History UnderfootAtlanta
  • Settlement
  • Early
  • incorporated December 10, 1823
  • DeKalb County
  • Location approximate

Decatur and its courthouse square (1823)

DeKalb's county seat was incorporated on December 10, 1823, and named for naval hero Stephen Decatur. Its courthouses have stood on a rise where, the New Georgia Encyclopedia says, two Indian trails once crossed.

See it on the map All Early records

The record

The first courthouse, built in 1823, was a 'crude wooden structure'; a new one went up in the center of the square in 1829 and burned on January 9, 1842, destroying nearly all county records (DeKalb History Center). A plain two-story brick Greek Revival courthouse with a clock tower followed in 1847, survived 1864 and was replaced in 1898 by the present granite building, which burned in 1916 and was rebuilt by 1918. A local story says residents turned away the Western & Atlantic Railroad over its noise and smoke; NGE reports it only as something 'said.' In 1850 the town had 744 people, 252 of them enslaved (U.S. census).

Today: The 1898 Old Courthouse (National Register, 1971) houses the DeKalb History Center.