As the population of the county grew in the early 19th century, its agricultural and cotton industries prospered. The adjacent plantationharvests flowed through city mills. Manufacturing and textile production operations were the major industries in Clarke County, especially after the railroad reached Athens in 1841. Athens and Clarke County were second only to Savannah and Chatham County in the amount of capital invested in manufacturing in the 1840s.
Two skirmishes were fought in Clarke County in 1864, during the American Civil War, one near Barber's Creek and the other near Mitchell's Road. Athens was occupied by the Union Army on May 29 and a provost-marshal took charge. Formal military occupation of the county ended by December 1864, though Union troops remained in the county until early 1866.
In 1801 the Clarke County Commission had selected Watkinsville (now in Oconee County) as the county seat. All county offices, including the courts and jail, moved to Athens when the seat was moved on November 24, 1871. County meetings took place in the old Athens town hall, until a new courthouse was constructed in 1876. The present courthouse was built in 1914.
Map of Clarke County from 1893
On February 12, 1875, in response to complaints over the relocation of the county seat to Athens, the state legislature created Oconee County from the southwestern portion of Clarke County, making Watkinsville its seat. Clarke County thus lost one-third of its population and three-fifths of its land area.
The position of "commissioner of roads and revenue" was created by the legislature for what are today known as county commissioners. As an extension of the state, the county would conduct welfare and health programs, build and maintain roads, and hold courts of law.
On March 29, 1973, the Georgia legislature increased the number of county commissioners from 3 to 5, also adding a county administrator.
In 1990, the residents voted to unify the city and county governments creating Athens-Clarke County, the second (after Columbus-Muscogee County) unified city-county government in the State of Georgia.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 121 square miles (310km2), of which 119 square miles (310km2) is land and 1.8 square miles (4.7km2) (1.5%) is water.[3] It is the smallest county by area in Georgia.[5]
Clarke County, Georgia – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 128,671, 51,641 households, and 24,041 families residing there.[18] Of the residents, 17.0% were under the age of 18 and 12.0% were 65 years of age or older; the median age was 28.3 years. For every 100 females there were 89.0 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 86.7 males. 94.1% of residents lived in urban areas and 5.9% lived in rural areas.[19]
There were 51,641 households in the county, of which 23.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 37.2% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 32.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.[18]
There were 55,802 housing units, of which 7.5% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 39.3% were owner-occupied and 60.7% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.7% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.4%.[18]
In 2022, Clarke County had the third highest crime rate in Georgia. Clarke County had 35.5 crimes per 1,000 people, based on 4,599 offenses in 2022, and a population of 129,377. Like most other counties, the two more common crimes were larceny theft (2,983 incidents recorded in Clarke in 2022), and aggravated assault (1,979 incidents). Clarke County was only behind DeKalb County and Bibb County for highest crime rate.[21]
Politics
Due to the presence of the University of Georgia campus in Athens,[22] Clarke County has long been a Democratic Party stronghold in presidential elections. This predates the recent trend of Democratic gains in counties dominated by large universities. It has only backed the Republican candidate in three presidential elections, the fiercely divided realigning election of 1968 (in which it was one of only eight Georgia counties where George Wallace came in third) and the 49-state landslides of 1972 and 1984.
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