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Lumpkin, Georgia
Stewart County Courthouse in Lumpkin, GA
Stewart County Courthouse in Lumpkin, GA
Location in Stewart County and the state of Georgia
Location in Stewart County and the state of Georgia
Country United States
State Georgia
County Stewart
Area
 • Total 1.60 sq mi (4.14 km2)
 • Land 1.58 sq mi (4.10 km2)
 • Water 0.02 sq mi (0.04 km2)
Elevation
600 ft (183 m)
Population
 (2020)
 • Total 891
 • Density 563.21/sq mi (217.50/km2)
Time zone UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
 • Summer (DST) UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP code
31815
Area code(s) 229
FIPS code 13-47980
GNIS feature ID 0317484

The city of Lumpkin is the county seat of Stewart County, Georgia, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 891.

History

This area of Georgia was inhabited by succeeding cultures of indigenous Native Americans for thousands of years before European contact. Historical tribes included the Cherokee, Choctaw and Creek, who encountered European Americans as their settlements moved into traditional territory. During the Indian removal of 1830, the United States government forced such tribes to move west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory, to extinguish their claims and make way for more European-American settlement.

Lumpkin was incorporated by European Americans on March 30, 1829. First named the county seat of Randolph County on December 2,1830, it became the seat of Stewart County when the latter was split from Randolph three weeks later. The city was named in honor of Wilson Lumpkin, a two-term governor of Georgia and legislator who supported Indian removal. His namesake county is at the northern end of the state.

The town grew as a commercial center served by stagecoach. Its merchants traded with the planters in the area. This was part of the Black Belt, named for the fertile land in the upland South that supported extensive cotton plantations in the 19th century. In the antebellum years, planters depended on the labor and skills of hundreds of thousands of enslaved African Americans to cultivate and process the cotton for market.

After the war, many freedmen stayed in the area as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, and the economy continued to depend on agriculture. With land erosion and depletion, cotton farming gave way to peanut and pine tree cultivation, and labor needs decreased. The population of the county dropped markedly from the Great Migration of blacks to industrial jobs in the North and Midwest in the early decades of the 20th century, but the town of Lumpkin remained relatively stable. The county is still quite rural.

Lumpkin was the first small town in Georgia to complete a successful historic preservation project to encourage what has become known as heritage tourism. It restored the Bedingfield Inn, built in 1836 and located on the central square. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the 1960s, a group of citizens created a living history complex known as Westville. They relocated 30 historic structures to create a grouping of western Georgia architecture as would have been found in an 1850s working village. Some of the buildings were purchased from the collection of John Word West established in 1928 in Jonesboro, Georgia. The village is staffed by volunteers to give the sense of daily life.

The private Stewart Detention Center houses federal detainees for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The facility is owned and run by Corrections Corporation of America. In 2011 Stewart ranked as the largest and busiest such facility in the United States. Stewart County's share of revenue from the federal government, 85 cents per inmate per day, amounted to more than half of the county's entire annual budget.

Geography

Lumpkin is located at 32°02′59″N 84°47′45″W / 32.049638°N 84.795859°W / 32.049638; -84.795859. U.S. Route 27 passes west of the city, leading north 37 miles (60 km) to Columbus and south 132 miles (212 km) to Tallahassee, Florida. Georgia State Route 27 also passes through the city, leading southwest 24 miles (39 km) to Georgetown on the Alabama state line and east nine miles (14 km) to Richland.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.6 square miles (4.1 km²), of which 1.6 square miles (4.1 km²) is land and 0.04 square mile (0.1 km²) (1.25%) is water.

Demographics

Historical population
Census Pop.
1860 765
1870 778 1.7%
1880 747 −4.0%
1900 1,470
1910 1,140 −22.4%
1920 934 −18.1%
1930 1,103 18.1%
1940 1,210 9.7%
1950 1,209 −0.1%
1960 1,348 11.5%
1970 1,431 6.2%
1980 1,335 −6.7%
1990 1,250 −6.4%
2000 1,369 9.5%
2010 2,741 100.2%
2020 891 −67.5%
U.S. Decennial Census
2010 2020

2020 census

Lumpkin city, Georgia – Demographic Profile
(NH = Non-Hispanic)
Race / Ethnicity Pop 2010 Pop 2020 % 2010 % 2020
White alone (NH) 396 246 14.45% 27.61%
Black or African American alone (NH) 893 599 32.58% 67.23%
Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH) 5 6 0.18% 0.67%
Asian alone (NH) 28 0 1.02% 0.00%
Pacific Islander alone (NH) 0 1 0.00% 0.11%
Some Other Race alone (NH) 9 3 0.33% 0.34%
Mixed Race/Multi-Racial (NH) 10 20 0.36% 2.24%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 1,400 16 51.08% 1.80%
Total 2,741 891 100.00% 100.00%

Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.

Education

Stewart County School District

The Stewart County School District holds pre-school to grade twelve, and consists of an elementary school, middle school, and high school. The district has 58 full-time teachers and over 704 students.

  • Stewart County Elementary School
  • Stewart County Middle School
  • Stewart County High School

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Lumpkin para niños

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