History

a front page of an 1861 edition of the Marietta Advocate

History January 17, 2024

Civil War era Cobb County court clerk absconds with the cash

If we consider the backlog in the Cobb County clerk’s office now scandalous, imagine reader reaction to this brief story from the February 1, 1861, issue of the Marietta Advocate:…

Cobb County, History, Smyrna December 24, 2023

Shoupade Park: a small park built around Civil War fortifications

This is an update of an article originally published in the Courier in April of 2016. Since then, another park was developed that also includes Shoupades: Discovery Park on the…

Drawing of a poinsettia, with radial red petals and radial green leaves

History December 20, 2023

Joel Roberts Poinsett: Namesake of the poinsettia, enslaver, secret agent and perpetrator of the ‘Trail of Tears’

by Lindsay Schakenbach Regele, Miami University, [This article first appeared in The Conversation, republished with permission] If people know the name Joel Roberts Poinsett today, it is likely because of…

Entrance to Hooper-McWilliams cemetery, probably erected by boy scouts in the late 1990s

History November 26, 2023

Cobb County’s Hooper family and a Civil War mystery

This is an expanded republication of an article originally published by the Courier on January 1, 2017. There is a second part to this article, in which an authority on…

History November 23, 2023

Grave robbery in Cobb County: 1879

Throughout the early years of medical education schools in need of cadavers would often resort to the illegal service of grave robbers, also called “body snatchers.” The most well-known case…

History November 23, 2023

Burying the lede: We all had a fantastic time, except one of us was killed

This is a revised and expanded version of a story we originally ran in the earliest days of the Courier, in May of 2016, when our readership was less than…

Section of 1833 map showing original shape of Cobb County (retrieved from http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/hmap/id:hmap1833t3copy3 at the UGA libraries -- public domain)

Cobb County, History November 11, 2023

How did Cobb County get its name?

This article is an expanded version of one of the earliest articles published on the Cobb County Courier, in 2015. Cobb County, formed in 1832 after the Cherokee were expelled…

History August 12, 2023

It’s the early 20th Century, and the automobile begins its rapid rise to dominate the roads of Cobb County

[Editor’s note: This is a version of an article we published in 2017, when the traffic to our site was around 10,000 visitors per month. We are now more than…

In an obviously old photo a line of Black men and women in formal dress posing for photo .

History February 2, 2023

A Black history primer on African Americans’ fight for equality – 5 essential reads

by Howard Manly, The Conversation, [This article first appeared in The Conversation, republished with permission] As the father of Black history, Carter G. Woodson had a simple goal – to…

Bayard Rustin with another man leaning toward him talking

History January 31, 2023

Meet Bayard Rustin, often-forgotten civil rights activist, gay rights advocate, union organizer, pacifist and man of compassion for all in trouble

by Jerald Podair, Lawrence University, [This article first appeared in The Conversation, republished with permission] As I began writing “Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer,” my biography of the 20th-century radical leader…

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