Newnan, GA

Newnan was established as the Coweta County seat in 1828 and named for North Carolina general Daniel Newnan. Cotton drove much of its early prosperity through enslaved labor. The city largely escaped Civil War destruction because it served as a hospital center, leaving substantial antebellum architecture. The Coweta County African American Heritage Museum and Research Center opened in 2003 in the Caswell House, a former mill-village home on an unmarked cemetery for enslaved people; its collections include county census indexes from 1870 through 1920. Located about 40 miles southwest of Atlanta along Interstate 85, Newnan grew from 33,039 residents in 2010 to 42,549 in 2020. Mercer University, the University of West Georgia, and West Georgia Technical College each maintain a local center or campus.