There was a Campbell County in Georgia and it endured for 103 years (1828-1931).  This is the year for reminding all Georgians of its history.

Campbell, the 75th county to be created in the state, was authorized by the state legislature on December 20, 1828.  Fulton, Cobb, Clayton and Douglas were among the eighty-six to be added after that date.

The representatives of Old Campbell County went first to the state capitol at Milledgeville when John Forsyth was governor.  Later, in 1877 when Atlanta became the state's capital city, state government was brought closer to Campbell's citizens.  Its final years came when Richard B. Russell was governor, having existed from the time of President Andrew Jackson to the term of Herbert Hoover.  December 1978 would be the time for a sesquicentennial celebration if the county had endured.  But bygone counties do not celebrate anniversaries.

On January 1, 1932 Campbell County was terminated by merger with Futon County.  Voters, believing the merger to be a solution to the county's financial woes, overwhelmingly approved it.  Campbell became South Fulton County.  At the same time, old Milton County (to the north of Fulton) joined the Metropolitan county.  By these mergers, Fulton County was increased from 198 square miles to 548 square miles.  Campbell's 211 square miles furnished growing room for Fulton with much of is territory yet to be utilized.

The lands of Old Campbell came from the last "purchase" from the Creek Indian Confederacy.  The Indian Springs treaties of 1821 and 1825 were negotiated by Duncan G. Campbell and James Meriwether with Creek Chief William McIntosh, who was later murdered by his fellow Creeks.  Georgia's acquisition of the new lands made possible the moving of thousands of east Georgians and Carolinian's to fresh new agricultural lands.  In 1826 the legislature created a number of counties from the new territory including the two large counties of Coweta and Carroll.  Another act of the legislature in 1828 created a new county, Campbell, named for Duncan G. Campbell.  It was formed from parts of Coweta, Carroll, Fayette and DeKalb Counties.  It extended on both sides of the Chattahoochee, taking in most of what is now Douglas County.

Duncan Campbell died in June, 1828 before the creation of the county which was to bear his name.  He had been nominated for governor by the Democratic Party before his death and it was said that his election appeared certain.  As a state legislator, he had without success tried to pass a law opening the state university to women.

Some county government functions were begun in 1829 when a session of the Campbell County Superior Court was convened west of the Chattahoochee in the home of John F. Beavers.  County officials were selected in 1829 and a county seat, to be called Campbellton, was given a charter to be in-corporated.

There was some rivalry between Judge Walter T. Colquitt and Judge Francis Irwin about where Campbellton was to be built.  Colquitt had a plantation at “Pumpkintown” (later Rivertown) and Irwin had lands farther north near the Beavers Home.  The dispute was ended when Irwin deeded eighty acres of land to the county and Campbellton was “staked out.”  Judge Colquitt (later to become a U.S. Senator) angrily left the county and moved away to Columbus.

The “staking out” of Campbellton occurred in 1835 and it appears that the building of the old brick courthouse was begun in that year.  The courthouse, prototype of the old Lumpkin County Courthouse - now the Gold Museum in Dahlonega - was to serve the county until 1870, when the county seat was moved to Fairburn.

Campbellton became a thriving rivertown, the old-timers said, and had 1,200 people residing there when the county seat was moved.  It attracted many future business leaders such as Alfred Austell and John A. Silvey who went on to the newer metropolis of Atlanta.

George Write reported in his 1849 Statistics of Georgia that Campbell’s population had grown in 1845 to 5,756.  There were seven post offices in the county by 1849: Campbellton, Cedar Branch, County Line, Rivertown, Sandtown, Rasselas and Dark Corner (later to become Douglasville).  There were eleven ferries (no bridges) across the Chattahoochee by that time.  White said: “Campbellton has a very large courthouse, built of brick, far too large for the county." The Sweetwater Factory (now site of Sweetwater Creek State Park) was a large water-powered textile mill and was Campbell's only important industry at the time.

The War Between the States occurred during Campbellton's years as county seat.  Dr. Thomas Coke Glover and James Cantrell represented the county at the Georgia Secession Convention held at Milledgeville in 1861.

Dr. Glover, later in 1861, organized the “Campbellton Blues,” Company A, 21^st Georgia Regiment.  He entered service as a captain and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.  He was killed at Winchester, Va. on September 9, 1864.  The county furnished an unusually large contingent (some 1,133) to the Confederate military forces.  Many boys were only 14 or 15 years old when they signed up.

Campbellton was bombarded by the Yankee Cavalry during the Siege of Atlanta.  Evidence of cannon-ball hits may still be seen on the old Latham Home and on the ancient Campbellton Masonic Lodge.  During the Siege of Atlanta, the Atlanta and West Point Railroad was destroyed for several miles in the Red Oak-Fairburn vicinity (then in Fayette County).  General William T. Sherman came to Red Oak to supervise the destruction of the remaining supply line to besieged Atlanta.  The history books used to show awe-inspiring pictures of iron rails twisted around oak trees after they had been heated by burning of the railroad crossties.

