In 2015 local Trion hometown native, Mackie Carson wrote a 161-page history titled “Island Town – The True Story of Trion, Georgia” (Wheredepony Press – Rome, Georgia) that also included an additional attachment of 132 pages of both black-white and color photos telling the story of the original Indian village on the Chattooga River in Chattooga County in northwest Georgia.

During the Trail of Tears era members of the Cherokee Tribe of Kituwah pursuant to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 were relocated to Oklahoma and it opened up vast parcels of land occupied by the native tribes to settlers.

The Spencer S. Marsh family in April 1834 left Chatham County, North Carolina and eventually would settle in Chattoogaville (Lafayette) Georgia.

In 1838 the Andrew P. Allgood family would arrive in Lafayette from Laurens, South Carolina and the Marsh-Allgood clan would inter marry and would be two of the pioneer families that would eventually create a manufacturing plant, with the objective to transform raw cotton into yarn and cloth at a location that eventually would be called Trion.

In the 1840s the Trion Mills cotton mill was established.  A post office called Trion Factory opened in 1847 and in 1904 the name was changed to Trion.  The name was selected by the three mills founders, Allgood, Marsh and Colonel Will K. Biers. 

Said trio were the businessmen who founded Trion Factory where history is inseparable from the history of the town.

From 1912 – 1984, a New Yorker, Benjamin D. Riegel, operated the Trion Manufacturing Company in the textile industry as a glove mill.

The continued history of Trion, Georgia from its origin as Island Town as depicted in Mackie Carson’s book as a native son is an intriguing story of success, failure, the Civil War, murder, labor disputes, bankruptcy, floods, etc. that tells a great adventure in both text and photos.

The historic Marsh house on Highway 27 in the City of Lafayette has been preserved as a museum in Walker County and is on the National Registry of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior.

From the Chickamauga Battlefield outside Fort Oglethorpe through Walker, Catoosa, Chattooga and Dade Counties in northwest Georgia is provided enough history to satisfy one’s curiosity as supplemental to Mackie Carson’s book.

You can reach Jerry Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)

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