Charlton County, Georgia: History and Information

Charlton County, Georgia

Charlton County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Folkston
Year Organized: 1854
Square Miles: 781

Court House:

100 Third Street
County Courthouse
Folkston, GA 31537-3122

Etymology - Origin of County Name

named for Robert M. Charlton of Savannah, a US Senator and one of Georgia's foremost jurists.

Demographics:

History

Charlton County was created in 1854 from a portion of Camden County. Georgia's 110th county was named for Robert M. Charlton of Savannah, a US Senator and one of Georgia's foremost jurists.

Points of Interest

Charlton County contains a large part of the Stephen C. Foster State Park and the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness Area, which attract 350,000 visitors annually. The Okefenokee (Seminole for "Land of Quaking Earth") Swamp is roughly 20 by 40 miles in size and takes up one-third of the county's land. The impenetrable wilderness served as a sanctuary for the Seminoles and escaped slaves.

Folkston was for years the self-proclaimed "Marriage Capital of the World." Floridians who could not endure their state's waiting period before tying the knot would cross the state line to wed there.

Charlton-with over 98% of its area in woodlands-is the most timbered county in Georgia.

90 mile band between Clay County, Florida and Charlton County contains the richest titanium reserves in the nation. More than 12,000 acres adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge was purchased by DuPont to mine this titanium. After considerable resident protests that the refuge might be harmed by the mining, Dupont's mining plan was defeated.

Neighboring Counties:

Northeast: Brantley County; Camden County

Southeast: Nassau County, Fla.

Southwest: Baker County, Fla.

Northwest: Ware County

Cities and Towns:

- Folkston (County Seat)

city

Incorporated Area

- Homeland

city

Incorporated Area

County Resources:

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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