Town file
Rome, Georgia
Rome, Georgia (Floyd County, Georgia) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 150, "A Betrayal Of Hearts & Knives" (19 December 2019). Rome, Georgia, lies in Floyd County in the north-west corner of the state, roughly an hour and ten minutes from Atlanta.
- Town
- Rome
- County
- Floyd County
- State
- Georgia
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 150
- Approximate location
- 34.266, -85.186
Episode 150 / 19 December 2019 / 154 min / full
A Betrayal Of Hearts & Knives
"We are going to Rome, Georgia; it's in Floyd County, in northwestern Georgia." about 0:05:19
The case: Murder of Thad Reynolds (July 5, 2004). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2019
- Population
- 36,029
- Median age
- about 35
- Median household income
- about $37,500
- Median home value
- $124,600
- Two-bedroom rent
- about $770 a month
- Cost of living
- 87
- Religious
- 64%
- Violent crime
- ▲ almost double
- Property crime
- ▲ almost double
- Murders a year in the county
- maybe two
History, in brief
- The land was originally Cherokee territory; Cherokee leaders Major Ridge and John Ross had plantations here. about 0:09:21
- Major Ridge's house, the Chieftain's house, is preserved as a museum. about 0:09:21
- In the 1700s European demand for deer skins brought white traders, who traded with the Cherokee. about 0:09:51
- Missionaries followed the traders and then more settlers arrived. about 0:11:26
- In 1793 a Cherokee raid into Tennessee was answered by a retaliatory raid led by Tennessee governor John Sevier, the Battle of Hightower. about 0:12:04
- In 1802 Georgia gave up its western land claim to the Mississippi River in exchange for removing the Cherokee from the state. about 0:12:33
- The removal edict was not immediately enforced and federal lawsuits tried to stop it; removals began in the early 1830s, about 1834, on the Trail of Tears under Andrew Jackson. about 0:13:56
- Rome became the county seat; it had previously been in Livingston. about 0:14:40
- Cotton became the main economy in the 1800s; the cotton gin, developed in the late 1700s, made it more profitable, and the fertile area was called the black belt. about 0:14:50
- In 1849 the railroad reached Rome, running from the Gulf of Mexico north into the rest of the United States. about 0:15:49
- In the late 1920s a US company built a rayon plant in a joint project with an Italian company. about 0:16:23
- In 1929 Italy honoured Rome, Georgia, and Mussolini sent a replica statue of Romulus and Remus suckling the wolf, which was placed outside the courthouse. about 0:16:45
- Anti-Italian sentiment during the Second World War led the city commission to move the statue into storage and replace it with an American flag. about 0:20:26
- The statue was returned to the courthouse in 1952. about 0:20:51
- Coach Dan Reeves, most notably of the Broncos and the Falcons, was from Rome. about 0:21:52
- Blues singer Ma Rainey, the mother of the blues, and wrestler Arn Anderson were from Rome. about 0:23:36
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Summerville, Georgia17 miles
- Jacksonville, Alabama45 miles
- Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia46 miles
- Vinings, Georgia50 miles
- Section, Alabama50 miles
- Gadsden, Alabama51 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.