Macon County was chartered by an act approved on December 29, 1837, and the town of Lanier became its first county seat. Until 1854, Lanier was a bustling center for many of the county’s earliest settlers, including Georgia Senator and Brig. Gen. Philip Cook, C.S.A. Its post office, in operation from 1838 to 1866, still stands one half mile northeast of Lanier. Just northeast of Lanier lies Miona Springs, an ancient gathering place of American Indians with seven major mineral springs, appropriated in 1818 by the first White settler, Timothy Barnard.