Location: About 30 miles south of Chattanooga in the heart of Walker County, Ga.
Size: 8.1 square miles
Population: 7,073
Founded: Sept. 30, 1835
Government: Andy Arnold is mayor. City Council members are Beacher Garmany, Ben Bradford, Chris Davis, Judy Meeks and Wayne Swanson.
Schools: Rock Spring Elementary, North LaFayette Elementary, Gilbert Elementary, Naomi Elementary, LaFayette Middle, LaFayette High
Attraction: LaFayette’s historic city cemetery on Shaw Street. A cemetery walking tour brochure tells the stories of people buried in 23 gravesites in the 20-plus-acre cemetery. One of those was Walker County Sheriff Harvey Mize whose first — and last — day on the job was Feb. 14, 1879. Mize tried to arrest a man named Brad Redding for a misdemeanor. But Redding shot the sheriff, killing him with a blast to the face and chest from a double-barreled shotgun. The brochure is available at the visitors’ information center inside the Chattooga Academy at City Hall, at 207 S. Duke St.
Fun fact: The city is named for Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who fought for the United States in the Revolutionary War, including at important battles in Yorktown, Va., and Brandywine, Penn. Lafayette was given a hero’s welcome when he returned for the U.S.’s 50th birthday and toured the country, which included a trip through Georgia and visit to Andrew Jackson at his home in Tennessee, The Hermitage.
Famous resident: Confederate Gen. John Brown Gordon moved to the LaFayette area at age 8. The Gordon family built a resort hotel near a spring thought to have medicinal properties. A statue of Gordon on horseback stands in front of the Gold Dome, the state capitol in Atlanta.
“We have a beautiful natural setting in the northwest Georgia mountains. We also have a rich heritage with Civil War history.” — Matthew Williams, LaFayette Main Street manager