Summary History of Hall County
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Note:  I am not a historian, but I have great interest in these areas where I sell homes.
The following information is culled from a variety of sources.
Although I can not guarantee accuracy within those sources,
I took care to write the following with as much accuracy as I could achieve.
 
Hall County
  
       Hall County Georgia was created on December 15, 1818 by the Georgia General Assembly, as the 45th county.  The Georgia Assembly created Gwinnett and Habersham Counties in that same legislation, in addition to the counties of Walton, Irwin, Early, and Appling.  Much of the land that became Hall County was ceded by the Cherokee Indians in the Treaty of the Cherokee Agency on July 8, 1817, with a small amount of additional land moving from Indian hands into the Counties of Hall and Habersham through the Treaty of Washington on February 19, 1819.  Between 1818 and 1870 the Georgia legislature took several actions to transfer small amounts of land between Hall County and neighboring counties.
  
       The county is named after Dr. Lyman Hall.  Dr. Hall was one of three signers of The Declaration of Independence from Georgia, and he was a member of the Georgia Legislature after the Revolutionary War and subsequently became Governor of Georgia before once again being elected to the Georgia Legislature.  As Governor one of his projects was to set aside tracts of land to establish educational academies in the future.  His work in conjunction with subsequent efforts by Abraham Baldwin were instrumental in the chartering of the University of Georgia.
  
       The General Assembly designated Gainesville as the county seat, on November 30, 1821.  The village of Gainesville was named after Edmund P. Gaines, from Virginia, who was a General and hero in the War of 1812, founded Ft. Gaines in southwest Georgia in 1816, and was a noted military surveyor and road builder.  The original name for Gainesville was Mule Camp Springs and it was located near the intersection of two Indian trails that settlers followed around 1800.  It was the second village established by white settlers in this part of Georgia, the first settlement being Limestone Springs.  Most of these early settlers came from the Carolinas and Virginia, and were of Scottish, Irish, English, or German heritage.
  
       When the gold rush of 1829 came to Georgia, Gainesville financially benefited from the influx of people headed into Lumpkin County and other gold-laden points, and the community became a key supply and trading center.  In 1830 a silversmith named Templeton Reid from Milledgeville (then the capital of Georgia) opened the first private mint in the United States.  Gainesville was located in close proximity to the Federal Highway, a major route in the early 1800’s running from Savannah to Knoxville (with a leg also going to Chattanooga).  After the Creek War of 1814 a second set of roads were built, this time running west.  One of those was the Hightower Trail, going west from Gainesville to Cartersville (a community built on the Indian settlement of Hightower) and heading on west from there into Alabama.  Over the years Gainesville continued to grow into a significant financial and commercial center for Northeast Georgia.  And it even held such unique honors as being the first community south of Philadelphia to install electric street lights.
  
       In June 1830 Hall County, along with the counties of Habersham, Gwinnett, DeKalb, and Carroll were given the responsibility, by the state of Georgia, for enforcing civil law within the Cherokee lands.  But by 1838 that responsibility essentially ended, because any Cherokee Indians who had not already voluntarily moved west were gathered up and forcibly moved to Oklahoma, in what is known as The Trail of Tears.
  
       Even though the “gold rush” in North Georgia subsided by the mid 1800’s, Hall county continued to fair relatively well economically.  Around 1850 Gainesville became somewhat of a resort center, at least for a time.  And nearby the community of New Holland became both a resort town and a town with industry (a cotton mill).  Agriculture would continue to play an important role throughout the years, and even today.
  
       Although the Civil War did not bring the type of destruction to this county that was found in some other parts of Georgia, soldiers from Hall County were certainly involved in the Civil War, with a total of nine companies entering the war.  A number of these soldiers fought in most every battle that involved “The Army of North Virginia” including campaigns at Seven Pines, Williamsburg, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, as well as Olustee in Florida, before surrendering along with General Johnston’s forces in North Carolina in 1865.
  
