The city of Milledgeville is almost in the very middle of the state of Georgia. Every time we drive south to Florida, we see their exit signs. We’ve heard about the colleges in the city and the mental institution that we’ll learn about in the next post. We spent 3 days looking around this city and are so glad we got to know a little about it. Next time we come back, we’ll take a walking tour of the town and a trolley ride/tour of the city and to the Central State Hospital that’s shown in the next post.
The city’s town plan was inspired by Savannah, Ga., and Washington, D.C., with its 4 public squares of 20 acres each and streets laid out in checkerboard fashion. These 4 public squares were the Statehouse Square (with capitol building that became the military school), the Penitentiary Square (with the state prison located here from 1817-1868), and the Cemetery Square (planned for church use and cemeteries for legislators who died while legislature was in session). The 4th square was for the Governor’s home but became the land for the Georgia College & State University dorms and a convention/athletic complex. [Information taken from the town’s “Historic Walking Tour Guide”.)
First a look at downtown Milledgeville.
Memory Hill Cemetery
It later became known as Cemetery Square. Within the cemetery are many people associated with Milledgeville and Georgia’s history.
This lovely cemetery is also the final resting place of early Georgia governors, legislators, college presidents, enslaved people, and soldiers from the Revolutionary War to modern times. Among the veterans are 3 Buffalo Soldiers. (More about buffalo soldiers in one of our 2020 North Dakota posts.)
higher education in Milledgeville
Milledgeville is home to 3 college campuses: Central Georgia Technical School, Georgia College and State University, and Georgia Military College, which we’ll see in a future post.
town’s history
On the street next to this college/university were a couple of historical markers that gave us a glimpse of what was happening to this southern town during the Civil War.
On the morning of November 23, 1864, the main body of the 20th Corps of the Union Army reached Milledgeville. They marched to this point where companies were formed into line. With bands playing, the Corps marched by the Capitol Square (which we’ll see in a future post) and camped by the Oconee River.
Then in 1868, Governor Jenkins (Governor from 1863-1868) removed the Great Seal to thwart state fund payments that were required by the U.S. military authority to inaugurate Georgia’s carpetbag regime. With the return of home rule in 1872, the Great Seal was returned to the new capital in Atlanta. (Wondering why the capital was moved? We were given the possible reason while we were touring the military school. We’ll tell you about it in that post.)
The legislative minutes were hid in a pig pen 30 yards east of this point. Later they were returned to the Statehouse.
Georgia’s capitals over the years
Like most states that were part of the original 13, Georgia’s capitals have moved westward as circumstances changed and more people settled here:
- Savannah: The first capital of Georgia, it served as the seat of government during British colonial rule along the coast from 1776-1778. When the city fell to the British, the capital moved to Augusta.
- Augusta: This second capital of Georgia (1785-1795) was a little more inland. The capital next moved to Louisville because of its central location and road access to major cities.
- Louisville: The third capital of Georgia was here from 1796 to 1807. Louisville was also the first permanent capital of Georgia, and the first site where the state owned government buildings. It is southwest of Augusta and was a center of trade, legislators, and political influence since it was located at the intersection of roads leading to Augusta and Savannah.
- Milledgeville: The fourth capital of Georgia (1807-1868) was centrally located, and more and more farmers were moving west. Also, concerns about malaria in the Louisville area encouraged the move. This new capital was located at the head of navigation of the Oconee River, which was on the edge of the frontier.
- Atlanta: The capital of Georgia since 1868 after the Civil War.
Macon was also temporarily the capital of Georgia from 1864 to 1865. Macon City Hall served as the temporary state capitol in 1864 when Federal troops came to Milledgeville and was converted to a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers. The Union General William Tecumseh Sherman spared Macon on his march to the sea, while his troops sacked the nearby state capital of Milledgeville.
Milledgeville’s 3 college campuses
Founded in 1889 as the Georgia Normal & Industrial College, it began as a chartered two-year college emphasizing teacher training [Normal College] and business skills [Industrial College]. Now it’s Georgia’s designated public liberal arts university. (This information is from one of the city’s websites.)
Central Georgia Technical College is a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia and serves the needs of local counties as a two-year public commuter college. (Information taken from another page on the city’s website.)
Georgia Military College (GMC) is an accredited public-independent liberal arts college with 12 community college campuses throughout the state of Georgia, a Global Online College, and a main campus in Milledgeville that serves both residential cadets and non-cadet/non-residential commuter students and intercollegiate athletes. (website reference) We’ll see and learn more about this college in a future post.
Next we’ll look at the closed down state hospital with a sad history.
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