Tallapoosa was a place of great ceremonial importance to Indians. In 1826 settlers discovered “Charles Town,” an Indian village named for one of their great warriors. Several Indian trails intersected here, and the Choctaw, Creek, and Cherokee frequently assembled in a grove of “Seven Chestnuts” to trade or make war. In 1842 local farmer William Owens found gold here, and some 100,000 pennyweights were mined. Tallapoosa achieved international renown in 1890 when Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts and other notables, including two United States Treasurers, A. U. Wyman and James W. Hyatt, organized the Georgia Alabama Investment and Development Co. to build a new city along the tracks of the Georgia Pacific Railroad, which had been built in 1882. The new city of Tallapoosa attracted some 15,000 investors, 3,000 new inhabitants, and a billion dollars in capitalization. Henry W. Grady called it a city “built as if by magic,” one “which challenged the attention and admiration of the world.”