Editing DeKalb County, Georgia (section)

==History==
The area of DeKalb county was acquired by the state of Georgia as a result of the 1821 [[Treaty of Indian Springs (1821)|Treaty of Indian Springs]] with a faction of the [[Muscogee]] (Creek). DeKalb County, formed in 1822 from [[Henry County, Georgia|Henry]], [[Gwinnett County, Georgia|Gwinnett]] and [[Fayette County, Georgia|Fayette]] counties, took its name from Baron [[Johann de Kalb]] (1721–1780), a [[Electorate of Bavaria|Bavarian]]-born former officer in the French Army, who fought for the [[Continental Army]] in the [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref>{{cite book | url= https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title= The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher= Govt. Print. Off. | author= Gannett, Henry | year= 1905 | pages= [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n102 103]}}</ref> The oldest existing house in the county is the 1831 [[Goodwin House (Brookhaven, Georgia)|Goodwin House]] along [[Peachtree Street|Peachtree Road]] in [[Brookhaven, Georgia|Brookhaven]]. Much of the area was forested; a section of [[old-growth forest]] is preserved at [[Fernbank Forest]].

In 1853, Fulton County formed from the western half of DeKalb, divided along a perfectly straight and due north–south line down the middle (along which Moreland Avenue now runs). Until this time, the growing city of Atlanta had been inside DeKalb. Atlanta grew because the city of Decatur did not want to become the [[railroad]] [[Terminus station|terminus]] in the 1830s, thus a spot at the Thrasherville encampment in western DeKalb was picked to become Terminus and then Marthasville, before becoming Atlanta a few years after its founding. North and southwest Fulton came from two other counties: [[Milton County, Georgia|Milton]] and southeast [[Campbell County, Georgia|Campbell]], respectively. DeKalb once extended slightly further north to the [[Chattahoochee River]], but this strip was later given to Milton, and is now the [[Salient (geography)|panhandle]] of Sandy Springs.

During the [[American Civil War]], much of the [[Battle of Atlanta]] took place in DeKalb.

Until the 1960s, DeKalb was a mainly [[agricultural]] county, but as the [[urban sprawl|sprawl]] of the metropolitan Atlanta region expanded, DeKalb became increasingly [[urban area|urbanized]]. Finished in 1969, the eastern half of the [[Interstate 285 (Georgia)|Interstate 285]] [[beltway]], called "the Perimeter", ringed the northeastern and southern edges of the county, placing most of it "inside the Perimeter" along with nearly all of Atlanta. [[Interstate 675 (Georgia)|Interstate 675]] and [[Georgia 400]] were originally planned to connect inside the Perimeter, along with the Stone Mountain Freeway ([[U.S. Highway 78]]) connecting with the [[Downtown Connector]] (a co-signment of I-75/I-85) near Moreland Avenue, destroying many neighborhoods in western DeKalb, but community opposition in the early 1970s spared them this fate of [[urbanization]], although part of the proposed Stone Mountain Tollway later became the [[Freedom Parkway]]. Only [[Interstate 20]] and [[Interstate 85]] were successfully built through the county. DeKalb also became one of only two counties to approve [[Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority|MARTA]] [[rapid transit]] in the 1970s; the county now contains the east and northeast heavy rail lines.

In April 2018, more than 350 bus drivers for [[DeKalb County School District]] went on [[2018 DeKalb County School District bus drivers' strike|strike]] over low pay and poor working conditions, resulting in seven bus drivers being fired.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Wilson|first1=Lori|title=At least 7 bus drivers fired over DeKalb schools 'sick out'|url=https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/dekalb-county/dekalb-schools-say-major-drop-off-delays-after-42-of-drivers-call-in-sick/734777024|website=[[WSB-TV]]|publisher=[[Cox Media Group]]|access-date=May 2, 2018|date=April 20, 2018}}</ref>