       In the early 1870’s a major railroad came to the area, the Atlanta and Charlotte Airline Railroad (yes, it’s a strange name … but that is what they called it … in 1894 it became part of the Southern Railway).  The combined linkage of railroads ran from Atlanta to Gainesville and north from there.  With the railroad came more commerce and more visitors to the area, and surrounding lands developed as a summer mountain resort.  Local springs were touted for their health-giving qualities, including at the town near Gainesville called White Sulphur Springs.  (Note: Remember, there were major problems during this era with fever that plagued a number of the costal regions in the South.)  Gainesville had the first hospital in the region, plus the first college and a military academy.  Former Civil War General James Longstreet bought a significant amount of land around Gainesville, feeling confident that with major rail service coming to this area it would flourish for years to come.  He purchased the forty room Piedmont Hotel, was Postmaster, and raised poultry plus planted vineyards on land he bought just outside of Gainesville.
  
       Hall County has always had a strong agricultural base.  Early settlers of course grew food crops, but cotton eventually became a major cash crop.  By the early 1900’s the cotton mill industry had become important to the area.  With the railroad here, three large cotton mills were built and the local textile industry became a major source of non-agricultural employment.  The poultry industry was beginning to grow.  Also, Gainesville became a major shipping point for lumber harvested in North Georgia.  In fact, it is said that much of the wood used to build homes in the Eastern U.S. and Midwest between 1900 and 1920 was shipped from Gainesville.  But with the onset of the Depression, and of course the plague of the boll weevil, the economy suffered.  And even the lumber trade was further damaged by the Chestnut blight.  But following World War II the county’s economy improved, with poultry becoming a very large cash “crop.”  And new industry grew, especially sparked by the need to support the growing poultry and egg business.  Hall County became the center of a rising poultry industry that has led some to dub Georgia as “the poultry capital of the world.”
  
       With the construction of the Buford Dam and Lake Lanier, this county has seen even more growth through recreation and people moving to this area as a second home or for their primary residence.  In addition to Gainesville, other cities in the county include Oakwood and Flowery Branch, home of the Atlanta Falcons training facility.  A variety of special events are held each year within the county, such as the annual Railroad Days each spring in Lula, and the fall festival of Mule Camp held in Gainesville (which as noted above was originally called Mule Camp Springs)

     From The U.S. Census Bureau
 

ESTIMATED 2006 Population:
  
2000 Population:
  
Population change (April 1, 2000 to
July 1, 2006):
  
Median Household Income 2004:
  
Housing Units 2005:
  
Home Ownership Rate 2000:
  
Households 2000:
  
Persons per Household 2000:
  
2000 Land Area (sq miles):
  
2000 Persons per Sq Mile:
   		173,256
 
139,277
 
24.4%
 
 
45,949
 
59,048
 
71.1%
 
47,381
 
2.89
 
393.66
 
353.5

 
     Resources for constructing this summary included:
  
The Wikipedia website, Hall County, Georgia page:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_County,_Georgia

World Wide School website, Poems of Sidney Lanier - The Song of the Chattahoochee page:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_County,_Georgia

Genealogy Inc website, Hall County History and Information page:   http://www.mygeorgiagenealogy.com/ga_county/hal.htm

Hall County Board of Commissioners website, Hall County Georgia page:   http://www.hallcounty.org/living/history.asp

The GAGenWeb Project website, Welcome to Hall County, Georgia page:   http://www.rootsweb.com/~gahall/

Roadside Georgia website, Archives of Hall County page:   http://roadsidegeorgia.com/county/hall.html

The New Georgia Encyclopedia website, Hall County page:   http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2343

Our Georgia History, Hall County, Georgia page:   http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/ogh/Hall_County,_Georgia

Carl Vinson Institute of Government website, Hall County page:   http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/histcountymaps/hallhistmaps.htm

Carl Vinson Institute of Government website, Lyman Hall page:   http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/gasigner.htm#Lyman_Hall

Wikipedia website, Cornelia, Georgia page:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia,_Georgia

U.S. Census Bureau website, Hall County, Georgia page:   http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13/13139.html

  
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