Harris County, Georgia

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Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Distinguish". Template:Use American English Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Script error: No such module "Settlement short description".Script error: No such module "Infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".Expression error: Unexpected < operatorTemplate:Category handlerExpression error: Unexpected < operatorScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Harris County is a county located in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia; its western border with the state of Alabama is formed by the Chattahoochee River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 34,668.[1] The county seat is Hamilton.[2] The largest city in the county is Pine Mountain, a resort town that is home to the Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park (the largest state park in Georgia). Harris County was created on December 14, 1827, and named for Charles Harris, a Georgia judge and attorney.[3] Harris County is part of the Columbus, GA-AL metropolitan area and has become a popular suburban and exurban destination of residence for families relocating from Columbus. Because of this, Harris has become the sixth-wealthiest county in Georgia in terms of per capita income and the third-wealthiest in the state outside of Metro Atlanta.

History

The county was settled by European Americans largely after the federal government had removed the indigenous Creek people (Muscogee) in the 1830s, under treaties by which they ceded most of their homelands to the United States. They were relocated to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.

In the antebellum era, parts of the county were developed for cotton plantations, the premier commodity crop. Planters acquired numerous enslaved African Americans as laborers from the Upper South through the domestic slave trade.

The County Courthouse was designed by Edward Columbus Hosford of Georgia and completed in 1906.

Moonshiners were active in the mountain areas of the county in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both whites and blacks took part in this, and were common drinking patrons.[4]

Lynchings

On January 22, 1912, a black woman and three black men were lynched in Hamilton, the county seat, for the alleged murder of young local white landowner Norman Hadley. He was described by journalist Karen Branan in her 2016 book about these events as a white, "near penniless plowboy-playboy"[5] and "notorious predator of black women."[6]

Of this group, Dusky Crutchfield was the first woman lynched in Georgia.[5] The lynching case attracted attention of national northern newspapers.[7][8] Also murdered by the lynch mob were Eugene Harrington, Burrell Hardaway,[9] and Johnie Moore. (Note: There was confusion about the names of victims at the time, and variations in spelling have been published.)[4]

The four had been taken in for questioning about Hadley's murder by Sheriff Marion Madison "Buddie" Hadley, but never arrested. Lynched as scapegoats by a white mob of 100 men, they were later shown to have been utterly innocent. As an example of the complex relationships in the town and county, Johnie Moore was a mixed-race cousin of the sheriff; and Norman Hadley was the sheriff's nephew.[5][4][9]

In 1947, prosperous farmer Henry "Peg" Gilbert, a married African-American man who owned and farmed 100 acres in Troup County, was arrested by officials from neighboring Harris County and charged with harboring a fugitive. The 47-year-old father was accused in the case of Gus Davidson, an African-American man accused of fatally shooting a white man in Harris County and who had disappeared. Four days later Gilbert was dead, shot while held in jail by the Harris County Sheriff, who said it was self-defense. No charges were filed against him.

In 2016 the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project of Northeastern University reported on Gilbert's death in custody. They had found that Henry Gilbert had been beaten severely before his death, and shot five times. They asserted he had been detained and killed because whites resented his success as a farmer.[10][11] Economic issues and competition were often at the bottom of lynchings. A white man took over Gilbert's land, cheating his family out of everything he had built.

Geography

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View of Harris County on Pine Mountain

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of Script error: No such module "convert"., of which Script error: No such module "convert". are land and Script error: No such module "convert". (1.9%) are covered by water.[12]

The county is located in the Piedmont region of the state, with forests, farmland, and rolling hills covering much of the county. The Pine Mountain Range begins in the county, and runs across the northernmost parts of the county, with the highest point on the range found at Dowdell's Knob near the Meriwether County line.

The majority of Harris County is located in the middle Chattahoochee River–Lake Harding subbasin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River Basin), with the exception of the county's southeastern border area, south of Ellerslie, which is located in the middle Chattahoochee River–Walter F. George Lake subbasin of the same ACF River Basin as that part of the county is drained by Bull Creek, which flows into Upatoi Creek south of Columbus.[13]

Lake Harding and Goat Rock Lake both form much of the county's western border along the Chattahoochee, and both are very popular recreational destinations, especially for metro Columbus residents.

