During the Second Seminole War (1835-42), the federal government forcibly removed Native Americans from the swamp in order to make way for white settlers. In 1891 the Suwanee Canal Company purchased 238,120 acres of the Okefenokee Swamp with the intentions of draining to land to establish cotton, sugar, and rice plantations. After that company’s failure, timber companies attempted to construct railroads, canals, and even drained portions of the swamp in order to ease the removal of precious cypress logs.

Georgia’s 1,253 miles of interstate highways perform several  functions vital to the state’s economy: connecting Georgia to the rest of the nation, linking the state’s major cities, and helping move suburban commuters to and from work centers. Part of the nationwide Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, Georgia’s interstate highways, along with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and the deepwater ports of Savannah and Brunswick, helped establish the state—especially its capital, Atlanta —as a vital transportation hub for the Southeast.

Irwin County, in central Georgia, is the state’s forty-first county, created in 1818 from land acquired from Creek Indians in 1814 by the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The county, one of seven created by the state legislature in 1818, once encompassed much more territory. Counties carved from it were Lowndes and Thomas (1825), Worth (1853), Coffee (1854), Berrien (1856), Wilcox (1857), Tift and Turner (1905), and Ben Hill (1906). It was named for Jared Irwin, a governor of Georgia most famous for rescinding the fraudulent Yazoo Act.

John Amos, a cofounder of the insurance company Aflac, made significant contributions in the business, political, and philanthropic arenas of Columbus. In addition to Aflac, Amos founded a television network, the American Family Broadcast Group, and was an active member of the Democratic party at both the local and national levels. Courtesy of Aflac The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.

Josiah Tattnall, militia leader and politician, served a one-year term as governor of Georgia in 1801-2 and helped to rescind the Yazoo land fraud of 1795. He was born at Bonaventure Plantation, near Savannah, around 1764 to Mary Mullryne and Josiah Tattnall. When Americans loyal to the British king fled Georgia in 1776, Tattnall and his brother accompanied their father and grandfather, John Mullryne, to the Bahamas and then to England, where they lived for six years.