OHC NEWSLETTER
Oct, Nov and Dec 2024
Happy 200th Birthday Ware County!
History of Ware County, by Robert L. Hurst, 2004
Ware County was formed in extreme southeast Georgia when Appling County was divided by the state legislature on December 15, 1824. It was named for a man who never visited the area, Nicholas Ware, an active politician known for his flamboyant lifestyle. The lower portion of the county forms a major part of the Okefenokee Swamp. Waycross, the county seat, is about 100 miles northwest of Jacksonville, Florida.
One of Ware County’s borders is the Satilla River, which in the mid- to late 1800s became a busy locale for rafting yellow longleaf pine to sawmills on the coast. The Okefenokee Swamp offered cypress trees, and the famed Hebardville Cypress Mill, considered the largest such operation in the world at its peak period, also underscored this area as a timber cutter’s paradise. Unique here at the turn of the century was the narrow-gauge railroad that snaked its way from Ware County’s Hebardville to Billys Island in the Okefenokee, transporting cut cypress to the mill.
Ware County was known as a place where trails and roads met, the reason for Waycross’s name. The Indian paths along which many early roads were cut headed toward Trader’s Hill, Coleraine, and Camp Pinckney on the St. Marys River, or to Burnt Fort on the Satilla. Later, the stagecoach would find one of its major relay stations at Peter Bedford’s Tavern in the county seat of Waresboro.
(continued)
Find out more in our Newsletter, click the link below: