Lumpkin is a city and

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

Stewart County, Georgia Stewart County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,314. The county seat is Lumpkin. The county was created on December 23, 1830. History The area was inhab ...

, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 891.

History

This area of Georgia was inhabited by succeeding cultures of indigenous Native Americans for thousands of years before European contact. Historical tribes included the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

Choctaw The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choct ...

and Creek, who encountered European Americans as their settlements moved into traditional territory. During the Indian removal of 1830, the United States government forced such tribes to move west of the Mississippi River to

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

, to extinguish their claims and make way for more European-American settlement. Lumpkin was incorporated by European Americans on March 30, 1829. First named the

of Randolph County on December 2, 1830, it became the seat of Stewart County when the latter was split from Randolph three weeks later. The city was named in honor of Wilson Lumpkin, a two-term

governor of Georgia The governor of Georgia is the head of government of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and the commander-in-chief of the state's Georgia National Guard, National Guard, when not in federal service, and Georgia State Defense Force, State Defense Fo ...

and legislator who supported Indian removal. His namesake county is at the northern end of the state.Matthew M. Moye, "Lumpkin"
''New Georgia Encyclopedia'', 17 Dec 2006, accessed 7 Jan 2009 The town grew as a commercial center served by stagecoach. Its merchants traded with the planters in the area. This was part of the Black Belt, named for the fertile land in the upland South that supported extensive

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

plantations 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, tobacco ...

in the 19th century. In the antebellum years, planters depended on the labor and skills of hundreds of thousands of enslaved

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

to cultivate and process the cotton for market. After the war, many

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...

stayed in the area as

sharecroppers Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

and tenant farmers, and the economy continued to depend on agriculture. With land erosion and depletion, cotton farming gave way to peanut and pine tree cultivation, and labor needs decreased. The population of the county dropped markedly from the Great Migration of blacks to industrial jobs in the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

in the early decades of the 20th century, but the town of Lumpkin remained relatively stable. The county is still quite rural. Lumpkin was the first small town in Georgia to complete a successful

historic preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK) is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...

project to encourage what has become known as

heritage tourism Heritage tourism is a branch of tourism centered around the exploration and appreciation of a region's cultural, historical and environmental heritage. This form of tourism includes both tangible elements, such as historically significant sites, ...

. It restored the Bedingfield Inn, built in 1836 and located on the central square. It is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. On December 5, 1954, a destructive F2 tornado hit the northwest side of town, killing one and injuring 20. In the 1960s, a group of citizens created a

living history Living history is an activity that incorporates historical tools, activities and dress into an interactive presentation that seeks to give observers and participants a sense of stepping back in time. Although it does not necessarily seek to ree ...

complex known as Westville. They relocated 30 historic structures to create a grouping of western Georgia architecture as would have been found in an 1850s working village. Some of the buildings were purchased from the collection of John Word West established in 1928 in

Jonesboro, Georgia Jonesboro () is a city in and the county seat of Clayton County, Georgia, United States. The population was 4,235 in 2020. The city's name was originally spelled Jonesborough. During the American Civil War, the final skirmish in the Atlanta ...

. The village, staffed by volunteers to give the sense of daily life, has since moved to

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee ...

. The nearby private Stewart Detention Center houses federal detainees for the

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the Un ...

. The facility is owned and run by

CoreCivic CoreCivic, Inc. formerly the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and operates others on a concession basis. Co-founded in 1983 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas W. B ...

. In 2011 Stewart ranked as the largest and busiest such facility in the United States. Stewart County's share of revenue from the federal government, 85 cents per inmate per day, amounted to more than half of the county's entire annual budget. It was removed from the 2020 U.S. Census geography for Lumpkin city hence the decline in population.

Geography

Lumpkin is located at . U.S. Route 27 passes west of the city, leading north to Columbus and south to

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of and the only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Fl ...

Georgia State Route 27 State Route 27 (SR 27) is a state highway that travels west-to-east through portions of Quitman, Stewart, Webster, Sumter, Dooly, Pulaski, Dodge, Telfair, Jeff Davis, Appling, Wayne, and Glynn counties in the southern par ...

also passes through the city, leading southwest to Georgetown on the

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

state line and east to Richland. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (1.25%) is water.

Demographics

At the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 1,369 people, 552 households, and 367 families residing in the city; by 2020, its population declined to 891.

Government

The current mayor of Lumpkin is Jimmy Babb. Charles Gibson, his predecessor, elected in 2010, was the first African-American elected to this office.

Education

The Stewart County School District holds pre-school to grade twelve, and consists of an elementary school, middle school, and high school. The district has 58 full-time teachers and over 704 students.School Stats
Retrieved June 26, 2010. *Stewart County Elementary School *Stewart County Middle School * Stewart County High School

Notable people

* John Cornbread Anderson, American folk artist * Dorothy Pitman Hughes, American feminist and civil rights activist * Jarvis Jones, retired

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and typically line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and so back up the defensive linemen. They play closer to the line ...

for the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...

* Alice Tan Ridley (1952 – 2025), singer *

John Wellborn Root John Wellborn Root (January 10, 1850 – January 15, 1891) was an American architect who was based in Chicago with Daniel Burnham. He was one of the founders of the Chicago School style. Two of his buildings have been designated National Hist ...

, American architect and key figure in Chicago School of design