By Larry Felton Johnson
The cliche “you learn something new every day” applies doubly to me, because I spend a little time every day just trying to learn new facts about the county: its history, demographics, cities … any new information I can find out.
Yesterday, while browsing through Sarah Blackwell Gober Temple’s book The First Hundred Years: A Short History of Cobb County in Georgia, published in 1935, I learned something new about Powder Springs.
Powder Springs, in its current incarnation, began with its incorporation in September of 1883.
But a passage in Temple’s book, in a chapter entitled “Development of Towns,” lists two previous incorporations of Powder Springs, one in 1838 (under the name “Springville at Powder Springs”, and a second in 1859 (incorporated as just “Powder Springs”).
Temple did not mention the incorporation in 1883, which is clearly documented in Georgia’s records.
There is also no mention of why the same basic area required incorporation three separate times, decades apart.
Usually when faced with something like this, I dig into the Georgia Historic Newspapers digital archives.
For this article, I was interested in mentions of Powder Springs surrounding the first incorporation Temple mentioned, in the 1830s. So I set the boundaries of my search from 1830 to 1839.
The first reference to “Powder Springs” I could find is from 1836, when the April 26 edition of the Georgia Constitutionalist in Augusta ran a list of postmaster appointments, and listed “C.B. Strange, Powder Springs, Cobb County.”
In May of that year, the Federal Union, a newspaper in Milledgeville, listed Powder Springs as a town getting a new post office.
This would have been two years before the first incorporation Temple mentioned in her book, but it would not be unusual for an unincorporated place to have a post office.
In June 1837, the Columbus Sentinel ran a real estate article listing several properties in Cobb County, including one in Powder Springs.
“The Powder Springs is in high repute for those mineral and healing virtues, and a place of great and extensive resort, situated in a most valuable section of the country, surrounded by wealthy citizens, and is now a first rate country village for business,” wrote the reporter, J.B. Waller.
On November 27, 1838, the Federal Union ran the following advertisement from a hotel in Powder Springs:
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 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 is situated eleven miles southwest of Marietta, Cobb County, in a high and beautiful section of 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.
Finally, Temple’s claim about the 1838 incorporation was verified in the January 8, 1839, issue of the Macon, Georgia Telegraph, among a long list of laws passed by the Georgia legislature the previous year.
The report simply stated, “To incorporate Springville, at the Powder Springs, in the county of Cobb.”
In the next installment of this series, I’ll explore the second incorporation listed in Temple’s book, the one in 1859.