Donalsonville, Georgia | |
---|---|
Donalsonville City Hall | |
Motto: The Gateway to Lake Seminole [1] | |
![]() Location in Seminole County and the state of Georgia | |
Coordinates: 31°2′27″N84°52′42″W / 31.04083°N 84.87833°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Georgia |
County | Seminole |
Government | |
• Type | Council-Manager |
• Mayor | Ronald Johnson |
Area | |
• Total | 3.99 sq mi (10.34 km2) |
• Land | 3.97 sq mi (10.29 km2) |
• Water | 0.02 sq mi (0.05 km2) |
Elevation | 148 ft (45 m) |
Population (2020) | |
• Total | 2,833 |
• Density | 713.42/sq mi (275.43/km2) |
Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
ZIP codes | 39845 |
Area code | 229 |
FIPS code | 13-23368 [3] |
GNIS feature ID | 0331568 [4] |
Website | donalsonvillega.org |
Donalsonville is a city in and the county seat of Seminole County, Georgia, United States. [5] The population was 2,833 in 2020.
Donalsonville was originally part of Decatur County. It is named after John Ernest Donalson (1846–1920), also known as Jonathan or John E. Donalson, a prominent businessman of the area. Donalson built the first lumber mill in Donalsonville, Donalson Lumber Company. He also built homes and a commissary for the workers of the mill. The lumber company paved the way for the town's growth.
Donalsonville was first chartered as a town in Georgia on December 8, 1897. [6] When Seminole County was formed in January 1920, Donalsonville was named as its county seat. By August 1922, the Town of Donalsonville became known as the City of Donalsonville, with the charter passing on August 19, 1922.
The Seminole County Courthouse was erected in 1922 and is still standing today. The Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Wolfe)
Donalsonville is located at 31°2′27″N84°52′42″W / 31.04083°N 84.87833°W . [7]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.0 square miles (10 km2), of which 4.0 square miles (10 km2) is land and 0.25% is water. The city is located 20 minutes north of Lake Seminole, 62 miles (100 km) south of Albany, 36 miles (58 km) east of Dothan, Alabama and 107 miles (172 km) west of Valdosta.
Climate data for Donalsonville, Georgia, 1991–2020 normals, extremes 2001–present | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Record high °F (°C) | 83 (28) | 86 (30) | 91 (33) | 95 (35) | 101 (38) | 107 (42) | 104 (40) | 105 (41) | 102 (39) | 97 (36) | 91 (33) | 84 (29) | 107 (42) |
Mean maximum °F (°C) | 77.6 (25.3) | 80.2 (26.8) | 86.2 (30.1) | 90.6 (32.6) | 96.2 (35.7) | 100.2 (37.9) | 99.5 (37.5) | 99.9 (37.7) | 97.5 (36.4) | 92.6 (33.7) | 84.7 (29.3) | 80.2 (26.8) | 101.6 (38.7) |
Mean daily maximum °F (°C) | 59.0 (15.0) | 64.5 (18.1) | 71.5 (21.9) | 77.8 (25.4) | 85.4 (29.7) | 89.4 (31.9) | 91.3 (32.9) | 91.0 (32.8) | 87.2 (30.7) | 79.9 (26.6) | 69.8 (21.0) | 62.3 (16.8) | 77.4 (25.2) |
Daily mean °F (°C) | 49.0 (9.4) | 53.7 (12.1) | 59.7 (15.4) | 66.4 (19.1) | 74.4 (23.6) | 80.1 (26.7) | 82.0 (27.8) | 81.8 (27.7) | 77.4 (25.2) | 68.6 (20.3) | 58.2 (14.6) | 52.1 (11.2) | 67.0 (19.4) |
Mean daily minimum °F (°C) | 38.9 (3.8) | 42.9 (6.1) | 48.0 (8.9) | 55.0 (12.8) | 63.4 (17.4) | 70.9 (21.6) | 72.7 (22.6) | 72.6 (22.6) | 67.6 (19.8) | 57.3 (14.1) | 46.6 (8.1) | 42.0 (5.6) | 56.5 (13.6) |
Mean minimum °F (°C) | 23.4 (−4.8) | 28.3 (−2.1) | 33.3 (0.7) | 42.1 (5.6) | 52.9 (11.6) | 65.7 (18.7) | 67.4 (19.7) | 67.4 (19.7) | 56.4 (13.6) | 42.3 (5.7) | 30.6 (−0.8) | 28.8 (−1.8) | 22.5 (−5.3) |
Record low °F (°C) | 18 (−8) | 21 (−6) | 24 (−4) | 34 (1) | 45 (7) | 59 (15) | 60 (16) | 62 (17) | 46 (8) | 34 (1) | 23 (−5) | 19 (−7) | 18 (−8) |
Average precipitation inches (mm) | 4.79 (122) | 4.84 (123) | 5.26 (134) | 4.48 (114) | 3.15 (80) | 5.81 (148) | 6.13 (156) | 5.69 (145) | 5.37 (136) | 3.10 (79) | 3.61 (92) | 4.70 (119) | 56.93 (1,448) |
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) | 7.8 | 6.9 | 5.8 | 5.9 | 6.8 | 9.9 | 11.1 | 10.9 | 6.3 | 5.2 | 5.4 | 8.2 | 90.2 |
Source 1: NOAA [8] | |||||||||||||
Source 2: National Weather Service (mean maxima/minima, precip days 2006–2020) [9] |
Census | Pop. | Note | %± |
---|---|---|---|
1900 | 519 | — | |
1910 | 747 | 43.9% | |
1920 | 1,031 | 38.0% | |
