Historic Sites in Lanier County

The history of Lanier County

Lanier County was created in 1920 from parts of Berrien, Clinch, and Lowndes counties, becoming Georgia's 157th county, and it was named for the Georgia poet Sidney Lanier. Its 187 square miles were once held by the Muscogee (Creek) people. Early in the nineteenth century a settler named Joshua Lee built a gristmill on the creek that drains what is now Banks Lake, and his three-story mill became the center of trade on the stagecoach route between Thomasville and Waycross. The community that grew up around the mill was known first as Alapaha and later as Milltown before it was incorporated in 1925 as Lakeland, which serves as the county seat. Railroads left their mark as well: the town of Stockton, originally called Registerville, took its present name from a railroad official who oversaw grading of the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad through the area. Lakeland was the home of E. D. Rivers, who served as governor of Georgia from 1937 to 1941; his house was moved to West Main Street in the early 1980s. Downtown Lakeland's "Murals of Milltown" depict everyday life in the community during the 1920s. Banks Lake, the millpond that shaped the town's early history, became the centerpiece of Banks Lake National Wildlife Refuge in 1985.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.org