OHC NEWSLETTER

April May & June 2024
Waycross Sesquicentennial & Ware County Bicentennial
Remembering Dear Old Waresboro

Everyone comes from somewhere. We came from Waresboro.
Whether you hail from Manor, Bickley, Millwood, Telemore or even that place where the ways cross, Waresboro is your ancestral home.
Back when nary a car horn, train whistle, or airplane broke the piney silence from the Atlantic Ocean to Troupville, there was Waresboro, peopled by honest folk who came to make fresh beginnings on open land.
They came early, already here in 1824 when Ware County was carved out of Appling. And they set later generations a good example of hard work and vigilance, farming with a hoe in one hand and a musket in the other, always on the lookout for marauding Indians. Waresboro was located in a part of the Tallasee strip. This was Indian land, a vantage ground between the Indians and white settlers to the north, both sides contending for their rights. Later a penalty was meted out to the Indians for helping the British in the War of 1812 and the Indians were forced to relinquish their claims to the land and it was given to white settlers.
Many of these early settlers reached this area on a confluence of pioneer and Indian trails that ran through or near Waresboro. In an irony of history, it ap-pears that if Waycross was where the rails crossed, then Waresboro was where the coaches crossed, stagecoaches that is.
There was the early Barnard Trail, the old Columbus Road, then the Old Train Road, that passed from Thomas to Camden counties, passing through Ware at Waresboro, later to traverse the Waycross area on what we now know as Gilmore Street. The Kennard Trail was another, leading from Chattahoochee County in west Georgia through Ware to St. Mary’s. (continued)

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OHC Newsletter

Oct, Nov and Dec 2024 Happy 200th Birthday Ware Co! 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.

OHC Newsletter

July, August & Sept 2024
Waycross Sesquicentennial & Ware County Bicentennial
C.C. McCray City Auditorium

The Waycross City Auditorium was dedicated on May 9, 1937. More than 1,000 folks attended the dedication ceremonies, to inspect and “enjoy the beautiful new building which offers decidedly the largest auditorium in Southern Georgia,” reported the Waycross-Journal Herald.

OHC Newsletter

April May & June 2024
Waycross Sesquicentennial & Ware County Bicentennial
Remembering Dear Old Waresboro

Everyone comes from somewhere. We came from Waresboro.
Whether you hail from Manor, Bickley, Millwood, Telemore or even that place where the ways cross, Waresboro is your ancestral home.

OHC Newsletter

Jan, Feb & March 2024
Waycross Sesquicentennial & Ware County Bicentennial
When Waycross Was Tebeauville

Those who believe wiregrass history began with Waycross would do well to return to those days of yesteryear.
Older than all the rest of course is Waresboro, a farming community that, save for a desire not to have the railroads disturbing their livestock, might have become the center of South Georgia.

OHC Newsletter

October – November
& December 2023
DID YOU KNOW?
When The “Waycross Victory” Ruled The High Seas

Waycross and Ware County men and women did more than their share to aid the effort in World War II. A little-known chapter in that effort was the building of the “Waycross Liberty.” Many Ware Countians drove daily to Brunswick to work in the Brunswick Shipyards, but the city’s namesake wasn’t built in Brunswick, but in Baltimore.

OHC Newsletter

October – July, August & September 2023
In Memory of Susan Lott Clark
Susan Lott Clark, 98, passed away peacefully at her home on May 2, following a long and productive life. She was preceded in death over 20 years ago by her husband, Dr. S. William Clark, Jr., a prominent ophthalmologist in Waycross.