Founded

Bartow County was renamed from Cass County on December 6, 1861.

Name Derivation

Colonel Frank Bartow from Chatham County, Georgia (Savannah) died at the First Manassas - First Bull Run and would posthumously be promoted to general. When Cass County decided to change its name because Lewis Cass supported abolition, they chose Bartow as the hero they wished to honor and voted to rename the county on December 6, 1861.

County History

In The Civil War Bartow County was occupied by William Tecumseh Sherman during Atlanta Campaign and was the place where General Sherman began the March to the Sea. While no major battles occurred in the county a number of minor ones did and a major one would have happened if corps commander John Bell Hood had not been concerned about reports coming into his headquarters of Yankees to his rear at Cassville.

After the Atlanta Campaign but before the March to the Sea, Hood again returned to Bartow County, this time as commander of the Army of Georgia. Sherman was effectively using the Western and Atlantic Railroad to supply his troops from the railhead in Chattanooga, Tennessee and fattening his cattle in Bartow County's fields before moving them south to feed his troops. Hood's men, ill-fed and poorly supplied could use the stores in the warehouses so the commander sent Samuel French to fill the pass and deplete the stores near the Allatoona Depot.

In the Battle of Allatoona Pass, the largest battle to occur in Bartow County, French surrounded federal general John Corse in a star fort overlooking the pass but was forced to retreat when he received reports of a significant Union force approaching. This was backed up by a communication from Sherman to Corse intercepted by French that Sherman was "near" although Sherman never left his Kennesaw Mountain stronghold.

To ensure that Georgia did not have the means to rebuild, as Sherman left for Savannah he removed the railroad track from Dalton to Allatoona Pass and destroyed the track south of Allatoona Pass. His last communication with the north occurred in Cartersville on November 12, 1864 and Sherman destroyed Cassville (Bartow County seat at the time) and portions of Kingston and Carterville. As a result the winter of 1864-65 was one of the hardest for Bartow's citizens and saw many citizens leave. In 1867 the county decided to move the county seat to Cartersville.

Minerals

The rich history of Bartow County has mining as a occupation even when the land was part of the Cherokee Nation in Georgia. During the War of 1812 the Cherokee mined saltpeter near present-day Kingston. This mine was also used during The Civil War. In the 1920's the mine was turned into an attraction and visitors would pay 25 cents to walk through to the "great room."

A belt of minerals runs through the county that includes barite, bauxite, manganese, ocher, brick clay, shale, talc, limestone and iron. Limestone processing was greatly improved by William Weinman and for many years the Weinman Mineral Museum told the story of the mineral industry in Bartow County and the state of Georgia. In the first decade of the 21st century the Weinman Mineral Museum closed and was replaced by Tellus, which contains a large section on minerals in the state of Georgia.

Iron

Bartow County has a long history of mining ore and producing both pig and cast iron, the most common element in the earth. Its the iron in the hills of Red Top Mountain State Park give the park its distinctive rust colored clay. Iron was mined here from open-pits, one of which still exists on the Iron Mine Hike.

In the late 1830's Bartow's Iron Industry was founded by Jacob Stroup who built a blast furnace on Stamp Creek. In 1843, following an unsuccessful bid for Georgia governor Mark Anthony Cooper purchased the furnace hoping to capitalize on the Western and Atlantic Railroad, then completed to just south of the Etowah. Although the railroad built a station for the short line to the village of Etowah around the furnace, Mark Cooper's dream never came to fruition. Cooper's Iron Works is all that remains of the city of Etowah.

Iron production in Bartow County continued until the early 20th century.

County: Bartow County
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