Troup County (pronounced ) 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.US Census Bureau, 2020 Report, Troup County, Georgia The county seat is

LaGrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangia Troup County comprises the LaGrange, GA Micropolitan Statistical Area. It is included in the Atlanta- Athens-Clarke County- Sandy Springs, GA Combined Statistical Area.

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 part of a large area controlled by the Muscogee, also known as the Creek people. The land for

Lee Lee may refer to: Name Given name * Lee (given name), a given name in English Surname * Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee: ** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname ** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese ...

, Muscogee, Troup, Coweta, and Carroll counties was

ceded The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdictio ...

by the Creek to the United States in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs. The counties' boundaries were created by the

Georgia General Assembly The Georgia General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is bicameral, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each of the General Assembly's 236 members serve two-year terms and are directly ...

on June 9, 1826, but the counties themselves were not named until December 14, 1826. The county is named for George Troup, thirty-fourth

governor of Georgia The governor of Georgia is the head of government of Georgia and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor also has a duty to enforce state laws, the power to either veto or approve bills passed by the Georgia Legisl ...

U.S. representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

, and

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. As with much of the Piedmont, this area was developed in the antebellum era for cotton cultivation after short-staple cotton was made profitable by invention of the cotton gin. 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.Tom Blake, "TROUP COUNTY, GEORGIA: LARGEST SLAVEHOLDERS FROM 1860 SLAVE CENSUS SCHEDULES and SURNAME MATCHES FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS ON 1870 CENSUS"
, transcribed 2002, rootsweb During the post-Reconstruction period, violence and the number of

lynchings Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

of blacks increased in the late 19th century, as whites exercised terrorism to re-establish and maintain white supremacy. Whites lynched three African Americans in Troup County in this period, most were killed around the turn of the 20th century. Such deaths occurred through the post-World War II period. A fourth man from Troup County was lynched in neighboring Harris County. 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.

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 The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

South, where they were disenfranchised and socially oppressed. 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: shooting him several times and leaving him for dead. In 2017 a man who was a child at the time revealed that his white family found and took Callaway to the hospital, where he died the next day. They had kept their role secret out of fear of the

KKK The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

. Callaway was noted by the local paper as dying from gunshot wounds; the '' New York Times'' at the time described it as a lynching. As was typical in these cases, no one was prosecuted for the murder. In response, that fall African Americans organized the first

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

chapter in Troup County at Warren Temple Methodist Church in LaGrange. It has worked on a variety of civil rights issues, including voting rights, equal justice, access, and human services. In 1947, prosperous farmer Henry "Peg" Gilbert, a married African-American father who owned and farmed 100 acres in the county, was arrested and charged with harboring a fugitive by officials from neighboring

Harris County, Georgia Harris County is a County (United States), county located in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia; its western border with the state of Alabama is formed by the Chattahoochee River. As of the 2020 United St ...

, in the case of Gus Davidson. Also African American, the latter man was charged in the shooting death of a white farmer. Four days later Gilbert was dead, shot while held in jail by the Harris County Sheriff, in what he said was self-defense. In 2016 the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project of

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

reported on this

death in custody A death in custody is a death of a person in the custody of the police, other authorities or in prison. In the 21st century, death in custody remains a controversial subject, with the authorities often being accused of abuse, neglect, racism and ...

. They found that Gilbert had been beaten severely before his death, and shot five times. They asserted he had been detained and killed because of his success as a farmer. By 1960, the county was recorded in the US Census as having 31,418 whites and 15,760 "Negroes" (now classified as black or African Americans). Following passage of the

Voting Rights Act of 1965 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...

, blacks gradually regained the ability to vote and take part in the political process. Textile manufacturing was a major part of the economy until the late 20th century, when textile manufacturing moved offshore to areas with cheaper labor. The county has acquired other industry, notably auto parts manufacturers who support the nearby Kia Motors plant. Also in the area are West Point Lake and Callaway Gardens, which attract tourists and visitors as top recreation destinations in the state.Brad Schrade, "Family reveals 76-year-old secret in Georgia lynching"
''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'', 16 March 2017; accessed 26 March 2018 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 teacher in the county's school system. On January 25, 2017, Mayor Jim Thornton and Police Chief Louis M. Dekmar, of the county seat of LaGrange, publicly apologized to more than 200 people gathered for a reconciliation service at Warren Temple United Methodist Church for the police's failure decades before to protect Callaway, saying:

"I sincerely regret and denounce the role our Police Department played in Austin's lynching, both through our action and our inaction," Chief Dekmar told a crowd at a traditionally African-American church. "And for that, I'm profoundly sorry. It should never have happened."
''New York Times,'' 27 January 2017; accessed 27 January 2017

Residents organized Troup Together, a grassroots group to acknowledge lynchings, commemorate the victims, and work on racial reconciliation. On March 18, 2017, black and white residents of the county gathered to dedicate a historic marker at Warren Temple Church "memorializing Callaway's lynching and three others documented in the area: Willis Hodnett in 1884; Samuel Owensby in 1913 and Henry Gilbert, a Troup County resident who was lynched in neighboring Harris County in 1947." Another ceremony was held at Southview Cemetery in LaGrange, where these names were read."What Happened at Warren Temple?"
Troup Together blog and website; accessed 26 March 2018 On April 7, 2017, Troup County's computer systems were the victim of a ransomware attack; it caused all county computer systems to be inaccessible. This included the sheriff's office and district attorney's office. After 5 days, the county was still working to get 400 computer systems back online.

