Place:McDonough, Henry, Georgia, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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McDonough is a city in Henry County, Georgia, United States. It is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Its population was 22,084 at the 2010 census, up from 8,493 in 2000. The city is the county seat of Henry County. The unincorporated communities of Blacksville, Flippen, Kelleytown, and Ola are located near McDonough, and addresses in those communities have McDonough postal codes.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The town was named for naval officer Commodore Thomas Macdonough and founded in 1823 around a traditional town square design. The buildings surrounding the square are intact, although there are some vacancies. The county courthouse and historic jail building are on the north side near the Welcome Center in a historically maintained Standard Oil service station, built in 1920. The station also houses the Main Street Program Office and Hospitality and Tourism Office.

One block east of the square, the town's original cotton warehouse has been replaced with the Henry County Judicial Center. In the same area the Henry County Courthouse Annex has an original oil on canvas "Cotton Gin" ( by 11 feet) by artist Jean Charlot. He painted this oil in 1942 for the town post office. His works can be found all over the world in everything from children's books to large murals.

The town was a relay station on the New York to New Orleans stagecoach line and was connected by other stage lines with Fayetteville and Decatur, and with Macon by way of Jackson.

On June 23, 1900, a washout during a thunderstorm caused a train wreck about north of town on the Camp Creek Bridge. The runoff undermined about of the Georgia Southern Railroad (Macon division) prior to the accident, and the passenger train subsequently caught fire, killing 39. This was one of the worst train crashes in American history and is known as the Camp Creek train wreck. It was featured on an episode of the paranormal TV series Haunted Towns in 2017.

Several individual buildings and two historic districts in the city are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including the downtown McDonough Historic District.

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