Troup County, Georgia Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Troup County
County
Troup County Courthouse and Government Center in LaGrange, April 2012.
Location within the U.S. state of Georgia
Georgia's location within the U.S.
Country	United States
State	Georgia
Founded	June 9, 1826; 198 years ago (1826)
Named for	George Troup
Seat	LaGrange
Largest city	LaGrange
Area
• Total	446 sq mi (1,160 km²)
• Land	414 sq mi (1,070 km²)
• Water	32 sq mi (80 km²) 7.2%%
Population (2020)
• Total	69,426
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Congressional district	3rd

Troup County (pronounced /truːp/ troop) is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 69,426. The county seat is LaGrange.

Troup County comprises the LaGrange micropolitan statistical area along with Chambers County, AL. It is included in the Atlanta-Athens-Clarke County-Sandy Springs combined statistical area.

History
- 20th century to present
Geography
- Major highways
- Adjacent counties
Communities
See also

History

For thousands of years, this area of what is now defined as west central Georgia was occupied by cultures of indigenous peoples. In the historic period, it was controlled by the Creek people.

The land for Lee, Muscogee, Troup, Coweta, and Carroll counties was ceded by the Creek to the United States in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs. The counties' boundaries were created by the Georgia General Assembly on June 9, 1826, but they were not named until December 14, 1826.

The county is named for George Troup, thirty-fourth governor of Georgia, U.S. representative, and senator.

As with much of the Piedmont, this area was developed in the antebellum era for cotton cultivation. By 1860 Troup County was the fourth-wealthiest in Georgia and fifth-largest slaveholding county in the state.

According to U.S. Census data, the 1860 Troup County population included 6,223 whites, 37 "free colored" and 10,002 slaves. By the 1870 census, the white population had increased about 3% to 6,408, while the "colored" population had increased about 12% to 11,224.

In the late 19th century, entrepreneurs in LaGrange built the first cotton mill, and others were rapidly established in this area. Initially they employed only white workers. Textile manufacturing was a major part of the economy until the late 20th century, when textile manufacturing moved offshore to areas with cheaper labor.

20th century to present

During the first half of the 20th century, thousands of blacks left Georgia and other southern states in what is known as the Great Migration. They were seeking work as mechanization reduced the number of farm jobs, and they were seeking more opportunities than in the Jim Crow South, where they were disenfranchised and socially suppressed.

On September 8, 1940, 16-year-old Austin Callaway, a black youth, was arrested in LaGrange as a suspect in an attack on a white woman. The next night a small, armed group of white men took him from the county jail, driving him out to the nearby countryside, where they lynched him.

By 1960, the county was recorded in the US Census as having 31,418 whites and 15,760 "Negroes" (or blacks, African Americans). Following passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, blacks gradually regained the ability to vote and take part in the political process.

As of 2015, the official historian of Troup County is writer Forrest Clark Johnson, III, who has published several books on the county and region's history. He is a retired former teacher in the county's school system.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 446 square miles (1,160 km²), of which 414 square miles (1,070 km²) is land and 32 square miles (83 km²) (7.2%) is water.

The entirety of Troup County is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Lake Harding sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin).