Coweta County, Georgia | |
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County | |
Coweta County | |
Historic Coweta County Courthouse in Newnan
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Location in the U.S. state of Georgia |
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Georgia's location in the U.S. |
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Founded | 1826 |
Seat | Newnan |
Largest city | Newnan |
Area | |
• Total | 446 sq mi (1,155 km2) |
• Land | 441 sq mi (1,142 km2) |
• Water | 4.9 sq mi (13 km2), 1.1% |
Population (est.) | |
• (2015) | 138,427 |
• Density | 289/sq mi (112/km²) |
Congressional district | 3rd |
Time zone | Eastern: UTC-5/-4 |
Website | www |
Coweta County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 127,317. The county seat is Newnan.
Coweta County is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The land for Lee, Muscogee, Troup, Coweta and Carroll counties was ceded by the Creek people in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs. The counties' boundaries were created by the Georgia General Assembly on June 9, 1826, but they were not named until December 14, 1826. Coweta County was named for the Koweta Indians (a sub-group of the Creek people), who had several towns in and around the present-day county.
In the city of Newnan, on April 23, 1899, a notorious 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 tortured and burned alive by a lynch mob of approximately 2,000 citizens of Coweta County.
On August 9, 1882, Aleck Brown was lynched.
The legislative body of is the Coweta County Commission, which consists of five members elected from numbered districts. The chairmanship rotates among the members. Coweta County is the only county in Georgia that operates with a rotating chairmanship.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 446 square miles (1,160 km2), of which 441 square miles (1,140 km2) is land and 4.9 square miles (13 km2) (1.1%) is water.