Bartow County, Georgia
county in Georgia, United States
Bartow County is in the northwest region of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, its population was 108,901, up from 100,157 in 2010. The county seat is Cartersville. Traditionally considered part of Northwest Georgia, Bartow County is now included in the Atlanta metropolitan area, mainly in the southeastern part near Cartersville, which has become an exurb more than 40 mi (64 km) from downtown Atlanta on I-75. It has a sole commissioner government and is the largest county by population of the few remaining in Georgia with a sole commissioner.
History
Bartow County was created from the Cherokee lands of the Cherokee County territory on December 3, 1832, and named Cass County, after General Lewis Cass (1782–1866), Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, Minister to France and Secretary of State under President James Buchanan, who was instrumental in the removal of Native Americans from the area. However, the county was renamed on December 6, 1861, in honor of Francis S. Bartow, because of Cass's support of the Union, though Bartow never visited in the county, living 300 miles (480 km) away near Savannah all of his life. Cass had supported the doctrine of popular sovereignty, the right of each state to determine its own laws independently of the federal government, the platform of conservative Southerners who removed his name.
The Civil War first entered Bartow County on April 12, 1862, in the form of the Great Locomotive Chase. As a result of the Western & Atlantic Railroad’s (W&A RR) strategic war time value, Union soldiers boarded and stole a train named the General.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bartow County, Georgia” is county in Georgia, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bartow, County and Georgia, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “county in Georgia, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q488181. VIAF identifies the subject as 126680487. The Library of Congress control number is n81093382. Authority coordinates are 34.240, -84.840. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2010, 1832 and 1782.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Bartow County, Georgia primary sources, Bartow County, Georgia archive and Bartow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Bartow County, Georgia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.