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Towns County, Georgia

Towns County is a county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,493. Its county seat is Hiawassee. The county was created on March 6, 1856, and named for lawyer, legislator, and politician George W. Towns.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 172 sqmi, of which 167 sqmi is land and 5.4 sqmi (3.2%) is water. Towns is mostly in the Hiwassee River sub-basin of the Middle Tennessee-Hiwassee basin, with a part of the county in the Tugaloo River sub-basin in the larger Savannah River basin, as well as a small portion of the county's southwestern corner in the Chattahoochee River sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin), near the source of the Chattahoochee in neighboring Union County. Towns County is inside the Bible Belt.

Towns County is located amidst the Blue Ridge Mountains, (part of the Appalachian Mountains), some of which are protected by the Chattahoochee National Forest. Brasstown Bald, the highest mountain in Georgia, rises in southwest Towns County, straddling the Union County line. The source of the Hiwassee River is located in eastern Towns County, from which it flows northward into North Carolina. Chatuge Lake, an artificial reservoir created by the completion of Chatuge Dam by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1940s, dominates the northeastern section of Towns County and extends into North Carolina. State Route 515 from north of Atlanta ends here at the North Carolina state line near Young Harris.

The county was traversed by a road built upon a traditional Cherokee trading path, which ran north to south through the county, passing through Unicoi Gap. It served as a line between European-American settlers and the Cherokee until after the Indian cessions and Indian Removal in the 1830s, when it fell solely into the hands of the whites. When the Cherokee were expelled by US forces from their villages, they were forced temporarily into "removal forts." One had been constructed in what is now Hiawassee, the county seat. They were forced to travel what is known as the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River, a journey during which many Cherokee died.

Major highways

 * US 76.svg U.S. Route 76
 * Georgia 2.svg State Route 2
 * Georgia 17.svg State Route 17
 * Georgia 66.svg State Route 66
 * Georgia 75.svg State Route 75
 * Georgia 180.svg State Route 180
 * Georgia 288.svg State Route 288
 * Georgia 339.svg State Route 339
 * Georgia 515.svg State Route 515

Adjacent counties

 * Clay County, North Carolina (north)
 * Rabun County (east)
 * Habersham County (southeast)
 * White County (south)
 * Union County (west)

National protected area

 * Appalachian Trail (part)
 * Chattahoochee National Forest (part)

2000 census
As of the census of 2000, there were 9,319 people, 3,998 households, and 2,826 families living in the county. The population density was 56 /mi2. There were 6,282 housing units at an average density of 38 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 98.80% White, 0.13% Black or African American, 0.17% Native American, 0.31% Asian, 0.18% from other races, and 0.41% from two or more races. 0.72% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 3,998 households, out of which 20.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.90% were married couples living together, 6.30% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.30% were non-families. 26.00% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.10% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.61.

In the county, the population was spread out, with 16.30% under the age of 18, 9.10% from 18 to 24, 20.50% from 25 to 44, 28.30% from 45 to 64, and 25.90% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 49 years. For every 100 females there were 89.90 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.80 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $31,950, and the median income for a family was $37,295. Males had a median income of $28,657 versus $21,813 for females. The per capita income for the county was $18,221. About 8.80% of families and 11.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.60% of those under age 18 and 10.40% of those age 65 or over.

2010 census
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 10,471 people, 4,510 households, and 2,981 families living in the county. The population density was 62.9 PD/sqmi. There were 7,731 housing units at an average density of 46.4 /mi2. The racial makeup of the county was 97.7% white, 0.4% black or African American, 0.4% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, 0.6% from other races, and 0.6% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 2.0% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 16.3% were Irish, 15.4% were German, 13.8% were English, 11.7% were American, and 8.3% were Scotch-Irish.

Of the 4,510 households, 20.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.0% were married couples living together, 7.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 33.9% were non-families, and 30.1% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.17 and the average family size was 2.65. The median age was 51.1 years.

The median income for a household in the county was $39,540 and the median income for a family was $48,020. Males had a median income of $31,668 versus $27,127 for females. The per capita income for the county was $21,527. About 5.6% of families and 9.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.2% of those under age 18 and 7.7% of those age 65 or over.

2016
As of 2016 the largest self-reported ancestry groups in Towns County were:
 * English - 15.2%
 * German - 15.1%
 * American - 14.7%
 * Irish - 13.3%
 * Scottish - 5.2%
 * Scots-Irish - 3.6%
 * Italian - 3.4%
 * French - 3.4%
 * Swedish - 1.8%
 * Polish - 1.7%
 * Welsh - 1.6%
 * Dutch - 1.6%

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 12,493 people, 4,898 households, and 3,240 families residing in the county.

