Alpharetta

Alpharetta is located in northern Fulton County and is bordered to the southeast by Johns Creek, to the south and west by Roswell, to the north by Milton, and to the northeast by unincorporated land in Forsyth County. Downtown Alpharetta is 26 miles north of downtown Atlanta.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Alpharetta has a total area of 27.3 square miles, of which 26.9 square miles is land and 0.39 square miles, or 1.37%, is water.

In the 1830s, the Cherokee people in Georgia and elsewhere in the South were forcibly relocated to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) under the Indian Removal Act. Pioneers and farmers later settled on the newly vacated land, situated along a former Cherokee trail stretching from the North Georgia mountains to the Chattahoochee River.

One of the first permanent landmarks in the area was the New Prospect Camp Ground (also known as the Methodist Camp Ground), located beside a natural spring near what is now downtown Alpharetta. It later served as a trading post for the exchanging of goods among settlers.

Known as the town of Milton through July 1858, the city of Alpharetta was chartered on December 11, 1858, with boundaries extending in a 0.5-mile radius from the city courthouse. It served as the county seat of Milton County until 1931, when Milton County was merged with Fulton County to avoid bankruptcy during the Great Depression.

Although the city's name may be a variation of a fictional Indian girl, Alfarata, in a 19th-century song, "The Blue Juniata" it is more probably derived from the Greek word “alpha” meaning first and “retta” meaning town.

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