Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Kingston, GA

Kingston is a small city in west-central Bartow County, Georgia, sitting on Georgia State Route 293 about 11 miles northwest of Cartersville, the county seat.

The town was named for John Pendleton King, a United States senator from Georgia and president of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company.

Kingston grew up around the Western & Atlantic Railroad, completed through town around 1847; by 1852 it was a thriving cotton market and summer resort of 1,169 people with some 40 business houses and four hotels.

On April 12, 1862, during the Great Locomotive Chase, the Andrews Raiders' stolen locomotive The General was forced to sidetrack and wait at Kingston for southbound trains to pass — a long delay that helped pursuer William Fuller eventually catch the raiders.

Confederate hospitals operated in Kingston during 1862–1864, and 250 Confederate and two Union soldiers who died of wounds and disease there are buried in unmarked graves nearby.

Union General William T. Sherman made his headquarters at Kingston's Hargis House from May 16 to 19, 1864, while reorganizing his forces for the Atlanta Campaign.

On May 12, 1865, Confederate Brigadier General William T. Wofford surrendered some 3,000 to 4,000 mostly Georgian soldiers at Kingston — the last significant Confederate force to surrender east of the Mississippi River.

Kingston residents have observed Confederate Memorial Day at the city cemetery every year since 1865, honoring the unknown Confederate dead and the two Union soldiers buried there.

Kingston Saltpeter Cave, just south of the city, is the largest cave in Bartow County and was used by the Confederacy to produce gunpowder during the Civil War; it is closed to public access.

At the 2020 census Kingston had just 722 residents within about 1.3 square miles — far smaller than the bustling railroad town of the Civil War era.