The Coweta County Commission signed off June 3 on a move to bring a part of local history alive with the adoption of a resolution supporting the Georgia Dept. of Transportation (GDOT) Designation Application for the McIntosh Trail Scenic Byway.

In a brief presentation to the commission, McIntosh Trail Historic Preservation Society board member and Senoia resident Nancy Roy said the two year-old board determined that its first goal would be to make the public aware of the historic trail and propose to GDOT that a scenic byway be designated.

Resolutions have been obtained from some of the counties and municipalities within the scenic route, but the society wanted the commissioner’s support before going to the municipalities in Coweta County, Roy said.

“This scenic byway will be a tool for economic, education, historic and recreational opportunities,” Roy said.

The trail will be a driving tour, society board member Joanne Utt said after the meeting.

Chief William McIntosh was born in 1775, the son of William McIntosh, a Scotsman and Senoya (He-Na-Ha), a Creek Indian princess. The town of Senoia was named after McIntosh’s mother, according to historians Edward Jordan Lanham and John Lynch. His father’s lineage goes back to colonial Georgia and included Lachlan MacIntosh a Revolutionary War general and Georgia Gov. George Troup. McIntosh became the principal chief of the Lower Creek Nation in the early 1800s. He fought with General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama in 1814. His service with the U. S. military merited him the rank of general. McIntosh’s land holdings included property along the Chattahoochee River (Carroll and Coweta County), Indian Springs (Butts County), and along the Ocmulgee River (Butts County).

The existing trail that ran between his properties and on into Alabama became known as the McIntosh Trail, according to Lynch and Lanham. The trail, estimated to be 118 miles long through much of what is now south and west metro Atlanta, became a well traveled route used by McIntosh, other Indian tribes, traders, and pioneer settlers.

Preservation society covers Butts, Spalding, Fayette, Coweta and Carroll counties, with two members from each county serving on the board.

Georgia Scenic Byways Program is a grassroots effort to preserve, promote, protect and interpret treasured corridors throughout the state. Scenic byways feature certain intrinsic qualities that should be protected or enhanced, according to GDOT.

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