             
|
 |
Brooks County
Located just west of Valdosta in southwest Georgia, on the Florida border, Brooks is a county of moss-laden oaks and a long and honored history.
In
1818 U.S. president Andrew Jackson made a treaty with the Spanish and the Native Americans and claimed the land that is now
Brooks County for the United States. Settlers later came down the Coffee Road from middle Georgia in their covered wagons,
ox-drawn carts, and buggies. These early settlers had three things uppermost in their minds: religion, education, and agriculture. Roads were projected to run from the courthouse to each part of the county.
Founded on December 11, 1858, Brooks County was created from portions of Lowndes and Thomas counties. The 494-square-mile county was named for Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina, an extremely popular young legislator
known for his intensely southern sentiments and his zealous defense of southern rights. In 1853 Brooks was elected to Congress
as a States' Rights Democrat and served until his death four years later, at the age of thirty-eight. A year later the Georgia legislature showed their appreciation of him by naming a county for him.
The largest town in Brooks County, Quitman, was named the county seat.
The first courthouse, a small, temporary building, opened in 1859. A permanent edifice was begun in the same year, but the
Civil War (1861-65) delayed its construction. That courthouse, completed in 1864, is still in use today, although it has undergone
remodeling and modernizing. Quitman is known as the Camellia City because of the plants grown there, and also because Betty
Sheffield, developer of the well-known camellia variety of the same name, was a longtime resident. Other small towns in the
county include Barney (famous for its peaches), Barwick, Morven, and Pavo.
According to the 2000 U.S. census, the population of Brooks County was 16,450 (57.4 percent white, 39.3 percent black, and
3.1 percent Hispanic).
Suggested Reading Folks Huxford, History of Brooks County, Georgia, 1858-1948 (Athens, Ga.: n.p., 1949).
United Daughters of the Confederacy, Quitman Chapter No. 112, Historic Treasures of Brooks County, Georgia, 2d ed. (Quitman, Ga.: Quitman Chapter, 1974).
Judith A. Shippey, Hinesville
Updated 6/12/2008
|
|
