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 1840s was the largest and most active town in the southwest until decimated by smallpox and malaria epidemics in the 1850s and again in the 1860s.