Government
Towns County's Sole Commissioner is Cliff Bradshaw, who has served since 2017.

, Towns County's Sheriff is Kenneth Henderson.

Towns County's Judge of Magistrate and Probate Court is D. David Rogers, who was elected in 2008. The Towns County Probate and Magistrate Courts are combined with a single judge presiding over both Courts. This combination court is one of very few in the State of Georgia (Long County is another example).

Towns County School District
Towns County School District offers pre-school to grade twelve on a unified campus. One elementary school, middle school and high school share the same grounds east of Hiawassee. The district has over 2,408 students and 144 full-time teachers.

 * Towns County Elementary School
 * Towns County Middle School
 * Towns County High School

Young Harris College
Higher education is offered at Young Harris College in Young Harris. The private Methodist-affiliated liberal arts college was founded in 1886 and served 1,425 undergraduate students as of 2020. It offers degrees in more than 30 majors and 22 minors.

Media
The Towns County Herald newspaper has been published weekly in Hiawassee since 1928. It was preceded by The Young Harris News which was first published around 1900.

Cities

 * Hiawassee
 * Young Harris

Census-designated place

 * Tate City

Notable natives

 * Zell Miller – former Georgia governor and U.S. senator.

title: Towns County, Georgia


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Audio crossover

Audio crossovers are a type of electronic filter circuitry that splits an audio signal into two or more frequency ranges, so that the signals can be sent to loudspeaker drivers that are designed to operate within different frequency ranges. The crossover filters can be either active or passive. They are often described as two-way or three-way, which indicate, respectively, that the crossover splits a given signal into two frequency ranges or three frequency ranges. Crossovers are used in loudspeaker cabinets, power amplifiers in consumer electronics (hi-fi, home cinema sound and car audio) and pro audio and musical instrument amplifier products. For the latter two markets, crossovers are used in bass amplifiers, keyboard amplifiers, bass and keyboard speaker enclosures and sound reinforcement system equipment (PA speakers, monitor speakers, subwoofer systems, etc.).

Crossovers are used because most individual loudspeaker drivers are incapable of covering the entire audio spectrum from low frequencies to high frequencies with acceptable relative volume and absence of distortion. Most hi-fi speaker systems and sound reinforcement system speaker cabinets use a combination of multiple loudspeaker drivers, each catering to a different frequency band. A standard simple example is in hi-fi and PA system cabinets that contain a woofer for low and mid frequencies and a tweeter for high frequencies. Since a sound signal source, be it recorded music from a CD player or a live band's mix from an audio console, has all of the low, mid and high frequencies combined, a crossover circuit is used to split the audio signal into separate frequency bands that can be separately routed to loudspeakers, tweeters or horns optimized for those frequency bands.

Passive crossovers are probably the most common type of audio crossover. They use a network of passive electrical components (e.g., capacitors, inductors and resistors) to split up an amplified signal coming from one power amplifier so that it can be sent to two or more loudspeaker drivers (e.g., a woofer and a very low frequency subwoofer, or a woofer and a tweeter, or a woofer-midrange-tweeter combination).

Active crossovers are distinguished from passive crossovers in that they split up an audio signal prior to the power amplification stage so that it can be sent to two or more power amplifiers, each of which is connected to a separate loudspeaker driver. Home cinema 5.1 surround sound audio systems use a crossover that separates out the very-low frequency signal, so that it can be sent to a subwoofer, and then sending the remaining low-, mid- and high-range frequencies to five speakers which are placed around the listener. In a typical application, the signals sent to the surround speaker cabinets are further split up using a passive crossover into a low/mid-range woofer and a high-range tweeter. Active crossovers come in both digital and analog varieties.

Digital active crossovers often include additional signal processing, such as limiting, delay, and equalization. Signal crossovers allow the audio signal to be split into bands that are processed separately before they are mixed together again. Some examples are multiband compression, limiting, de-essing, multiband distortion, bass enhancement, high frequency exciters, and noise reduction such as Dolby A noise reduction.

Overview

The definition of an ideal audio crossover changes relative to the task and audio application at hand. If the separate bands are to be mixed back together again (as in multiband processing), then the ideal audio crossover would split the incoming audio signal into separate bands that do not overlap or interact and which result in an output signal unchanged in frequency, relative levels, and phase response. This ideal performance can only be approximated. How to implement the best approximation is a matter of lively debate. On the other hand, if the audio crossover separates the audio bands in a loudspeaker, there is no requirement for mathematically ideal characteristics within the crossover itself, as the frequency and phase response of the loudspeaker drivers within their mountings will eclipse the results. Satisfactory output of the complete system comprising the audio crossover and the loudspeaker drivers in their enclosure(s) is the design goal. Such a goal is often achieved using non-ideal, asymmetric crossover filter characteristics.

