Georgia County Government - December 2008 - (Page 30)

Georgia’s Grand Old Courthouses The Dawson County Courthouse at Dawsonville By Wilber W. Caldwell O the 18th century. f t he s e ven br ic k a nt e b e l l u m c o u r t buildings still standing in Georgia, t he 18 6 0 D aw s on County Courthouse at Dawsonville may best represent the simple vernacular architectural style that once covered the state’s courthouse squares with sturdy uncomplicated two-story brick buildings. Here is an unadorned and fundamentally Georgian form that has remained unchanged since the first American courthouses rose in It is no coincidence that so many of the remaining examples of this once pervasive building form are in the mountain counties of north central Georgia. Here, frozen in time, in one of its most fiercely defended bastions, the un-complicated practical architecture of the American frontier still broadcasts its uncomplicated symbols. This simple building reminds us of a nearly forgotten America ideal, the uncompromising individualism, which on the American frontier, was virtually unencumbered by governmental intervention. Here the rule of law was exercised only to preserve those freedoms necessary to maintain such individualism. Accordingly, architecture like this remained untainted by the complex myths and symbols that would soon separate the 30 GEORGIA COUNTY GOVERNMENT The Dawson County Courthouse at Dawsonville, built in 1860. Wilber W. Caldwell nation. Elsewhere, Georgia’s courthouses would begin to reflect monumental struggles, industrialism vs. agrarianism, governmental might vs. local and individual prerogatives, Realism vs. Romanticism. But up in the mountains, these simple buildings would continue to serve while the rest of the state embraced the complex architecture of a dubious progress. On the edge of the high mountains, the Dawson County Courthouse stood firm, while the legions of industrialism roderough shod through the gardens of the American heartland and transformed a rural nation of farmers into an urban nation of workers and clerks. But such intransigence was not without a numbing price. When Dawson County was created in 1857 from parts of Pickens, Gilmer, Lumpkin and Forsyth, the population of the entire county was under 1,000 persons. Although the population would grow in the late 19th century, reaching almost 6,000 in 1880, farming in these hills was difficult, and the region remained among the poor- est in the state. Although a railroad was surveyed from Gainesville to Dahlonega through the northern section of Dawson County, the project eventually fizzled. In 1900, Dawsonville counted only about 200 residents. By 1910, this number was down to 179 as mountain families began to stream down out of the hills in search of jobs in the cotton mills that were rising in the Piedmont. Dawson County had a population of about 5,500 in 1900. By 1930, this was down to 3,500. No rails had arrived to deliver New South promises, and the old courthouse at Dawsonville spoke only of the disappearing frontier. Ironically, as the new century unfolded, enough of the mythology of prosperity and progress had crept up into these hills to lure almost half of the county’s population down to the sprawling mill villages whose cramped conformity must have offered a stark contrast to the free-spirited frontier individualism so eloquently voiced by the 1860 Dawson County Courthouse and by the wilderness that once surrounded it. ■

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

Georgia County Government - December 2008 Contents President's Message County Matters 2009 Legislative Forecast: ACCG's Platform for the Coming Legislative Session ACCG Policy Staff 2008 Legislative Awards Honor Georgia Lawmakers Cell Towers and Local Governments Oglethorpe Power Plans Biomass Electric Facilities Georgia's Grand Old Courthouses: Dawson County Extension News: Biofuels Development Research Corner: Implementing a Record Retention Policy County Parade Index of Advertisers/Advertiser.com

Georgia County Government - December 2008

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