A version of this story originally appeared in the April/May 2015 issue of Living Northside magazine.
1. Roswell was founded as a cotton mill town.
2. The city was home to Native Americans before the Trail of Tears.
Roswell was home to several Native Americans who were forcibly removed from the land by the United States Indian Removal Act of 1830. "Although people come here because of Roswell's charm, many do not know why we are in this spot or what happened — the forced removal of the Cherokee Indians [known as the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma] to make land available," says Marsha Saum, a fourth generation Roswellite and Cherokee descendant. Saum is also tourism sales manager of the Roswell Convention and Visitors Bureau.
3. Many people received their land through lotteries during the gold rush.
4. Roswell was greatly affected by the Civil War.
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