A history of LaFayette,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of LaFayette from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗LaFayette was founded as Chattooga, in 1835, as the seat of newly formed Walker County. The county was named after the former United States senator Freeman Walker. Chattooga was renamed LaFayette in 1836 after Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, the French aristocrat who fought in the American Revolutionary War. In 1864, the city became the site of the Battle of LaFayette during the Atlanta campaign of the American Civil War.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish LaFayette’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewOne of the smallest workers in Wa…, 1913: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10LaFayette, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Toppers in Walker County Hosiery Mills (1913) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Historic places
National Register · via Wikidata
From Wikimedia Commons (1), the Library of Congress (4) and the National Register (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.