Historic Sites in Brantley County

The history of Brantley County

Brantley County was created by an act of the legislature on August 14, 1920, from parts of Charlton, Pierce and Wayne counties in southeast Georgia. It is named for the Brantley family: the state historical marker credits Benjamin Daniel Brantley, a merchant who promoted cotton ginning and turpentine manufacturing, though some accounts point to his son William Gordon Brantley, a state legislator and U.S. congressman. The campaign for a new county was led in 1919 by a citizens' committee headed by state senator J. K. Larkins, and a legal fight over the county seat between Hoboken and Nahunta lasted until 1923, when Nahunta prevailed; the town was incorporated in 1925. Muscogee (Creek) people lived in the region before European contact, and in the colonial era the area lay in the borderland contested by Spain and Britain. Forests defined the local economy, and timber and turpentine operations flourished; as late as 1950 heavy forest still covered about 80 percent of the county. An early twentieth-century attempt to grow LeConte pears failed because of blight. From the 1930s until 1944 a state prison camp at Hortense supplied convict labor for road building. Places tied to the county's past and landscape include Trail Ridge, Dixon Memorial State Forest, the Fort Mudge site and the Gibson Family Pioneer Home.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiahistory.com