Many different crossover types are used in audio, but they generally belong to one of the following classes.

Classification based on the number of filter sections
Loudspeakers are often classified as "N-way", where N is the number of drivers in the system. For instance, a loudspeaker with a woofer and a tweeter is a 2-way loudspeaker system. An N-way loudspeaker usually has an N-way crossover to divide the signal among the drivers. A 2-way crossover consists of a low-pass and a high-pass filter. A 3-way crossover is constructed as a combination of low-pass, band-pass and high-pass filters (LPF, BPF and HPF respectively). The BPF section is in turn a combination of HPF and LPF sections. 4 (or more) way crossovers are not very common in speaker design, primarily due to the complexity involved, which is not generally justified by better acoustic performance.

An extra HPF section may be present in an "N-way" loudspeaker crossover to protect the lowest-frequency driver from frequencies lower than it can safely handle. Such a crossover would then have a bandpass filter for the lowest-frequency driver. Similarly, the highest-frequency driver may have a protective LPF section to prevent high-frequency damage, though this is far less common.

Recently, a number of manufacturers have begun using what is often called "N.5-way" crossover techniques for stereo loudspeaker crossovers. This usually indicates the addition of a second woofer that plays the same bass range as the main woofer but rolls off far before the main woofer does.

Remark: Filter sections mentioned here is not to be confused with the individual 2-pole filter sections that a higher-order filter consists of.

Classification based on components
Crossovers can also be classified based on the type of components used.

Passive

A passive crossover splits up an audio signal after it is amplified by a single power amplifier, so that the amplified signal can be sent to two or more driver types, each of which cover different frequency ranges. These crossover are made entirely of passive components and circuitry; the term "passive" means that no additional power source is needed for the circuitry. A passive crossover just needs to be connected by wiring to the power amplifier signal. Passive crossovers are usually arranged in a Cauer topology to achieve a Butterworth filter effect. Passive filters use resistors combined with reactive components such as capacitors and inductors. Very high-performance passive crossovers are likely to be more expensive than active crossovers since individual components capable of good performance at the high currents and voltages at which speaker systems are driven are hard to make.

Inexpensive consumer electronics products, such as budget-priced Home theater in a box packages and low-cost boom boxes, use lower quality passive crossovers, often utilizing lower-order filter networks with fewer components. Expensive hi-fi speaker systems and receivers use higher quality passive crossovers, to obtain improved sound quality and lower distortion. The same price/quality approach is used with sound reinforcement system equipment and musical instrument amplifiers and speaker cabinets; a low-priced stage monitor, PA speaker or bass amplifier speaker cabinet will typically use lower quality, lower priced passive crossovers, whereas high-priced, high-quality cabinets will use better quality crossovers. Passive crossovers may use capacitors made from polypropylene, metalized polyester foil, paper and electrolytic capacitors technology. Inductors may have air cores, powdered metal cores, ferrite cores, or laminated silicon steel cores, and most are wound with enameled copper wire.

Some passive networks include devices such as fuses, PTC devices, bulbs or circuit breakers to protect the loudspeaker drivers from accidental overpowering (e.g., from sudden surges or spikes). Modern passive crossovers increasingly incorporate equalization networks (e.g., Zobel networks) that compensate for the changes in impedance with frequency inherent in virtually all loudspeakers. The issue is complex, as part of the change in impedance is due to acoustic loading changes across a driver's passband.

Two disadvantages of passive networks are that they may be bulky and cause power loss. They are not only frequency specific, but also impedance specific (i.e. their response varies with the electrical load that they are connected to). This prevents their interchangeability with speaker systems of different impedances. Ideal crossover filters, including impedance compensation and equalization networks, can be very difficult to design, as the components interact in complex ways. Crossover design expert Siegfried Linkwitz said of them that "the only excuse for passive crossovers is their low cost. Their behavior changes with the signal level-dependent dynamics of the drivers. They block the power amplifier from taking maximum control over the voice coil motion. They are a waste of time, if accuracy of reproduction is the goal." Alternatively, passive components can be utilized to construct filter circuits before the amplifier. This implementation is called a passive line-level crossover.

Active

An active crossover contains active components in its filters, such as transistors and operational amplifiers. In recent years, the most commonly used active device is an operational amplifier. In contrast to passive crossovers, which operate after the power amplifier's output at high current and in some cases high voltage, active crossovers are operated at levels that are suited to power amplifier inputs. On the other hand, all circuits with gain introduce noise, and such noise has a deleterious effect when introduced prior to the signal being amplified by the power amplifiers.

