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    Evans County
    Evans County
    Evans County
    Ebook192 pages1 hour

    Evans County

    By Evans County Centennial Committee

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    About this ebook

    How many counties can boast of having Georgia’s first female sheriff and a town known as the “fruitcake capital of the world”? These distinctions, and many others, make Evans County unique. Evans, the 150th of Georgia’s 159 counties, was created in 1914 from parts of Bulloch and Tattnall Counties. Its development was closely linked with agriculture and the growth of railroads, and the area towns of Daisy, Claxton, Hagan, and Bellville all began as train depots. Although Evans is one of Georgia’s later and smaller counties, it offers a fine example of rural progress and friendly communities. As Evans County enters its centennial year, there is much to celebrate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJun 23, 2014
    ISBN9781439645840
    Evans County
    Author

    Evans County Centennial Committee

    The Evans County centennial is an observance of the county’s heritage, and this book vividly brings this heritage to life. Dr. Curtis Hames, retired chief of medical services at Georgia Southern University, and local author Pharris Johnson led a county-wide effort to acquire images from sources such as The Claxton Enterprise, Georgia Archives, Evans County Public Library, and private individuals. The result is a compelling pictorial tribute to the county’s people, towns, businesses, schools, and churches. The Evans County Centennial Committee thanks everyone involved, and it looks back with pride and ahead with firm confidence in the county’s bright future.

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      Book preview

      Evans County - Evans County Centennial Committee

      Johnson

      INTRODUCTION

      Evans County began in 1914 with the Canoochee District, taken out of Bulloch County, and the Bellville, Claxton, Daisy, Hagan, and Undine Districts from Tattnall County. The namesake of the county is Gen. Clement A. Evans, who led the last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox and became an accomplished author and minister after the war.

      Most of the early settlers came from the Carolinas, Virginia, and older settlements in Georgia. They settled along the uplands adjacent the Canoochee River and nearby creeks in what is now Evans County and initially used the watercourses for transportation. Later, they used wagons to haul most commodities and gradually developed roads leading toward Savannah and Dublin, Georgia. This method of travel continued to be the predominant mode of transportation until the Savannah & Western Railroad laid tracks in 1890, linking this area with Savannah to the east and Montgomery, Alabama, to the west.

      The late 19th century marked a period of sustained growth for the area and for the railroad industry. Given the amount of lumber and naval stores, in addition to cotton and other farm products produced in the vicinity, the construction of the railroad was critically important. Claxton and the other towns of the county—Daisy, Hagan, and Bellville—developed as railroad depots.

      The neoclassical Evans County Courthouse, an architectural centerpiece for the area, was built in 1923. The county has several houses in the National Register of Historic Places as well as a number of fine antebellum structures that date to the period before Evans County was created.

      Claxton, the county seat, was named for Kate Claxton, who was a popular actress at the time of the town’s founding in 1890. The city is known as the Fruit Cake Capital of the World in honor of its production of the traditional holiday treat. The Georgia Fruit Cake Company and Claxton Bakery, Inc., ship this delicacy around the globe each year.

      Evans County is mainly an agricultural area, but timber production and poultry processing are among its other important industries. Much of the southeastern part of Evans County is occupied by Fort Stewart, which is a US Army post.

      Evans County claims home to a number of notable people. Dr. Curtis Hames Sr., an internationally recognized cardiologist who published one of the first studies on the protective value of HDL cholesterol, was born and practiced medicine in Claxton. Cartha Deke DeLoach joined the FBI and worked alongside J. Edgar Hoover as the number-two person in the bureau. Albert Parker, a civic leader and philanthropist, was the first mass marketer of the Claxton Fruit Cake.

      The development of the county, with its successes over the past 100 years, speaks favorably to its belief in small-town American values. In celebration of the Evans County 100th anniversary year in 2014, the Evans Centennial Committee offers this book as a tribute to the county’s residents and places. Members of the committee include Tammi Hall, Curtis Hames Jr., Pharris Johnson, Darin McCoy, Anne Sands, JoAn Strickland, Doris Tomblin, Louise Wilkerson, and Benny Wilkerson.

      The above map depicts Evans County in 1914, when the county was created from Tattnall and Bulloch Counties. The Adabelle section was returned to Bulloch County in 1916. Reasons cited for forming the new county included shorter distances to the county seat for court purposes, prestige for the town, more jobs, and additional attention to needs and services for the territory f the newly created county. Despite some concerns about increased tax burdens, most citizens of the new county were widely in favor of the county’s creation. (Courtesy of Pharris Johnson.)

      One

      HOW WE WORKED

      THE LAND

      AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY

      Pictured are E.W. Mosley (left) and his six-acre tobacco field at his farm on what is now Highway 301 North. The reverse of the photograph listed that he used 800 pounds of fertilizer and 200 pounds of cottonseed meal with this crop. Tobacco has been an important cash crop in the Evans area since the late 1920s. (Courtesy of the George Durrence Collection.)

      This early-1900s photograph from the Palatkee area near Daisy shows a Sands family portable sawmill operation. The expansion of tram roads and portable sawmills allowed access to more remote areas. Lumber became a huge commodity in Georgia in the 19th century. The state was the leading producer of lumber in the country in the 1860s and 1870s, and by 1890, Georgia sawmills were cutting more than 1.6 million board feet per day. In addition to a robust logging industry, Palatkee once had a brickyard, general store, and railroad depot. The name Palatkee dates back to Indian days and signifies a fording or crossing place. (Courtesy of David Sands.)

      Bid Sands operated this turpentine still on the old Sands place in Daisy. Bid is sitting on his horse in the center of the c. 1907 photograph, and his son Keller is on the horse directly to the left of him. The line of individuals standing in the rear left are, from left to right, ? Brown (son of Ida Bell Brown), Ida Bell Brown, Sallie Iler Sands (Bid’s first wife), Bessie May Sands (Bid’s sister), Dicy DeLoach Sands (Bid’s grandmother), and Abbie Elizabeth Moore Sands (Bid’s mother). Bob Blitch is sitting in the wagon. All other individuals in the photograph are unidentified. Stills were used to boil the rosin and distill it into liquid turpentine. The distillation process yielded other products known as naval stores, so called because in earlier times they were used as preservative and maintenance agents on wooden ships. (Courtesy of Jimmy Sands.)

      Almost every farmstead had a cane patch and grinder. The grinder mill was traditionally powered by a mule wearing blinders that walked in a circle at the end of a sweep, which directly

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