Major highways

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Adjacent counties

Communities

Cities

Towns

Census-designated places

Unincorporated communities

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Demographics

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Historical population
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18305,105—
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199017,788Script error: No such module "String".%
200023,695Script error: No such module "String".%
201032,024Script error: No such module "String".%
202034,668Script error: No such module "String".%
2024 (est.)36,929[14]Script error: No such module "String".%
U.S. Decennial Census[15]
1790-1880[16] 1890-1910[17]
1920-1930[18] 1930-1940[19]
1940-1950[20] 1960-1980[21]
1980-2000[22] 2010[23]

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2020 census

Harris County racial composition as of 2020[24]
Race Num. Perc.
White (non-Hispanic) 25,925 74.78%
Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 5,170 14.91%
Native American 101 0.29%
Asian 388 1.12%
Pacific Islander 21 0.06%
Other/Mixed 1,646 4.75%
Hispanic or Latino 1,417 4.09%

As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 34,668 and 9,581 families residing in the county.[25][26]

The median age was 43.7 years, 22.7% of residents were under the age of 18, and 18.7% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 99.6 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 97.2 males age 18 and over. 2.8% of residents lived in urban areas, while 97.2% lived in rural areas.[25][26]

The racial makeup of the county was 76.0% White, 15.1% Black or African American, 0.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.1% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 1.4% from some other race, and 5.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 4.1% of the population.[27]

There were 12,770 households in the county, of which 33.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 19.0% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 19.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.[26]

There were 14,212 housing units, of which 10.1% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 87.2% were owner-occupied and 12.8% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1% and the rental vacancy rate was 9.2%.[26]

Politics

As of the 2020s, Harris County is a strongly Republican voting county, voting 72% for Donald Trump in 2024. Like all of Georgia except the Unionist Fannin, Towns, Pickens and Gilmer counties, which were in the upland region and could not support plantations, Harris County was historically dominated by a majority of conservative white voters after the Civil War. They belonged to the Democratic Party. From the end of Reconstruction to 1980, they supported Republican presidential candidates only twice, in 1964 (when Barry Goldwater carried the state in a landslide) and 1972 (during Richard Nixon's national landslide).

But the passage of civil rights legislation by the national Democratic Party and social and cultural disruption of the era resulted in white conservatives beginning to support the Republican Party. In 1984, the state swung from having given a 16.8 percent victory to the 'favorite son' of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, in 1976, to a nearly 20-point victory for Ronald Reagan in his second term. In this, it was part of the realignment of white conservatives across the South. Since then, these voters in Harris County have voted for Republican presidential candidates. 1984 is the last time that a Democrat gained more than 40 percent of the vote. This trend has been attributed to the effect of Columbus's suburbs extending into the county, but it is part of the broader realignment among conservatives in the region.

For elections to the United States House of Representatives, Harris County is part of Georgia's 2nd congressional district, currently represented by Sanford Bishop. For elections to the Georgia State Senate, Harris County is part of District 29.[28] For elections to the Georgia House of Representatives, Harris County is part of district 138 and 139.[29]

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Education

The Harris County School District holds preschool to grade 12 and consists of four elementary schools, an intermediate school, a middle school, and a high school.[30] The district headquarters is located in Hamilton, and has 274 full-time teachers and over 4,411 students spread out over seven schools.[31]

Notable people

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ a b c Karen Branan, The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth, Atria Books, 2016.
  5. ↑ a b c Jeff Calder, " 'Family Tree’ unpacks mystery of a 1912 Georgia lynching", Books & Literature, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 9, 2016, accessed April 6, 2016.
  6. ↑ Karen Branan, "Getting to the Roots of My Family Tree", Coming to the Table, 2014, accessed April 6, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Woman and 3 Men Lynched by Mob", Chicago Daily Tribune, January 23, 1912, accessed April 6, 2016.
  8. ↑ (Associated Press), "Three Colored Men and Woman Lynched", VALLEY SENTINEL (Carlisle, Pennsylvania), January 26, 1912, accessed April 6, 2016.
  9. ↑ a b "Burrell Hardaway" Script error: No such module "webarchive"., Georgia Lynching Project Circa 1875-1930, Project of Emory University, 2016, accessed April 6, 2016.
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  24. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  27. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  28. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  29. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  30. ↑ Georgia Board of EducationScript error: No such module "Unsubst"., Retrieved June 19, 2010.
  31. ↑ School Stats, Retrieved June 19, 2010.

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External links

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