Missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints arrived in Georgia in 1843 to preach and to campaign for Church President Joseph Smith's United States presidential bid. After Joseph Smith was martyred one year later, missionary efforts slowed. Activity resumed in the late 1870s when the Southern States Mission was headquartered in Rome, Georgia. One early convert to the Church donated land and built a chapel at Mormon Springs in Haralson County.
Missionaries left the state for a decade following the murder of one missionary in July 1879. By 1908, Church membership in Georgia was approximately 6,800. In 1930, membership was 4,311. The first temple to be built in the Southern states was completed in 1983 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta Latter-day Saints gave disaster relief to the community after the 1992 Hurricane Andrew in Albany and the flooding in 1994, when some 6,000 Church volunteers assisted homeowners.
