The land for Lee, Muscogee, Troup, Coweta, and Carroll counties was ceded by the Creek people in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs.

[3] The county was named in honor of Henry Lee III, popularly known as "Light-Horse Harry," the father of Confederate general Robert E.

[4] On January 29, 1916, five African American men were lynched; they were taken from the Worth county jail and hung, their bodies riddled with bullets.

Historically, Lee County was part of the solidly Democratic Solid South[19] where control of the dominant black population dictated unified white voting for Democratic candidates due to the Republican association with Reconstruction and black political power.

However, with a combination of the Great Migration and white in-migration, the black share of the county's population has declined and it is now powerfully Republican, having voted Republican in every presidential election since 1964, with the exception of 1968 and 1976 when it backed Southern “favorite sons” George Wallace and Jimmy Carter.