Fleming is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Liberty County Liberty County is the name of four counties in the United States: * Liberty County, Florida * Liberty County, Georgia * Liberty County, Montana * Liberty County, Texas Liberty County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

, United States. The community is east-northeast of Hinesville. A

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

at Fleming was established in 1869 and remained in operation until March 9, 2013; it still has its ZIP code, 31309. As of the United States Census 2010, the population of the 31309

ZIP Code Tabulation Area ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) are statistical entities developed by the United States Census Bureau for tabulating summary statistics. These were introduced with the Census 2000 and continued with the 2010 Census and 5 year American Community ...

was 1,210.

History

Fleming was established after the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

as a

railroad depot A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing such an ...

. It was convenient for officials of the nearby

freedmen's bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the ...

, which was a few miles away. The community is named after William Fleming, a resident who owned a

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

adjacent to the original townsite. By 1886, it was a center for farming and naval stores. Along with a railroad depot and a post office, it also had a

general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

and a

wheelwright A wheelwright is a Artisan, craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright" (which comes from the Old English word "''wryhta''", meaning a worker - as also in shipbuilding, shipwright ...

. Mount Olivet Methodist Church was established in Fleming in 1843 by John Stacy and Hannah McCall Adams. Another church, the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, was established in 1913. Within 5 years, the name of the church was changed to the Fleming Baptist Church. Fleming's population was 130 residents in 1887. The population had grown to 212 by 1925. In 1953, Fleming had a population of 400, with only one telephone. There was a soil and water field station, the Tidewater Experiment Station, (or the Southern Tidewater Experiment Station) in Fleming in the 1950s and 1960s. A passenger train and a freight train collided in Fleming on January 17, 1953. Two people died and 85 others were injured. The

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...

stated that the crash's cause was "excessive speed". In 2002, local postal worker Sallie Gaglia was murdered in the Fleming Post Office during a robbery of $1,175 in

money order A money order is a directive to pay a pre-specified amount of money from prepaid funds, making it a more trusted method of payment than a cheque. History Systems similar to modern money orders can be traced back centuries. Paper documents known ...

s. Local man Meier Jason Brown was arrested and later sentenced to death for the crime. He is currently imprisoned at

United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute The United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute (USP Terre Haute) is a high-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute (FCC Terre Haute) and is operated ...

. The Fleming Post Office was robbed in 2010. Services were suspended shortly afterwards due to constant vandalism, low traffic, less than two hours of work being needed per day, and average daily sales being below $50. Postal services were relocated to nearby Richmond Hill, in Bryan County. The Post Office officially ended operations on March 9, 2013; the community it still has its ZIP code, 31309.

Climate

Fleming had the highest recorded monthly rainfall in the state of Georgia at one time, with 28.6 inches of rain falling on the month of August in 1898. During the

Hurricane Frances tornado outbreak The Hurricane Frances tornado outbreak was a widespread tornado outbreak associated with Hurricane Frances that came ashore on eastern Florida on September 4–5, 2004. Outer bands from the hurricane and its remnants, when it moved across the ...

on September 6, 2004, an F1 tornado was reported northwest of Fleming. The damage was limited to trees.

Education

The Liberty County School District operates public schools that serve Fleming.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Liberty County, Georgia Unincorporated communities in Georgia (U.S. state)