Georgia County Government-August 2008

Georgia’s Grand Old Courthouses The Coffee County Courthouse at Douglas Built in 1900, burned 1939. Andrew J. Bryan, architect. By Wilber W. Caldwell The Coffee County Courthouse at Douglas in 1900. The Coffee County Courthouse at Douglas in 1889. Photos courtesy of Wilber W. Caldwell. C offee County was created from Appling, Telfair and Irwin counties in 1854. In that year, lumber for the county’s first courthouse was milled at one of the early saw mills along the Ocmulgee River and floated down river to Barrow’s Bluff on the county’s northern border. From there, it was hauled the last 20 miles to Douglas by ox cart. The building served until 1889 when a two-story, frame courthouse replaced it. Typical of scores of vernacular frame court buildings that covered Georgia’s squares in the early period, this one presided over a vast wilderness of pine, which contained no real towns and little population. In 1860, the United States Census reported that all of Coffee County contained fewer than 3,000 residents. For the next 40 years, Douglas remained a singularly remote hamlet, with little more than a few dusty dwellings and a store beside the simple frame courthouse. Of Douglas, Sholes’ 1879 Gazetteer of Georgia could only report that “repeated efforts have failed to secure information on this place.” The 1886 edition reported only that the town had a population of 50. By the beginning of the 1890s, the fingers of tiny logging railroads were snaking their way into the forests of Coffee County, and things began to stir in Douglas. In 1896, town leaders accomplished a rail connection to the old Brunswick and Albany Railroad at Axson by extending a rickety logging line. Although this line, known briefly as The Douglas and McDonald Railroad, was not a state-chartered commercial carrier, the first train carried a load of brick for Douglas’ fi rst brick building. And in 1898, when the old frame courthouse burned, bricks for a new court building arrived by rail. The history of railroading in central Georgia around the turn of the century recounts the construction of a seemingly endless stream of ne’er-do-well branches and connectors culminating in creation of the two mainline railroads that were pieced together out of an otherwise disorderly tangle of track. In the fi rst years of the new century, the Atlantic and Birmingham Railroad fashioned her main trunk railroad from Brunswick, through Douglas, Fitzgerald and Cordele all the way to Montezuma. By the end of the decade, when The Georgia and Florida Railway pieced together a main line from Augusta through Douglas to Madison, Fla., The Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad had gobbled up The Atlantic and Birmingham and completed her grand scheme to connect Brunswick with Birmingham, Ala. Thus, the last two great main trunk railroads to be built in Georgia crossed at Douglas, and as the new century dawned, the town was booming. COURTHOUSE continued on page 30 Whatever the stylistic description of Bryan’s 1900 Coffee County Courthouse at Douglas, it supplied local business leaders with just the symbol they required to announce their great expectations. AUGUST 2008 www.accg.org 29 http://www.accg.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Georgia County Government-August 2008

Georgia County Government- August 2008 Contents President’s Message County Matters Georgia’s Transportation Issues More Critical to Counties than Ever Expanding Rural Airports: Partnering for Economic Development in Upson County Meet DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham Bridge Infrastructure and Risk Counties and the Law: Georgia’s Fair Employment Practices Act Georgia’s Grand Old Courthouses: Coffee County Extension News: Infrastructure Investments Save County Funds Research Corner: Getting the Most Out of Your Research Discover the New Georgia Encyclopedia NACo News Staff News County Parade Index of Advertisers

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