Historic Sites in Coffee County

The history of Coffee County

Coffee County was created on February 9, 1854, from parts of Clinch, Irwin, Telfair, and Ware counties, on land the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had ceded in the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson and the 1818 Treaty of the Creek Agency. It is named for John E. Coffee, a Telfair County planter who served in the Georgia legislature and the U.S. Congress. Douglas became the county seat in 1858 and was named for Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas. For three decades the town amounted to little more than a frame courthouse, a hotel, and a few houses, and it faced abandonment until landowner Benajah Peterson led a revival in 1888. A sawmill, a turpentine still, and a cotton gin followed, three railroads arrived, and Douglas was chartered in 1895. The Georgia and Florida Railroad placed its offices and shops there in 1909, and during the 1920s and 1930s Douglas grew into one of Georgia's major tobacco markets. The Eleventh District Agricultural College opened in 1907 and became South Georgia College, the state's first public junior college, in 1927. An airport built in 1928 served as a pilot-training base during World War II. General Coffee State Park preserves the Meeks Cabin, dating to around 1830, and the county also holds Broxton Rocks, a sandstone outcrop stretching nearly four miles.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiaencyclopedia.orgen.wikipedia.org