For thousands of years before trains, Native Americans, mainly Cherokees, thrived in the area now known as Kingston by living off the land, farming, and trading, including saltpeter sold to British and Americans as late as the War of 1812. The Land Lottery of 1832 brought white settlers, the forced removal of the Indians, and eventually the railroad. Named for railroad financier John Pendleton King of Augusta, Georgia, Kingston became tied to the rise and fall of the railroad, and in 1849 the opening of the Memphis Branch Railroad to Rome and its connection to the Western and Atlantic Railroad made the town an east-west, north-south hub important during the Civil War. During the war, Kingston served as a supply center and refuge for sick and wounded soldiers, and in 1861 the first Wayside Home was established there after local women secured vacant stores, provided beds, and cooked meals for soldiers waiting overnight outside the depot; more than 10,000 sick and wounded troops were served until the Confederate retreat and establishment of a Federal hospital. In the war's final year, skirmishes occurred in the area before General William T. Sherman entered Kingston on May 19, 1864, expecting to fight General Joe Johnson, who had moved east of Cassville; after Atlanta fell, Sherman again headquartered in Kingston, completed his plan to March to the Sea there, and departed on November 12, 1864 with 60,000 men, reaching Savannah six weeks later. In 1900 the Kingston Woman's History Club was organized with the purpose of making tomorrow better than today, and over more than a century its members helped preserve Kingston's history and heritage by developing, funding, and establishing Kingston City Park, the Civil War Museum, the Martha Mulinix Annex, and the Veterans Monument, while continuing traditions of honoring fallen soldiers on Confederate Memorial Day and recognizing veterans on Veterans Day. The park, once railroad-owned wagon parking by the depot, was transformed from gullied red clay through the club's work and community help, and in 1912 arches and pillars were erected at each entrance. During the 1960 term of the Georgia General Assembly, former state representatives Henry A. Keever and Woodrow Bradley secured an acre of land for Kingston for a Civil War Memorial Museum, which the club accepted with ten years to build; the museum opened to the public on April 25, 1971. About 25 years later, the larger Martha Mulinix Annex was begun with volunteer labor, donations, and a state grant, groundbreaking was held on August 15, 1997, the building was completed in June 1998, and it was named for Martha Mulinix, who had served the club for 58 years. In 2003 the club formed a committee to build a Veterans Monument, fundraising included donations and an auction, and the monument was dedicated on December 8, 2007; it bears the names of local veterans who fought or served in World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, the Viet Nam War, and post Viet Nam wars. Kingston is also linked to Melvinia Shields, born enslaved in South Carolina and later known in Kingston as Mattie McGruder, where she spent the rest of her life as a midwife; her son Dolphus Shields became a successful businessman, and his descendants included Michelle Robinson, later Michelle Obama.