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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part two of a three-part series. You can find the first part of the series in the Wednesday edition of the Valley Times-News. 

WEST POINT — Three members of the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS) took turns making presentations about the history of West Point at the organization’s quarterly meeting, held this past Saturday morning underneath the pavilion at the city’s river park. 

Current President Jason Williams talked about the area’s Native American period. “The Voice” editor Ron Williams discussed the settlement of the town in the 1820s and the period ending with the Civil War. Past President Malinda Powers covered the period from the end of the Civil War to the current period.

Williams noted that when Troup County was created in 1825 its borders extended from the Flint to the Chattahoochee rivers.  It was settled by means of a land lottery system. To be eligible, each person seeking land had to take an oath to be a citizen of the state of Georgia and the U.S. It was thought that the new residents would build their homes and improve their land. Priority was given to anyone who had fought in the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812. LaGrange was selected as the county seat over the new settlements of Mountville and Vernon. Mountville is still a town in the eastern part of the county near the Meriwether County line. Vernon was the site of a ferry near the mouth of Whitewater Creek. The site is underneath the waters of West Point Lake today.

Early settlers also flocked to the early town of Franklin in the southwest corner of the new county. There were approximately 100 people living there when the name was changed to West Point in 1832. Among the early settlers were Major Broadnax, Thomas and William Coker, Joseph and John Williams, John Phipps and Asa Cox. The town’s first store went up in 1829 and a ferry opened soon after that. The first town commissioners were Charles R. Pearson, William Atkins, Robert M. Richards, Thomas B. Erwin and John C. Webb.

Early in the town’s history, a movement was under way to build a bridge across the river. Those serving on a committee to get this done were Abner McGee, George Whitman, Edward Hancock, John Scott, Francis M. Gilmer, Nimrod Benson, John C. Webb and Charles R. Pearson.

That first bridge opened in 1839. It was constructed by Horace King, the well known master builder of the covered bridge. It was some 652 feet in length. Some of the stone pilings that were underneath the bridge can still be seen. That first bridge was burned the day after the Battle of Fort Tyler.

Williams said the arrival of Thomas Winston and his son George would be a big event for early West Point. They started the West Point Land Company, something that led to the growth of the town. 

By 1840, a man named Ruben Lanier came to the local area to run a copper mine. His descendants would have a big impact on the local area.

With growth and progress, ambitious people started thinking of a railroad. After all, West Point was located about halfway between two growing cities. Montgomery had been Alabama’s capital since 1826, and the place called Standing Peachtree was marked for greatness. Cousin John Thrasher opened a store there in 1843, and Atlanta came to be when two railroads crossed there in the 1850s.

A railroad heading northeast of Montgomery reached West Point in 1851. One heading southwest of Atlanta reached the town in 1854.

There was a big problem with this, though. The rails were of different widths. It was a problem for the two states but especially great for West Point. Everything had to be taken off the trains and transported across the state line by mule-drawn carts and stored in warehouses until they could be put on trains heading either south or north.

Williams cited an article from an Augusta, Ga. newspaper about the railroad getting to West Point. “There were free rides between Montgomery and West Point,” he said. “A crowd estimated at 5,000 people had gathered in West Point. Most of them had never seen a train before.”

What had been the Atlanta & LaGrange Railroad changed its name to the Atlanta & West Point Railroad when it reached the state line in 1854.

Having lots of warehouses in West Point made the town an inviting target for Union cavalry in 1865.

“The rails that brought people here also brought the Union Army,” Williams said. “The invading army was part of General J.H. Wilson’s swift drive through Alabama and Georgia, a final effort to render powerless the center of the all-but-defeated Southland. Selma and Montgomery had been occupied.”

Part of the army went east toward Columbus with another wing going northeast toward West Point. They got there around 10 a.m. on Easter Sunday 1865 and noticed that an earthen fort on the north side of town with a commanding view of the city’s rail yard was heavily defended. “It was remarkably strong,” wrote the Union commander, Col. Oscar LaGrange. “It was 35 yards square, surrounded by a ditch 12 yards wide and ten feet deep.”

The fort defenders put up a gallant fight against overwhelming odds and held on until their ammunition ran out late in the afternoon. “The garrison was composed of 265 desperate men,” LaGrange wrote in his report. “Eighteen of them, including commanding officer General Robert C. Tyler, were killed and 28 seriously wounded.”

A total of 218 fort defenders were taken prisoner. A total of 19 locomotives and approximately 340 rail cars filled with machinery from factories, leather, and clothing were destroyed. 

Union losses included seven killed and 29 wounded. The Union soldiers left town heading toward LaGrange living behind seven hogsheads of sugar, 2,000 sacks of corn, 10,000 pounds of bacon and other stores were left in charge of the mayor. The intention was to help the town recover from its losses.

Both the railroad and wagon bridges were burned. It would take several years to have them replaced.