1930 | 1,183 | 14.7% | |
1940 | 1,718 | 45.2% | |
1950 | 2,569 | 49.5% | |
1960 | 2,621 | 2.0% | |
1970 | 2,907 | 10.9% | |
1980 | 3,320 | 14.2% | |
1990 | 2,761 | −16.8% | |
2000 | 2,796 | 1.3% | |
2010 | 2,650 | −5.2% | |
2020 | 2,833 | 6.9% | |
U.S. Decennial Census [10] |
Race | Num. | Perc. |
---|---|---|
White | 904 | 31.91% |
Black or African American | 1,734 | 61.21% |
Native American | 1 | 0.04% |
Asian | 59 | 2.08% |
Other/Mixed | 53 | 1.87% |
Hispanic or Latino | 82 | 2.89% |
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 2,833 people, 872 households, and 542 families residing in the city.
Donalsonville has about a 63% high school graduate rate with about 52% in the work force. The biggest industries are education, health, and social services. (Georgia.gov) The average median income for households according to the U.S. Census report in 2000 was $20,687 and median family income was $25,679, with the average household size around 2 and family size around 3 people.
According to 2012 data from the Donalsonville Chamber of Commerce, [12] the top five employers in the city are as follows:
Employer | Employees |
---|---|
Donalsonville Hospital, Inc. | 350 |
Ponder Enterprises Inc. | 250 |
Lewis M. Carter, Inc. | 150 |
American Peanut Growers Group, LLC | 80 |
JH Harvey Company | 30 |
The Seminole County School District holds pre-school to grade twelve, and consists of one elementary school and one middle-high school. [13] The district has 120 full-time teachers and over 1,754 students. [14]
Donalsonville is home to the Seminole County Public Library. [15] The library serves the citizens of Donalsonville and Seminole County with a collection of print and audiovisual materials. The library is located at 103 W. 4th Street in Donalsonville.
Donalsonville was the site of the second largest mass murder in Georgia history (the largest being the Woolfolk murders in 1887). On May 14, 1973, Carl Isaacs, his half brother Wayne Coleman, and fellow prisoner George Dungee escaped from the Maryland State Prison. They were later joined by Carl's younger brother, 15-year-old Billy Isaacs. [16] While en route to Florida the men came upon the Alday farm in Donalsonville. They stopped at a mobile home owned by Jerry Alday and his wife Mary, to look for gas as there was a gas pump on the property. [17]
Alday and his father Ned Alday arrived as the trailer was being ransacked and were ordered inside, then shot to death in separate bedrooms. Jerry's brother Jimmy arrived at the trailer on a tractor and he too was led inside and forced to lay on a couch, then shot. Later, Jerry's 25-year-old wife Mary arrived at the trailer as the men attempted to hide the tractor. She was restrained, while Jerry's brother Chester and uncle Aubrey arrived in a pickup truck. The criminals accosted the pair still in their truck and forced them inside the trailer where they were also shot to death. Mary Alday was raped on her kitchen table before being taken out to a wooded area miles away where she was raped again and then finally murdered. [18]
Billy Isaacs cooperated with prosecutors and received a twenty-year sentence for armed robbery. [19] Carl Isaacs, Coleman, and Dungee were tried by jury in Seminole County in 1973, convicted, and sentenced to death. All three convictions and sentences were overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in 1985, on the grounds that the pool of local jurors had been tainted by excess pretrial publicity. [20] All three defendants were re-tried in 1988 and were again convicted; however, only Carl Isaacs was sentenced to death, Coleman and Dungee receiving life sentences.
Carl Isaacs was executed on May 6, 2003, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, by lethal injection. [21] At the time of his execution, aged 49, he was the longest-serving death row inmate anywhere in the US, having spent 30 years on death row prior to execution. [22] [23]
Billy Isaacs was released from prison in 1993, [24] [ permanent dead link ] and died in Florida on May 4, 2009. George Dungee died in prison on April 4, 2006. Only Wayne Coleman remains incarcerated (as of 2023).
