Clarke County, GA

The city of Athens began as a tiny settlement and trading post that emerged at Cedar Shoals, where an ancient Cherokee trail crossed the Oconee River. On January 27, 1785, the Georgia General Assembly created the University of Georgia as the first chartered state-supported university in the United States. It was not until the summer of 1801, though, that five men traveled to the area to look for an appropriate site for the University. One member of the delegation, John Milledge, purchased 633 acres on the hill above Cedar Shoals and donated it to the University. He renamed the area Athens in honor of the Classical Greek center of culture. Later that year, the General Assembly carved Clarke County out of Jackson County on December 5, 1801 and named it after Revolutionary War hero Elijah Clarke.

To raise money to pay for construction of buildings for the school, lots were sold adjacent to campus. The University's first class of 10 graduated in 1804, and on December 6, 1806, the city of Athens was officially incorporated. As fine federal homes began to appear around the new campus, the role of Athens as the intellectual center of Georgia became increasingly evident: the cultured social life surrounding the college attracted prominent families of wealth and national stature. Industry developed rapidly; Athens' economy during the first half of the nineteenth century was based primarily upon cotton, brick works, textile mills, and railroad transportation. By the 1840s, when rail lines connected Athens with the rest of the region, big industry had made Athens famous as the "Manchester of the South."

Two skirmishes took place in Clarke County during the Civil War in 1864. An occupation garrison arrived in Athens on May 29 and informal federal occupation continued until early 1866. Athens was spared the fate of many of Georgia's cities, however, remaining virtually intact after hostilities had ended.

A curious by-product of the war years was the local production of a double-barreled cannon - the only one of its kind in the world. The concept was to load the cannon with two balls connected by a chain several feet in length, but a test firing proved it to be uncontrollable. The cannon was never used, but presented to the city and sits to this day on the City Hall grounds.

In the post-Civil War era, Athens became known as a center of undergraduate education for freed slaves, as three different schools offered African-Americans primary, intermediate, industrial, and nurses' training. Three black newspapers thrived in Athens when it was rare for a southern town to have even one. In the early 1900s, the corner of Washington and Lumpkin Streets downtown became known as the "Hot Corner" for the black community. The Morton Building, as well as the Samaritan Building and Union Hall, housed black lawyers, dentists, doctors and other professionals. The two-story opera house in the Morton Building hosted the likes of Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington.

In 1867, visiting naturalist John Muir described Athens as "a remarkably beautiful and aristocratic town," where "marks of culture and refinement" were everywhere apparent. The seat of Clarke County moved to Athens on November 24, 1871 from Watkinsville.

In 1908, the Southern Mutual Insurance Company completed a seven-story skyscraper that was the largest ferro concrete building in the South. From 1923-1950, Athens was the second largest cotton manufacturer in the state. Five rail lines came into town, and Athens became an important center for wholesale grocers.

During World War II, Athens was named as one of only five naval preflight schools in the nation when the Navy Supply Corps School was established and still sits as a navy base. Desegregation marked 1961 as Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes became UGA's first two African-American students.

Beginning in the late 1970s, the Athens music scene began to gather momentum and international recognition, eventually earning the city worldwide recognition as a hotbed for music. Bands such as R.E.M. and the B-52's became wildly popular throughout the 1980s, while scores of bands continue honing their skills in Athens’ myriad clubs to this day. In 1998, the Athens band Widespread Panic hosted a free CD release party in downtown Athens which drew 70-100,000 people.

On August 7, 1990, a citizens' referendum approved the consolidation of the governments of Athens and Clarke County after three previous rejections in 1969, 1972 and 1981. The vote created Georgia's second such consolidated government and the twenty-eighth of its kind in the country. An elected Mayor (current Mayor Heidi Davison) and ten commissioners, along with an appointed manager, head the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government.