The Confederate Flag - (the Stars and Bars) had it first unfurling at Fairburn on March 4, 1861.  The design for the banner had been adopted by the Confederate Congress on the preceding day at Montgomery, Alabama.  A group of prominent Georgians, accompanied by their wives, was returning to Georgia on an Atlanta and West Point Railroad train.  The talk among the ladies was all about the new flag and how it would look.  They decided to get materials at Grantville, so the engineer stopped long enough for them to do so.  The flag was hastily put together and by the time the train reached Fairburn, the flag was ready for an unfurling ceremony.  The “Stars and Bars,” suspended from a temporary flagstaff, was allowed to wave from the back of the train until it reached Atlanta.  The Fairburn U.D.C. chapter placed a marker in 1937 near the old Atlanta and West Point Railroad Station where the Confederate Banner was first unfurled.

President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy reviewed General John B. Hood's disordered and defeated army after the Siege of Atlanta at a site between Fairburn and Palmetto in Campbell County.  He tried to restore civilian and military morale while Lee was still fighting n Virginia.  He wanted to get Hood's troops regrouped for action against Sherman's victorious Yankee forces.  He and General Hood planned strategy against the supply lines coming down from Chattanooga.  After the meeting, Hood's forces recrossed the Chattahoochee on the Pumpkintown Ferry for his ill-fated encounters with Federal forces in North Georgia and Tennessee.  Monuments and markers in Palmettos Central Wayside Park tell the story of Davis' visit to the area.  Highway 29 was dedicated, in 1930, as the Jefferson Davis Highway but was later renamed Roosevelt Highway when Franklin D. Roosevelt built the Little White House at Warm Springs.

After the war, Mrs. Elizabeth Camp Glover sent an invitation to the remnant of the Campbellton Blues who had returned from Virginia.  There were only thirty left of the two hundred men who enlisted in 1861.  She asked them to come to Campbellton and to tell how they saw their comrades fall in battle.  The ex-soldiers decided to meet annually thereafter.  This event, which occurred in June, 1865, was recognized by ex-soldiers and U.D.C. members as the forerunner of countless Confederate Reunions to be held throughout the South.  A marker was placed in 1937 at the Campbellton site by Campbell County U.D.C. Chapter.

The years after the war were years of toil and struggle for the residents of the rural county which began to see the great city of Atlanta grow up nearby.  The coming of railroads to eastern Campbell County sealed Old Campbellton’s doom as a growing city and county seat.  The importance of the railroad had been proved by its transportation of supplies, troops and wounded soldiers during the war and Campbellton's doom was brought about by the rejection of rail transportation by its leaders who wanted no railroad connection.  The Atanta and LaGrange Railroad, chartered in 1849, had become the Atlanta and West Point Railroad.  It was built on the eastern edge of Campbell, passing through Fairburn and Palmetto which became rivals for the county seat.

Only part of Fairburn was in Campbell County before 1870.  After the legislature agreed to move the boundary several miles to the east, taking in Fayette County territory, Fairburn became the logical site for the early courthouse.  But Campbell County lost all territory west of the Chattahoochee when a new county, Douglas, was formed.  An election to choose Fairburn or Palmetto as the county seat was held and Fairburn won.  The county seat was moved to temporary headquarters there in 1870 and the courthouse was completed and occupied in 1871.  It is still standing.

The coming of the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad in 1907 served as an impetus to the building of a new town to be called Union City at the junction of the new railroad with the Atlanta and West Point Railroad.  The town got ts name from the Farmers' Union when the organization's state headquarters was established there.  Now Union City is about to outstrip the growth of all other old Campbell communities.

Campbell County had farm related industries in the early 1900s.  There was a cotton mill at Palmetto, making heavy cotton cloth; a harness factory at Fairburn and a back band factory at Union City.  The coming of the boll weevil which destroyed cotton farm production was a heavy blow to its large farm population.  And then World War I and a succeeding depression came along!

Campbell County's leaders, who had always advocated pay-as-you-go county government became discouraged and called for the merger with Fulton County.

After Campbell's merger with Fulton, it appeared for a time that the classic old courthouse would he demolished since it was no longer needed.  But a group of South Fulton civic-minded citizens objected to demolition plans.  The group, led by Mrs. M. P. (Lucy) Word and Fairburn Mayor Harry T. Bledsoe worked for its preservation and its use as a community center.  A WPA grant of $5,000 was secured in 1935 and the building was remodeled for a recreation center and for community meetings.  A branch of the Atlanta Public Library was located here in 1940 and readers used the library there until the new Hobgood-Palmer Library was built and opened in 1967.

The Old Campbell County Historical Society, formed in 1971 is dedicated to the further preservation of the century-old building and the perpetuation of the memory of “The Camelot County of Georgia.” A Centennial Celebration for the old structure was held in 1971 and annual “Old Campbell County Home-Coming” Days have been held since then.   “The Campbell Life Spirit” has been revived.  The Society has grown to almost three hundred members and succeeded in getting the old courthouse in on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

But the Society has directed its main effort toward the establishment of a Campbell Memorial Museum in the old courthouse.  Fulton County Commission has appointed the Society as “curator” of the building and has encouraged the placement of the museum there.  The County officials have helped with the maintenance of the building and have installed a sprinkler system and made other improvements.

Now the Society, engaged in a fund-raising project to adapt the building for museum use, has every assurance that the landmark will remind everyone that there was a Campbell County in Georgia!