Oglethorpe, the county seat of Macon County, was incorporated on December 14, 1849. The city is named for General James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia.

Oglethorpe is located on the Flint River and in the 1840′s was the largest and most active town in the southwest until decimated by smallpox and malaria epidemics in the 1850′s and again in the 1860′s. Many houses were moved twenty miles south to Americus or burned during these epidemics.