Macon County is named for Nathaniel Macon, a North Carolina states­man and U. S. senator. Its terri tory was drawn from Houston and Marion counties in 1837. Oglethorpe, the county seat, is named for the colony's founder. Sam Henry Rumph put Macon County in the record books and may have been responsible for Georgia's designation as "the peach state." He developed the Elberta peach in Macon County, named it for his wife, and laid a foundation for extensive commercial orchards in the area.