A Brief History of West Point, Georgia
West Point, Georgia was originally known as Franklin starting on December 26, 1831. Franklin started as a trading post on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River. It is believed that the town got its name from Dr. G.W. Hill who went to the state capital to work more on incorporating the town, and [...]
Unidentified: UFO’s in Troup County
LaGrange Daily News from July 15, 1997 On a cool spring evening, some college students were wandering around campus when the wind picked up a little. The breeze sent a shiver down their spines and then they saw it… what, exactly, no one knows. The first documented report of an unidentified flying [...]
William Hutchinson Huntley: Confederate Secret Agent
By Randall Allen The proprietors of Brown Brothers’ Machine Shop in New Castle, Pennsylvania, made a gruesome discovery when they opened their office on the morning of December 29, 1894. Their patent attorney, William Huntley, sat slumped at his desk, lifeless eyes staring through his thick wire rimmed glasses. An empty laudanum bottle sat [...]
Dorothy Hopkins McClendon, the Cemetery Lady
By Thomas Daniel Knight and Randall Allen Troup High Key Club member, Bruce Batchelor looks on as Dorothy McClendon, dressed in her “cemetery uniform,” clears a grave in the John Hill Cemetery at Long Cane. Key Club helped clean the cemetery as a service project in October, 1980.(Troup County Archives) Fair warning [...]
John Marvin Thompson: Villain and Victim
By Randall Allen The genesis of this article goes back more than forty years. One Sunday afternoon my grandmother and I drove around Oak Grove Community, where she grew up. On Floyd Road (then called Pruitt Mill Road), we stopped at the site of the old Davidson grist mill on Turkey Creek. My great [...]
I’ll never forget ol’ what’s-his-name!
Anyone with an interest in Troup County’s history has heard about Fuller Callaway, Horace King, Benjamin Harvey Hill and the legend of the Nancy Harts. Every day, we drive by landmarks that are part of the fabric of our community, but we rarely think about their origins. In these articles we’ll explore some less well [...]
A Driver’s Guide to Hill View Cemetery – Swanson Lot
If, like me, you’re a resident of LaGrange, you will regularly find yourself driving down Morgan Street where it becomes New Franklin Road and passing the glorious riot of stone monuments that makes up Hill View Cemetery. As I pass it on a nearly daily basis, I find myself thinking about the many men [...]
A Driver’s Guide to Hill View Cemetery – Longley Lot
Photo of the Longley grave, 2021 by Lewis O. Powell, IV. If, like me, you’re a resident of LaGrange, you will regularly find yourself driving down Morgan Street where it becomes New Franklin Road and passing the glorious riot of stone monuments that makes up Hill View Cemetery. [...]
