History
Quitman County was created from parts of Randolph and Stewart counties in 1858. The county was named for General John A. Quitman, a leader in the Mexican War, once Governor of Mississippi, and an avid spokesman for states rights.
The county’s only incorporated municipality is Georgetown, the county seat. It was named for the area in Washington, D.C. It was originally called Tobanana after a nearby creek.
An earlier fortified settlement, believed to have been built by prehistoric Indians, was located where Cool Branch flows into the Chattahoochee River. Much of that area–indeed all of Quitman’s western border–is now beneath the waters of Lake Walter F. George, an impoundment on the Chattahoochee River.
Quitman County shares the Lake Walter F. George Wildlife Management Area with Clay County to the south.
The Quitman County Jail is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Harrison-Guerry-Brannon-Crawford Family Cemetery has many distinguished Georgians buried in it.
Download Trifold Brochure about Georgetown-Quitman County (PDF)
Location Georgetown
Date Built 1939
Architecture Style Stripped Classical with Colonial Revival elements
Seat Information Georgetown. The legislation creating Quitman County did not name a county seat but left this to be decided by the justices of the inferior court. The law further directed that an election of inferior court justices and other county officials be held in Feb. 1859. Following the election, the justices named Georgetown as county seat. The town was originally settled with the name Tabanana (after the creek of the same name) in 1831 or 1832. In 1836, the name was changed to Georgetown [presumably after the town of the same name in the District of Columbia]. Georgetown was incorporated on Dec. 9, 1859 by an act of the legislature.
Courthouse Details At some point soon after creation of Quitman County, a wooden two-story courthouse was built in Georgetown. That structure burned in 1920. A rented warehouse was used as a temporary courthouse until a new one could be built. Apparently county revenues were insufficient to fund construction of a new courthouse -- a problem compounded with arrival of the Depression. Quitman County took advantage of federal relief funds to build the one-story brick courthouse in 1939.
County Area 160.9 Square Miles
Location Map
History Quitman County was created from Randolph and Stewart counties on Dec. 10, 1858, by an act of the General Assembly (Ga. Laws 1858, p. 28). Georgia’s 128th county was named for Gen. John A. Quitman (1799-1858). Quitman had served in the Mexican War and had been governor of Mississippi—but it was his outspoken defense of states rights that made him so popular in Georgia. Five months after Quitman died, the General Assembly named a new county in his honor.
In November 2006, citizens of Quitman County and the city of Georgetown voted to consolidate into a single government. Elections for the new governing body will be held March 20, 2007. Depending on whether a run-off election is needed, the new consolidated government will go into effect either the first week of April or first week of May 2007. Georgetown-Quitman County became Georgia’s fifth consolidated government.
Legal Organ Eufaula Tribune
