Harris County, Georgia

Harris County
County
County courthouse in Hamilton
Location within the U.S. state of Georgia
Georgia's location within the U.S.
Coordinates: 32°44′N84°55′W / 32.74°N 84.91°W / 32.74; -84.91
Country	United States
State	Georgia
Founded	December 14, 1827;196 years ago (1827-12-14)
Named for	Charles Harris
Seat	Hamilton
Largest city	Pine Mountain
Area
• Total	473 sq mi (1,230 km2)
• Land	464 sq mi (1,200 km2)
• Water	9.1 sq mi (24 km2)  1.9%
Population  (2020)
• Total	34,668
• Density	75/sq mi (29/km2)
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Congressional district	3rd
Website	www.harriscountyga.gov

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 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

View of Harris County on Pine Mountain

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 473 square miles (1,230 km²), of which 464 square miles (1,200 km²) are land and 9.1 square miles (24 km²) (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

• Interstate 85
• Interstate 185
• U.S. Route 27
• 
  U.S. Route 27 Alternate
• State Route 1
• State Route 18
• State Route 36
• State Route 85
• State Route 85 Alternate
• State Route 103
• State Route 116
• State Route 190
• State Route 208
• State Route 219
• State Route 315
• State Route 354
• State Route 403 (unsigned designation for I-85)
• State Route 411 (unsigned designation for I-185)

Adjacent counties

• Troup County (north)
• Meriwether County (northeast)
• Talbot County (east)
• Muscogee County (south)
• Lee County, Alabama (southwest/CST border)
• Chambers County, Alabama (northwest/CST border except Lanett and Valley as the cities are jointed by the Columbus metropolitan area)

Communities

Cities

• Hamilton (county seat)
• Shiloh
• West Point (part, most of city is in Troup County)

Towns

• Pine Mountain
• Waverly Hall

Unincorporated communities

• Cataula
• Ellerslie
• Fortson (part, mostly in Muscogee County)
• Midland (part, mostly in Muscogee County)
• Mountain Hill
• Ossahatchie
• Pine Mountain Valley
• Piney Grove
• Ridgeway
• Whitesville

Demographics

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
1830	5,105		—
1840	13,933		172.9%
1850	14,721		5.7%
1860	13,736		−6.7%
1870	13,284		−3.3%
1880	15,758		18.6%
1890	16,797		6.6%
1900	18,009		7.2%
1910	17,886		−0.7%
1920	15,775		−11.8%
1930	11,140		−29.4%
1940	11,428		2.6%
1950	11,265		−1.4%
1960	11,167		−0.9%
1970	11,520		3.2%
1980	15,464		34.2%
1990	17,788		15.0%
2000	23,695		33.2%
2010	32,024		35.2%
2020	34,668		8.3%
2023 (est.)	36,654	[14]	5.7%
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]

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 United States census, there were 34,668 people, 12,156 households, and 9,581 families residing in the county.

Politics

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.

United States presidential election results for Harris County, Georgia ^[25]

Year	Republican		Democratic		Third party
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
2020	14,319	71.59%	5,457	27.28%	226	1.13%
2016	11,936	72.33%	4,086	24.76%	480	2.91%
2012	11,197	72.14%	4,145	26.71%	179	1.15%
2008	10,648	71.25%	4,184	28.00%	113	0.76%
2004	8,878	71.82%	3,400	27.50%	84	0.68%
2000	5,554	64.87%	2,912	34.01%	96	1.12%
1996	3,829	53.70%	2,779	38.97%	523	7.33%
1992	3,316	47.64%	2,679	38.49%	965	13.86%
1988	3,414	63.94%	1,905	35.68%	20	0.37%
1984	3,138	59.95%	2,096	40.05%	0	0.00%
1980	2,001	40.49%	2,807	56.80%	134	2.71%
1976	1,544	35.05%	2,861	64.95%	0	0.00%
1972	2,617	78.87%	701	21.13%	0	0.00%
1968	1,021	25.89%	1,072	27.18%	1,851	46.93%
1964	2,166	69.74%	940	30.26%	0	0.00%
1960	735	35.05%	1,362	64.95%	0	0.00%
1956	563	29.79%	1,327	70.21%	0	0.00%
1952	544	28.36%	1,374	71.64%	0	0.00%
1948	138	12.14%	759	66.75%	240	21.11%
1944	79	8.13%	893	91.87%	0	0.00%
1940	71	7.15%	914	92.04%	8	0.81%
1936	54	5.36%	953	94.54%	1	0.10%
1932	21	2.40%	851	97.26%	3	0.34%
1928	144	20.72%	551	79.28%	0	0.00%
1924	20	3.87%	457	88.39%	40	7.74%
1920	9	2.21%	398	97.79%	0	0.00%
1916	31	5.13%	550	91.06%	23	3.81%
1912	28	4.54%	585	94.81%	4	0.65%

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. ^[26] The district headquarters is located in Hamilton, and has 274 full-time teachers and over 4,411 students spread out over seven schools. ^[27]

• Mulberry Creek Elementary School (Cataula)
• New Mountain Hill Elementary School (Fortson)
• Park Elementary School (Hamilton)
• Pine Ridge Elementary School (Ellerslie)
• Creekside Intermediate School (grades 5–6) (Cataula)
• Harris County Carver Middle School (Hamilton)
• Harris County High School (Hamilton)

Notable people

• Reuben J. Crews, father of C.C. Crews and a colonel in the Georgia Militia
• Benjamin Franklin White, clerk of the Inferior Court of Harris County, mayor of Whitesville, and compiler of the shape note songbook known as The Sacred Harp

See also

• State of Georgia portal

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Harris County, Georgia
• List of counties in Georgia
• USNS Harris County (T-LST-822)

References

1. "Census - Geography Profile: Harris County, Georgia". United States Census Bureau . Retrieved December 27, 2022.
2. "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
3. Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. Govt. Print. Off. pp.  150.
4. Karen Branan, The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth, Atria Books, 2016.
5. 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. "Burrell Hardaway" Archived April 17, 2016, at the Wayback Machine , Georgia Lynching Project Circa 1875-1930, Project of Emory University, 2016, accessed April 6, 2016.
10. CRRJ Provides First Full Account of Notorious 1947 Georgia Jailhouse Killing, Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project, August 22, 2016, retrieved August 25, 2016
11. Dunn, Tara; Kong, Ariel Goeun Lee (2016). Henry Gilbert. Northeastern University School of Law (Report). Boston, MA: Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project. Archived from the original on August 26, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
12. "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. February 12, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
13. "Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission Interactive Mapping Experience". Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
14. "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 31, 2024.
15. "Decennial Census of Population and Housing by Decades". United States Census Bureau.
16. "1880 Census Population by Counties 1790-1800" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 1880.
17. "1910 Census of Population - Georgia" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 1910.
18. "1930 Census of Population - Georgia" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 1930.
19. "1940 Census of Population - Georgia" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 1940.
20. "1950 Census of Population - Georgia -" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 1950.
21. "1980 Census of Population - Number of Inhabitants - Georgia" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 1980.
22. "2000 Census of Population - Population and Housing Unit Counts - Georgia" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 2000.
23. "State & County QuickFacts". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
24. "Explore Census Data". data.census.gov. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
25. Leip, David. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
26. Georgia Board of Education ^{[ permanent dead link ]}, Retrieved June 19, 2010.
27. School Stats, Retrieved June 19, 2010.

External links

• Columbus Enquirer Archive Digital Library of Georgia
• Harris County historical marker

32°44′N84°55′W / 32.74°N 84.91°W / 32.74; -84.91