Ten things worth knowing about Newnan

Every Newnan resident has a fact or two they like to pull out when friends come to town. Here are ten worth keeping handy, each one checked against the city's own records or the people who know the story best.

Where the name and the town came from

1. The city is named for a general. Newnan honors General Daniel Newnan, a North Carolina native who went on to serve as Georgia's Secretary of State and in the U.S. Congress. The New Georgia Encyclopedia describes him as a soldier and statesman who lived from 1780 to 1851.

2. It was not the first county seat. The land between the Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee rivers belonged to the Creek people until it was ceded to Georgia in the 1820s, and the new county took its name from the Coweta, or Lower Creek. Coweta's government first met at Bullsboro, about two miles east of today's downtown. In 1828 the seat moved to a new town laid out on a grid around a courthouse square, and Newnan was incorporated the same year.

3. Nobody fully agrees on the nickname. Newnan has long called itself the City of Homes. The city's own history credits the many historic houses that still line its streets, and notes that some accounts point instead to a high rate of home ownership back when Newnan counted as one of the wealthiest towns in the country for its size.

How Newnan came through the Civil War

4. It was a hospital town. Because the railroad ran through it, Newnan became a Confederate hospital center from 1863, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia counts about 10,000 soldiers cared for in seven field hospitals. The courthouse, churches and College Temple all took in wounded from both sides. In late July 1864, cavalry clashed at Brown's Mill, about three miles south of town, where Confederate troops under Joseph Wheeler defeated Union forces under Edward McCook. The town was spared the burning that hit so much of Georgia, and the battlefield is now a free historic site with trails and interpretive signs.

5. It had a women's college with a claim to fame. College Temple, the school whose campus served as a hospital during the war, is described by the city as the first college to offer a Master of Arts degree to women. The College-Temple Historic District around its old grounds was laid out in 1828, and the academy lot there hosted seven different schools between 1829 and 1975.

Firsts that are still around

6. A 17-year-old landed the library. A young resident named Charles L. Thompson wrote to Andrew Carnegie asking for a library, and in 1901 Carnegie granted $10,000. The building on LaGrange Street opened in 1904, and the library believes it is the oldest surviving Carnegie library building in Georgia. It served as the town's library until 1987, and the city later restored it and brought library service back downtown.

7. The local paper started months after the war ended. The Newnan Herald printed its first issue on September 9, 1865, and the paper says it was the first newspaper started in Georgia after the Civil War. It merged with The Newnan Times in 1947 and, as The Newnan Times-Herald, still comes out twice a week under the family that has owned it since 1946.

The Newnan people talk about today

8. Locals take spring storm warnings seriously. At 11:37 p.m. on March 25, 2021, a tornado touched down in Heard County and crossed into Coweta. The National Weather Service rated it EF-4 and estimates its peak winds at 170 miles per hour, reached as it entered Newnan's western city limits. Its path ran 38.9 miles across Heard, Coweta and Fayette counties and was up to 1,850 yards wide, just over a mile, near Newnan. It struck Newnan High School directly, destroyed homes in the city and heavily damaged others. One person died.

9. Alan Jackson is a hometown name. The country star grew up here, and the city lists him among its notable residents. As a high school student he waited tables at Sprayberry's Barbecue on Jackson Street, and the restaurant says he still comes back for a meal on visits home. The place started as Houston Sprayberry's filling station, where the barbecue sandwiches he sold out back outgrew the gas pumps; it has been a restaurant since 1926, and the humorist Lewis Grizzard's usual order, a barbecue sandwich with Brunswick stew and onion rings, is still listed as the Lewis Grizzard Special. On the square, the building that houses Redneck Gourmet carries a mural celebrating Jackson alongside a sign by Newnan illustrator David Boyd.

10. The city turns 200 in 2028, and the countdown has started. In October 2026 the city opened Bicentennial Park on East Broad Street, the first step in the celebration, with an archway, murals and historic markers planned next. Earlier in the year, the National Register of Historic Places added the Chalk Level Historic District in southeast Newnan, recognizing the neighborhood African American residents built during segregation, with its churches, schools, homes and two cemeteries.

One bonus for the road: Newnan has a sister city in Ayr, Scotland. Next time someone asks what is special about the place, you have at least eleven answers.