On August 18, 1906, the Georgia General Assembly approved Public Law 448, an act providing for the establishment and maintenance of schools of agriculture and mechanical arts to serve rural youth in each of the congressional districts. It was thereafter named the Perry Act after Hall County Senator H. H. Perry who had initiated the bill. Provisions of the bill stipulated that the schools would teach agricultural methods, mechanical arts, and English with allowance for other courses as the individual school could afford. Carrollton's school additionally offered history, math, penmanship, and domestic science for girls.

In December 1906, Carroll County was selected as the site for the Fourth District A & M School. The school was located on 275 acres, which were purchased from Bluford A. Sharp. The property was commonly known at the time as the Bonner Plantation as the land had been owned by Thomas Bonner from 1844 to 1865. The campus was located outside the city limits with a postal address of Genola. Two brick buildings were initially erected on campus---an administration building and a dormitory---both of which were unfinished at the beginning of the first term in January 1908.

Rural youth, both girls and boys of secondary school age, came from the ten counties in western Georgia which comprised the Fourth Congressional District, either as boarding or day students. In the first year of operation, seven counties were represented in the student body of 110 pupils, 70% of whom were from Carroll County. Students attended classes and provided all of the manual labor on the campus and school farms.

Red and blue became the official colors on February 20, 1908, and initially, the athletic teams were called the A & M Tigers. By 1927 they were called the Aggies.

John H. Melson served as the first principal from 1907-1920. Irvine S. Ingram, who later became the first president of West Georgia College, was the second principal, serving from 1920-1933.

The Fourth District A & M School operated for twenty-five years before the state of Georgia moved to disband all the A & M schools in March 1933. This decision was largely due to the exponential growth of accredited high schools in the state, which decreased the need for district schools. Bowdon State Normal and Industrial College and the Seventh District A & M located in Powder Springs were also affected by the state's educational reorganization. These institutions, along with the Fourth District A & M, were, in effect, consolidated when the newly created University System of Georgia Board of Regents announced on April 15 that the Fourth District A & M site would become West Georgia College.