Book excerpt: As early as 1822, James Abbington Everett established a trading post at the convergence of Native American trails, which became known as Fort Valley and eventually the world's "Peach Paradise." The 1856 charter established city limits as one mile in each direction from the railroad depot, and large cotton plantations devoted to peaches, asparagus, and pecans lay beyond. By the 1860s, more than 30 percent of Georgia's cotton traveled on rail lines through Fort Valley. During the Civil War, there were multiple Buckner and Gamble field hospitals, as well as temporary ones in what are now Fort Valley's historic homes and structures. The development of the Elberta peach, the refrigerated railroad car, hydro-cooling, and rail connections to transport fragile peaches combined to make Fort Valley the peach-growing center of the South. People prospered, and thousands celebrated the peach at the Peach Blossom Festivals of the 1920s. Fort Valley became home to the Blue Bird Body Co., Wanderlodge, the American Camellia Society, and Fort Valley State University. Motorists traveling on the Old Dixie Highway, Andersonville Trail, Presidential Parkway, or the Golden Isles Parkway are still treated to the warm hospitality of Fort Valley.