Cobb County is a county in the U.S. state of Georgia, located in the Atlanta metropolitan area in the north central portion of the state. As of 2020 Census, the population was 766,149. It is the state's third most populous county, after Fulton and Gwinnett counties. Its county seat is Marietta; its largest city is Mableton.
Along with several adjoining counties, Cobb County was established on December 3, 1832, by the Georgia General Assembly from the large Cherokee County territory—land northwest of the Chattahoochee River which the state acquired from the Cherokee Nation and redistributed to settlers via lottery, following the passage of the federal Indian Removal Act. The county was named for Thomas Willis Cobb, a U.S. representative and senator from Georgia. It is believed that Marietta was named for his wife, Mary. Cobb County is included in the Atlanta metropolitan area and is situated immediately to the northwest of Atlanta's city limits. Its Cumberland District, an edge city, has over of office space. Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves have played home games at Truist Park in Cumberland since 2017.
In 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked Cobb County as the most educated in the state of Georgia and 12th-most in the United States. It has ranked among the top 100 highest-income counties in the United States. In October 2017, Cobb was ranked as the "Least Obese County in Georgia".
History
Cobb County was one of nine Georgia counties carved out of the disputed territory of the Cherokee Nation in 1832. It was the 81st county in Georgia and named for Judge Thomas Willis Cobb, who served as a U.S. Senator, state representative, and superior court judge. It is believed that the county seat of Marietta was named for Judge Cobb's wife, Mary. The state started acquiring right-of-way for the Western & Atlantic Railroad in 1836. A train began running between Marietta and Marthasville (modern day Atlanta) in 1845.
During the American Civil War, some Confederate troops were trained at a camp in Big Shanty (now Kennesaw), where the Andrews Raid occurred, starting the Great Locomotive Chase. There were battles of New Hope Church May 25, 1864, Pickett's Mill May 27, and Dallas May 28. These were followed by the prolonged series of battles through most of June 1864 until very early July: the Battle of Marietta and the Battle of Noonday Creek. The Battle of Allatoona Pass on October 5, 1864, occurred as Sherman was starting his march through Georgia. Union forces burnt most houses and confiscated or burnt crops. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, 1864, was the site of the only major Confederate victory in General William T. Sherman's invasion of Georgia. Despite the victory, Union forces outflanked the Confederates. In 1915, Leo Frank, the Jewish supervisor of an Atlanta pencil factory who was convicted of murdering one of his workers, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, was kidnapped from his jail cell and brought to Frey's Gin, east of Marietta, where he was lynched.
Cotton farming in the area peaked from the 1890s through the 1920s. Low prices during the Great Depression resulted in the cessation of cotton farming throughout Cobb County. The price of cotton went from 16¢ per pound (35¢/kg) in 1920 to 9½¢ (21¢/kg) in 1930. This resulted in a cotton bust for the county, which had stopped growing the product but was milling it. This bust was followed by the Great Depression. To help combat the bust, the state started work on a road in 1922 that would later become U.S. 41, later replaced by Cobb Parkway in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
In 1942, Bell Aircraft opened a Marietta plant to manufacture B-29 bombers and Marietta Army Airfield was founded. Both were closed after World War II, but reopened during the Korean War, when the air field was acquired by the Air Force, renamed Dobbins AFB, and the plant by Lockheed. During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Lockheed Marietta was the leading manufacturer of military transport planes, including the C-130 Hercules and the C-5 Galaxy. "In Cobb County and other sprawling Cold War suburbs from Orange County to Norfolk/Hampton Roads, the direct link between federal defense spending and local economic prosperity structured a bipartisan political culture of hawkish conservatism and material self-interest on issues of national security."