Newnan was established as county seat of Coweta County (replacing the defunct town of Bullsboro) in 1828, and was named for North Carolinian General Daniel Newnan. It quickly became a prosperous magnet for lawyers, doctors, other professionals, and merchants. Much of Newnan's prosperity was due to its thriving cotton industry, which relied on slavery.
Newnan was largely untouched by the Civil War due to its status as a hospital city (for both Union and Confederate troops), and as a result still features much antebellum architecture.[5] During the Atlanta Campaign, Confederate cavalry defeated Union forces at the nearby Battle of Brown's Mill. Subsequently, architect Kennon Perry (1890–1954) designed many of the town's early 20th-century homes.
On April 23, 1899, a lynching occurred after an African-American man by the name of Sam Hose (born Tom Wilkes) was accused of killing his boss, Alfred Cranford. Hose was abducted from police custody, paraded through Newnan, tortured, and burned alive just north of town by a lynch mob of roughly 2,000 citizens of Coweta County.
Newnan was also host to the trial in 1948 of wealthy landowner John Wallace, the first White man in the South to be condemned to death by the testimony of African Americans, two field hands who were made to help with burning the body of murdered white sharecropper Wilson Turner. These events were portrayed in the novel Murder in Coweta County.
In 1968, Kmart opened a warehouse in Newnan, which slowly established it as a major hub for distribution in the area.[6] The International Brotherhood of Teamsters attempted to unionize the warehouse, but the attempt was defeated when the employees voted 329 to 201 in favor of remaining union-free.[7] In 2015, the distribution center closed with a loss of 164 jobs.[8]
In the early morning hours of March 26, 2021, Newnan was directly impacted by a violent EF4 tornado, which caused substantial structural damage and indirectly killed one person. The tornado was one of the strongest on record in Georgia since 1950, and directly impacted the historic downtown area.[9]Newnan High School was re-built after sustaining serious damage.[10]
Geography
Newnan is located in the center of Coweta County. U.S. Route 29 passes through the center of the city, leading northeast 13 miles (21 km) to Palmetto and south 7 miles (11 km) to Moreland. Interstate 85 passes through the eastern side of the city, with access from exits 41, 44, and 47. I-85 leads northeast 40 miles (64 km) to downtown Atlanta and southwest 125 miles (201 km) to Montgomery, Alabama. U.S. Route 27A leads northwest from the center of Newnan 22 miles (35 km) to Carrollton.
According to the United States Census Bureau, Newnan has a total area of 18.6 square miles (48.3 km2), of which 0.35 square miles (0.9 km2), or 1.88%, is covered by water.[11]
Climate
The climate is moderate with an average temperature of 64.3 °F (45.8° in the winter and 79.1° in the summer). The average annual rainfall is 51.84 inches.
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 42,549 people, 15,135 households, and 10,013 families residing in the city.
Arts and culture
The city is home to one of the few Georgia counties with a museum that focuses mainly on African-American history. The Coweta County African American Heritage Museum and Research Center, or Caswell House, was opened in July 2003 in a donated mill village house once owned by Ruby Caswell. The museum sits on Farmer Street on an old, unmarked slave cemetery. It has collected hundreds of family genealogical records by interviewing residents and going through the census records.[15] The museum also houses the Coweta Census Indexes from 1870 to 1920.[16]
The first Black library in the county was the Sara Fisher Brown Library. Built in the 1950s, the library has since been converted into the Community Action For Improvement Center.[17]
The Farmer Street Cemetery is the largest slave cemetery in the South, and may be the largest undisturbed one in the nation. It is within the city limits of Newnan.
Education
Coweta County School District
The Coweta County School District holds preschool to grade 12, and consists of 19 elementary schools, seven middle schools, and three high schools.[18] The district has 1,164 full-time teachers and over 18,389 students.[19]
Mercer University has a regional academic center in Newnan. The center opened in 2010, and offers programs through the university's College of Continuing and Professional Studies.
The University of West Georgia has a campus located in Newnan, near downtown. This campus currently has two undergraduate programs - Bachelor of Science in nursing and early childhood education.[20]
Until the mid-1950s the Central of Georgia operated two trains daily in each direction, through Newnan from Atlanta to Columbus, in its Man O' War service. The Central continued a single Man O' War train until 1971 when Amtrak took over most interstate passenger service.[25][26][27][28] Until 1970, the city was a stop on the Southern Railway's Crescent from New Orleans to New York City, via Atlanta.[29][30] Into the mid-1960s, the Southern's Crescent and Piedmont Limited made stops in both directions in Newnan.[31]
The 1979 movie The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid (Uno sceriffo extraterrestre... poco extra e molto terrestre) with Bud Spencer takes place and was filmed in Newnan.
The Walking Dead TV series has several scenes filmed in Newnan, including Newnan High School and Sonrise Baptist Church.[37]
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) was filmed in Newnan where fake snow was sprayed all over downtown Newnan to have the effect of a winter storm. The filming of the movie occurred in the present business named Rock Salt Milk Bar which was named Nora's Diner in the movie. [39]
^Godey, Louis Antoine; Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell (1856). "COLLEGE TEMPLE, NEWNAN, GEORGIA". Godey's Magazine. 52–53. Godey Company: 154–55. Retrieved January 9, 2022. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^"Southern Railway, Table A". Official Guide of the Railways. 102 (5). National Railway Publication Company. October 1969.
^"Southern Railway, Table A (rerouted west through Birmingham)". Official Guide of the Railways. 102 (12). National Railway Publication Company. May 1970.
^"Atlanta and West Point Rail Road". Official Guide of the Railways. 98 (2). National Railway Publication Company. July 1965.