Government

The government of Troup County is based on an elected county commission, or council. The chairman is elected county-wide, or

at-large At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather than ...

, and four commissioners are each elected from

single-member district A single-member district is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. Single-member districts are also sometimes called single-winner vo ...

s."Board of Commissioners"
, Troop County, GA government District 5 includes much of the territory of LaGrange, the county seat and most densely settled community in the county.

Politics

Geography

According to the

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (7.2%) is water. The county is located in the Piedmont region of the state. The entirety of Troup County is located in the Middle

Chattahoochee River The Chattahoochee River forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida - Georgia border. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a relatively short river formed by the confluence of the Chatta ...

- Lake Harding sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin).

Major highways

Interstate 85 * I-185 (GA)

Interstate 185 * US 27

U.S. Route 27 U.S. Route 27 (US 27) is a north–south United States Highway in the southern and midwestern United States. The southern terminus is at US 1 in Miami, Florida. The northern terminus is at Interstate 69 (I-69) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. F ...

U.S. Route 29 * Georgia 1

State Route 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbered S ...

State Route 14 * Georgia 14 Connector

State Route 14 Connector * Georgia 14 Spur

State Route 14 Spur * Georgia 18

State Route 18 * Georgia 54

State Route 54 * Georgia 100

State Route 100 * Georgia 103

State Route 103 * Georgia 109

State Route 109 * Georgia 219

State Route 219 * Georgia 403

State Route 403 (unsigned designation for I-85) * Georgia 411

State Route 411 (unsigned designation for I-185)

Adjacent counties

Coweta County Coweta County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is part of Metro Atlanta. As of the 2020 census, the population was 146,158. The county seat is Newnan. Coweta County is included in the Atlanta-S ...

(northeast) * Meriwether County (east) * Harris County (south) *

Chambers County Chambers County is the name of two counties in the United States: * Chambers County, Alabama * Chambers County, Texas Chambers County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 46,571. The county seat is ...

, Alabama (southwest/CST Border except for Lanett and Valley as they are part of the Columbus Metropolitan Area) * Randolph County, Alabama (northwest/CST Border) *

Heard County Heard County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. At the 2020 census, the population was 11,412, down from 11,834 in 2010. The county seat is Franklin. The county was created on December 22, 1830. Hear ...

(north)

Demographics

2000 census

As of the census of 2000, there were 58,779 people, 21,920 households, and 15,607 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 23,824 housing units at an average density of 58 per square mile (22/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 65.80% White, 31.87% Black or African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.58%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.75% from other races, and 0.78% from two or more races. 1.71% of the population were Hispanic or

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

of any race. There were 21,920 households, out of which 34.60% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.10% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

living together, 17.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.80% were non-families. 24.90% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.20% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61 and the average family size was 3.12. In the county, the population was spread out, with 27.90% under the age of 18, 9.20% from 18 to 24, 28.40% from 25 to 44, 21.90% from 45 to 64, and 12.60% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.00 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.70 males. The median income for a household in the county was $35,469, and the median income for a family was $41,891. Males had a median income of $31,863 versus $22,393 for females. The per capita income for the county was $17,626. About 12.20% of families and 14.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.70% of those under age 18 and 14.00% of those age 65 or over.

2010 census

As of the

2010 United States Census The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...

, there were 67,044 people, 24,828 households, and 17,489 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 28,046 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 61.5% white, 33.4% black or African American, 1.6% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific islander, 1.7% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 3.2% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 12.3% were English, 12.1% were

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, 11.4% were Irish, and 7.3% were

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. Of the 24,828 households, 37.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.0% were married couples living together, 20.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 29.6% were non-families, and 25.1% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.62 and the average family size was 3.12. The median age was 36.3 years. The median income for a household in the county was $41,770 and the median income for a family was $50,625. Males had a median income of $39,960 versus $28,218 for females. The per capita income for the county was $19,699. About 15.5% of families and 19.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 30.1% of those under age 18 and 14.2% of those age 65 or over.

2020 census

As of the

2020 United States census The United States census of 2020 was the twenty-fourth decennial United States census. Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2020. Other than a pilot study during the 2000 census, this was the first U.S. census to of ...

, there were 69,426 people, 24,436 households, and 15,354 families residing in the county.

Communities

Harrisonville Harrisonville is a town in Cass County, Missouri, United States. The population was 10,121 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Cass County. It is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. History Harrisonville was founded in 1837 up ...

Hogansville Hogansville is a city in Troup County, Georgia, United States. The population was 3,060 at the 2010 census. Since 1998, Hogansville has held an annual Hummingbird Festival in October. It is located approximately halfway between Atlanta and Col ...

LaGrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaLong Cane Long Cane may refer to: * Long Cane, Georgia * Long Cane Massacre Site, in South Carolina {{disambig ...

* Mountville * West Point

References

{{Coord, 33.03, -85.03, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-GA_source:UScensus1990 Georgia (U.S. state) counties 1826 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) Populated places established in 1826 Troup