Historic Sites in Ben Hill County

The history of Ben Hill County

Ben Hill County was created by an act of July 31, 1906, from portions of Irwin and Wilcox counties in south central Georgia. It is named for Benjamin Harvey Hill, a celebrated orator who represented Troup County in the state legislature, supported the Confederate government during the Civil War and later served in both the U.S. House and Senate. The county seat, Fitzgerald, has one of the most unusual origins of any Georgia town. In the mid-1890s Philander H. Fitzgerald, an Indiana newspaperman, pension attorney and former Union drummer boy, organized a colony for aging Union veterans, and with the backing of Governor William J. Northen chose the site of a former turpentine village called Swan near the Ocmulgee River. Northern veterans settled alongside former Confederates, and as a gesture of reconciliation the town named an equal number of its streets for Union and Confederate figures. The four-story Lee-Grant Hotel honored the commanders of both armies, and the town's nickname, Colony City, recalls its founding. The Blue and Gray Museum interprets that story. The county courthouse, built in the first decade of the twentieth century, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and agriculture, including cotton, peanuts, timber and tobacco, has long anchored the local economy.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiahistory.com