The Courier makes heavy use of the Georgia Historic Newspapers database and website housed at the University of Georgia when we publish articles about the history of Cobb County and its cities (see the explanation of the Georgia Historic Newspaper site at the bottom of this article).

While looking for Christmas-themed material, we ran into an interesting reference to Powder Springs, published 45 years before that area was officially incorporated, and only six years after Cobb County was created.

The November 27, 1838 edition of a Milledgeville newspaper called the Federal Union ran an advertisement for a hotel called the Powder Springs Hotel (follow this link for an image of the whole page from the newspaper).

At that time Milledgeville was the capital of Georgia, and remained so until 1868, when Atlanta became capital.

Here is the text of the ad, followed by a screenshot of the way the ad looked in the newspaper:

To Those who Seek Health and Comfort

POWDER SPRINGS HOTEL.

The subscriber would inform his friends and the public generally that he has become the proprietor of the above establishment and will devote his attention to the comfort and accommodation of such as may honor him with their patronage.

He pledges himself that no effort of his shall be spared in making this one of the most desirable houses of public entertainment in this section of the country.

His table shall at all times be supplied with every variety within his reach, and his bar shall be filled with the choicest liquors.

His stable shall be well supplied with provender, and attended with the best of ostlers. In short, nothing shall be wanting, so far as depends on the subscriber, his assistants, and servants, to make the house peaceful and plentiful, and worthy of patronage.

The Powder Springs are situated eleven miles southwest of Marietta, Cobb County, in a high and beautiful section of the country, and no person has ever visited these springs for health and thoroughly tested their luxurious water but will candidly acknowledge its virtue.

JOHN ANDERSON. October 8, 1839. 22-3tw&2un The Southern Recorder will please give the above three weekly and two monthly insertions, and forward their account for payment.

Georgia Historic Newspapers

Georgia Historic Newspapers is part of the GALILEO project, and is housed at the University of Georgia.

The project team finds and scans copies of Georgia newspapers, and now includes newspapers from the 18th century through the present. [Correction: an earlier version of this article read “from the 17th Century.” The earliest newspaper is from 1765 in the 18th Century]

They digitize the papers into PDF copies and run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on them so that they are searchable and available in text format (although the text renderings are not perfect).