Historic Sites in Sumter County

The history of Sumter County

Sumter County was created on December 26, 1831, entirely from Lee County. It was named for General Thomas Sumter of South Carolina, then the last surviving general of the American Revolution, and Americus was chosen as its seat. The Muscogee (Creek) had given up this land in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs, and white settlers acquired it through the 1827 land lottery. Cotton grown on the area's dark soils made planters wealthy, and by 1850 about 4,000 people were held in slavery in the county. During the Civil War, the Confederate prison known as Andersonville, about nine miles north of Americus, confined some 45,000 Union soldiers over fourteen months, and thousands died there. In 1923 Charles Lindbergh made his first solo flight at Souther Field, a former World War I training base near Americus. Koinonia Farm, founded in 1942, brought Black and white people together to live and work as a Christian community. In 1963 the Americus Movement challenged segregation with marches that led to mass arrests, including more than thirty Black girls confined in a stockade in neighboring Lee County, and by the end of 1965 more than 2,000 African Americans had registered to vote. Plains is the hometown of President Jimmy Carter, and Habitat for Humanity International is headquartered in Americus.

Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiaencyclopedia.orggeorgiahistory.com