Harris County, Georgia
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 2010 census, the population was 32,024. The county seat is Hamilton. The largest city in the county is Pine Mountain, a resort town that is home to the world-famous Callaway Gardens Resort and 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.

Harris County is part of the Columbus metropolitan area. It is part of the Black Belt in the southern United States, an upland area developed for cotton plantations in the 19th century before the American Civil War. Muscogee County, to the south, was more heavily developed for cotton.

History

The county was settled by European Americans largely after the federal government had forcibly removed the indigenous Creek people (Muscogee), who 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 imported numerous slaves as workers 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 drinking customers.

Lynchings
On January 22, 1912, a black woman and three black men were lynched in Hamilton, the county seat, allegedly for the 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" and "notorious predator of black women."

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

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; Norman Hadley was the sheriff's nephew.

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. Davidson 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 this death in custody. They had found that 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.

After Jim Crow
On March 3, 2019, an EF3 tornado impacted the county, the first significant tornado to impact the area since 1954.

The county is now part of the Columbus metropolitan area, which has become industrialized and developed a more varied economy. By per capita income, the county is the sixth-wealthiest in Georgia, and the wealthiest county in the state outside of Metro Atlanta.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which  are land and  (1.9%) are covered by water.

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.

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)

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 34,668 people, 12,156 households, and 9,581 families residing in the county.

2010 census
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 32,024 people, 11,823 households, and 9,268 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 13,397 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 79.3% white, 17.2% black or African American, 0.9% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific islander, 0.7% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 2.7% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 17.2% identified as having African ancestry; 13.5% were German, 13.4% were Irish, 11.5% were English, and 10.5% identified as having American ancestry.

Of the 11,823 households, 35.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 64.0% were married couples living together, 10.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 21.6% were non-families, and 18.5% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.67 and the average family size was 3.04. The median age was 42.0 years.

The median income for a household in the county was $67,018 and the median income for a family was $74,457. Males had a median income of $49,844 versus $37,103 for females. The per capita income for the county was $31,073. About 6.0% of families and 9.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.3% of those under age 18 and 10.5% of those age 65 or over.

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

Politics
Like all of Georgia except Unionist non-plantation Fannin, Towns, Pickens and Gilmer counties, Harris County was ancestrally very Democratic. From the end of Reconstruction to 1980, it only supported a Republican twice, in 1964 (when Barry Goldwater carried the state in a landslide) and 1972 (during Richard Nixon's national landslide). In 1984, however, the state swung from a 16.8 percent victory for Jimmy Carter to a nearly 20-point victory for Ronald Reagan. Since then, it has been one of the most Republican counties in Georgia. Indeed, 1984 is the last time that a Democrat has crossed the 40 percent mark. This trend largely coincides with Columbus' suburbs spilling into the county.

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. The district headquarters is located in Hamilton, and has 274 full-time teachers and over 4,411 students spread out over seven schools.
 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
 Georgia Militia Colonel Reuben J. Crews, father of C.C. Crews
 Benjamin Franklin White, clerk of the Inferior Court of Harris County, and mayor of Whitesville, compiler of the shape note songbook known as The Sacred Harp

See also

 National Register of Historic Places listings in Harris County, Georgia

References

External links

 Columbus Enquirer Archive Digital Library of Georgia
 Harris County historical marker

 
Georgia (U.S. state) counties
Columbus metropolitan area, Georgia
1827 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Populated places established in 1827