The murders were the subject on an award-winning 1977 documentary called Murder One directed by Fleming 'Tex' Fuller. [25] Fuller then wrote a screenplay, which was filmed as the 1988 film, Murder One , starring Henry Thomas. [26] The 1988 film was widely released in North America, but it wasn't released in southwest Georgia near where the killings took place, so as not to offend people. [26]
Janice Daugharty published a fictionalized account of the murders, Going to Jackson (2010, ).
By the 1900s, the need for churches arose. The first church was erected in Donalsonville in 1850, the Friendship United Methodist Church. In the beginning the Methodist Church served as a meeting place for all Protestant denominations. Later, the First Presbyterian Church of Donalsonville was established in January 1898 with 25 members. On August 4, 1902, 18 people helped to create the First Baptist Church of Donalsonville. The Church of The Nazarene, originally called “The Holiness Church,” was established in October 1902. The meetings of the Church of the Nazarene were actually held in a member's house until 1903, when a building was erected. The first black church in Donalsonville was created in 1895, the Live Oak African Methodist Episcopal Church. Eventually, the number totalled thirteen.
Seminole County is a county located in the southwestern corner of U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,147. The county seat is Donalsonville.
Glynn County is located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 84,499. The county seat is Brunswick. Glynn County is part of the Brunswick, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Echols County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,697. The county seat is Statenville. Since 2008, Statenville is a disincorporated municipality. Echols and Webster counties are the only two counties in Georgia to currently have no incorporated municipalities. The county was established in 1858 and named in honor of Robert Milner Echols (1798–1847).
DeKalb County is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,382, making it Georgia's fourth-most populous county. Its county seat is Decatur.
Decatur County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 29,367. The county seat is Bainbridge.
Bainbridge is a city in Decatur County, Georgia, United States. The city is the county seat of Decatur County. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 14,468, up from 12,697 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Bainbridge, Georgia Micropolitan Statistical Area and a principal city in the Tallahassee—Bainbridge, FL-GA Combined Statistical Area.
Jakin is a city in Early County, Georgia, United States. Incorporated in 1895, Jakin's population was 131 in 2020.
Colquitt is a city and the county seat of Miller County, in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. The population was 2,001 at the 2020 census. Colquitt has been the county seat of Miller County since Miller County was incorporated by the Georgia Legislature in 1856. The city formally incorporated on December 19, 1860, and is Miller County's only incorporated municipality. Colquitt is named for U.S. Congressman and Senator Walter Terry Colquitt.
Conyers is the county seat of Rockdale County, in Georgia, United States. The city is 24 miles (38.6 km) east of downtown Atlanta and is a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of 2020, its population was 17,305. The formerly separate town of Milstead is now part of Conyers.
Jesup is a city in Wayne County, Georgia, United States. The population was 9,809 at the 2020 census. The city is the county seat of Wayne County.
Lee Arrendale State Prison of the Georgia Department of Corrections is a women's prison located in Raoul, unincorporated Habersham County, Georgia, near Alto, and in proximity to Gainesville. It houses the state death row for women.
Clinton Correctional Facility is a New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision maximum security state prison for men located in the Village of Dannemora, New York. The prison is sometimes colloquially referred to as Dannemora, although its name is derived from its location in Clinton County, New York. The southern perimeter wall of the prison borders New York State Route 374. Church of St. Dismas, the Good Thief, a church built by inmates, is located within the walls. The prison is sometimes referred to as New York's Little Siberia, due to the cold winters in Dannemora and the isolation of the upstate area. It is the largest maximum-security prison and the third-oldest prison in New York. The staff includes about 1,000 officers and supervisors.
Georgia State Prison was the main maximum-security facility in the US state of Georgia for the Georgia Department of Corrections. It was located in unincorporated Tattnall County. First opened in 1938, the prison housed some of the most dangerous inmates in the state's history, and it was the site of Georgia's death row until 1980.
State Route 39 is a 118-mile-long (190 km) state highway that travels south-to-north through portions of Seminole, Miller, Early, Clay, Quitman, and Stewart counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. The route proceeds north from its southern terminus along the shore of Lake Seminole in southern Seminole County to a point just southwest of Omaha, where it travels in an easterly direction until it meets its northern terminus, an intersection with US 27/SR 1 in a rural south of the unincorporated community of Louvale.
Peter Zack Geer was an American lawyer and a Democratic politician from the U.S. state of Georgia.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
The Seminole County School District is a public school district in Seminole County, Georgia, United States, based in Donalsonville. It serves the communities of Donalsonville and Iron City.
Thomas Julian Webb was a member of the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1974. He was also a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals from 1974 to 1979.
Murder One is a 1988 independent biographical crime drama film starring Henry Thomas and James Wilder, based on the 1973 Alday Murders.
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: CS1 maint: url-status (link)The movie Murder One, based on the 1973 Alday family slayings ...