The United States Army established a cavalry post at the site of Hargrave, Georgia, an unincorporated town situated next to the Chickamauga National Battlefield.

The existing settlement was named for a Confederate soldier, William Hamilton Hargrave, who along with his wife Amelia Cecilia Strange-Hargrave owned most of the land in the area.

The couple was well known in the 19th century to travellers heading to Ross's Landing on the Tennessee River from LaFayette, Georgia.

William Hargrave and other landowners in the area were forced to sell their property to the Army[citation needed] to be used as a base for the 6th Cavalry.

[5] Fort Oglethorpe was a major training center for the Women's Army Corps during World War II.

The post land was declared surplus in 1947 and returned to civilian hands, forming the nucleus for a town that was incorporated in 1949.

The Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park takes up the southern two-thirds of the city's area.