Best Web Design in Marietta, GA (2026)

Web Design for Marietta, Georgia

Marietta is the historic seat of Cobb County and one of Atlanta's largest suburbs, centered on a classic Southern town square ringed by 19th-century buildings. Rich in Civil War history and home of the roadside 'Big Chicken,' the city today mixes a Michelin-recognized dining scene with major aerospace manufacturing at the Lockheed Martin plant beside Dobbins Air Reserve Base.

AppWT works with Marietta, GA businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Marietta

Also known as. Gem City of Georgia. Gem City of the South.

History. The area was settled by the early 1820s; Cobb County was carved from Cherokee land in 1832 and named for U.S. Senator Thomas Willis Cobb. Marietta was named for Cobb's wife, Mary, legally recognized on December 19, 1834, and incorporated in 1852. The Western and Atlantic Railroad chose Marietta as a base in 1836, and the Georgia Military Institute opened in 1851. Union raiders assembled in Marietta before the Great Locomotive Chase of April 12, 1862, when they stole the locomotive 'The General.' During Sherman's 1864 campaign, Gen. Hugh Kilpatrick set the town ablaze as an opening move of the March to the Sea. The 1915 lynching of factory superintendent Leo Frank near Marietta helped spur the founding growth of the Anti-Defamation League.

Local economy. Lockheed Martin's Marietta plant (Air Force Plant 6) is a major aerospace employer, tracing back to the WWII Bell Bomber Plant that built B-29 Superfortresses; it later produced the C-130 Hercules and F-22 Raptor. Dobbins Air Reserve Base, adjacent to the plant, employs roughly 2,000 people. Wellstar Kennestone Hospital is one of the area's largest employers, with over 5,000 workers. Healthcare, defense/aerospace manufacturing, and Atlanta-metro commerce anchor the local economy.

Culture and community. Marietta Square is the cultural heart, with the Strand Theatre, galleries, restaurants, and a First-Friday Art Walk. The Glover Park Concert Series, a free summer tradition, has run for four decades on the square. Chalktoberfest brings international chalk artists and a craft-beer festival to the square each October, and May-Retta Daze is a spring arts-and-crafts fair. The restaurant Spring earned a Michelin star, a rare distinction in Georgia, and Marietta Square Market is an 18,500-square-foot food hall. The Marietta Pilgrimage Christmas Home Tour opens the city's historic homes each December.

What makes Marietta distinct. The Big Chicken, built in 1963 and designed by a Georgia Tech architecture student, is so iconic that locals give driving directions relative to it. East Marietta National Little League won the 1983 Little League World Series. An explosion at Atherton's Drugstore on Halloween night 1963 killed six people and injured 23. Marietta doubled as a filming location for the 1995 Disney film 'Gordy' and 2014's 'Dumb and Dumber To.' The city earned its 'Gem City' nickname in the late 1800s when it marketed itself as a scenic winter resort near Kennesaw Mountain.

Marietta Landmarks and Local Life

• The Big Chicken - a 56-foot steel chicken atop a KFC on U.S. 41
• Marietta Square and Glover Park
• The Strand Theatre
• Marietta Confederate Cemetery - with over 3,000 Confederate graves
• Marietta National Cemetery