include:

• The Home Depot Atlanta Store Support Center, world headquarters
• The Weather Channel headquarters
• InTown Suites headquarters
• Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Plant, located next to Dobbins Air Reserve Base in unincorporated Cobb
• Kool Smiles (Marietta)
• GE Power headquarters
• Papa Johns "additional" headquarters

Retail

Shopping centers in the county include:

• Cobb Center
• Cobb Place - 335,000 sq. ft., originally opened 1987
• Cumberland Mall
• Town Center at Cobb

Diplomatic missions

The Consulate-General of Costa Rica in Atlanta is located in Suite 100 at 1870 The Exchange in an unincorporated section of Cobb County.

Transportation

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park

Major highways

Airports

• Cobb County International Airport at McCollum Field
• Dobbins Air Reserve Base (where the U.S. president usually arrives when visiting Atlanta)

Rail

• Norfolk Southern through Mableton, Austell, Powder Springs
• CSX Transportation through Acworth, Kennesaw, Marietta, Smyrna, and Vinings
• Georgia Northeastern Railroad A Shortline Line north from Marietta

Until 1971, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, running on tracks now owned by CSX, operated passenger trains through Marietta depot.

Cobb County is not part of the MARTA Rail network, because its voters rejected MARTA development in a 1965 referendum which led to its creation.

Mass transit

• Xpress GA/RTA commuter buses and CobbLinc Marietta/Cobb Counties Transit System serve the county. MARTA also has a connecting bus service to the Cumberland, Georgia business district in the southeastern part of the county.

Recreation

Sope Creek Ruins

Silver Comet Trail and bike path

• American Adventures (Marietta)
• Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area
• Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park (Kennesaw to Marietta)
• Lake Acworth/Acworth Beach (Acworth)
• Lake Allatoona (near Acworth)
• Mable House (Mableton)
• Marietta Confederate Cemetery (Marietta)
• Marietta Museum of History (Marietta)
• Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art (Marietta)
• Marietta National Cemetery (Marietta)
• Silver Comet Trail (Smyrna, Mableton, Powder Springs)
• Six Flags Over Georgia (Austell)
• Six Flags White Water (Marietta)
• Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History (Kennesaw)

Venues

• Cobb County Civic Center
• Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center
• Coca-Cola Roxy
• Mable House Amphitheater
• Truist Park

Communities

Cobb County landmark and reference point "The Big Chicken"

Historic Downtown Marietta

Cities

• Acworth
• Austell
• Kennesaw
• Marietta
• Powder Springs
• Smyrna

Census-designated places

• Fair Oaks
• Mableton
• Vinings

Unincorporated communities

Notable people

• Roy Barnes – Governor of Georgia, 1999–2003; born in Cobb County and worked there as a prosecutor
• Bob Barr – politician; United States Representative, Republican Party; Libertarian Party candidate for President of the United States
• Big Boss Man (Ray Traylor) – professional wrestler; corrections officer
• James V. Carmichael – member of the Georgia General Assembly, 1935–1940; candidate for governor of Georgia, 1946
• Louie Giglio – pastor, author, founder of the Passion Conferences, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, head of sixstepsrecords
• Carter Kieboom - professional baseball player for the Washington Nationals
• Lil Yachty – rapper
• Dansby Swanson - professional baseball player for the Chicago Cubs

Sister county

• Seongdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea

See also

In Spanish: Condado de Cobb para niños