Active crossovers always require the use of power amplifiers for each output band. Thus a 2-way active crossover needs two amplifiers—one for the woofer and one for the tweeter. This means that a loudspeaker system that is based on active crossovers will often cost more than a passive-crossover-based system. Despite the cost and complication disadvantages, active crossovers provide the following advantages over passive ones:

 * a frequency response independent of the dynamic changes in a driver's electrical characteristics (e.g. from heating of the voice coil)
 * typically, the possibility of an easy way to vary or fine-tune each frequency band to the specific drivers used. Examples would be crossover slope, filter type (e.g., Bessel, Butterworth, Linkwitz-Riley, etc.), relative levels, etc.
 * better isolation of each driver from the signals being handled by other drivers, thus reducing intermodulation distortion and overdriving
 * the power amplifiers are directly connected to the speaker drivers, thereby maximizing amplifier damping control of the speaker voice coil, reducing consequences of dynamic changes in driver electrical characteristics, all of which are likely to improve the transient response of the system
 * reduction in power amplifier output requirement. With no energy being lost in passive components, amplifier requirements are reduced considerably (up to 1/2 in some cases), reducing costs, and potentially increasing quality.

Digital
Active crossovers can be implemented digitally using a digital signal processor or other microprocessor. They either use digital approximations to traditional analog circuits, known as IIR filters (Bessel, Butterworth, Linkwitz-Riley etc.), or they use Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters. IIR filters have many similarities with analog filters and are relatively undemanding of CPU resources; FIR filters on the other hand usually have a higher order and therefore require more resources for similar characteristics. They can be designed and built so that they have a linear phase response, which is thought desirable by many involved in sound reproduction. There are drawbacks though—in order to achieve linear phase response, a longer delay time is incurred than would be necessary with an IIR or minimum phase FIR filters. IIR filters, which are by nature recursive, have the drawback that, if not carefully designed, they may enter limit cycles, resulting in non-linear distortion.

Mechanical
This crossover type is mechanical and uses the properties of the materials in a driver diaphragm to achieve the necessary filtering. Such crossovers are commonly found in full-range speakers which are designed to cover as much of the audio band as possible. One such is constructed by coupling the cone of the speaker to the voice coil bobbin through a compliant section and directly attaching a small lightweight whizzer cone to the bobbin. This compliant section serves as a compliant filter, so the main cone is not vibrated at higher frequencies. The whizzer cone responds to all frequencies, but due to its smaller size, it only gives a useful output at higher frequencies, thereby implementing a mechanical crossover function. Careful selection of materials used for the cone, whizzer and suspension elements determines the crossover frequency and the effectiveness of the crossover. Such mechanical crossovers are complex to design, especially if high fidelity is desired. Computer-aided design has largely replaced the laborious trial and error approach that was historically used. Over several years, the compliance of the materials may change, negatively affecting the frequency response of the speaker.

A more common approach is to employ the dust cap as a high-frequency radiator. The dust cap radiates low frequencies, moving as part of the main assembly, but due to low mass and reduced damping, radiates increased energy at higher frequencies. As with whizzer cones, careful selection of material, shape and position are required to provide smooth, extended output. High frequency dispersion is somewhat different for this approach than for whizzer cones. A related approach is to shape the main cone with such profile, and of such materials, that the neck area remains more rigid, radiating all frequencies, while the outer areas of the cone are selectively decoupled, radiating only at lower frequencies. Cone profiles and materials can be modeled using finite element analysis software and the results are predicted to excellent tolerances.

Speakers which use these mechanical crossovers have some advantages in sound quality despite the difficulties of designing and manufacturing them and despite the inevitable output limitations. Full-range drivers have a single acoustic center and can have relatively modest phase change across the audio spectrum. For best performance at low frequencies, these drivers require careful enclosure design. Their small size (typically 165 to 200 mm) requires considerable cone excursion to reproduce bass effectively. However, the short voice coils, which are necessary for reasonable high-frequency performance, can only move over a limited range. Nevertheless, within these constraints, cost and complications are reduced, as no crossovers are required.

Classification based on filter order or slope
Just as filters have different orders, so do crossovers, depending on the filter slope they implement. The final acoustic slope may be completely determined by the electrical filter or may be achieved by combining the electrical filter's slope with the natural characteristics of the driver. In the former case, the only requirement is that each driver has a flat response at least to the point where its signal is approximately −10dB down from the passband. In the latter case, the final acoustic slope is usually steeper than that of the electrical filters used. A third- or fourth-order acoustic crossover often has just a second-order electrical filter. This requires that speaker drivers be well behaved a considerable way from the nominal crossover frequency, and further that the high-frequency driver be able to survive a considerable input in a frequency range below its crossover point. This is difficult to achieve in actual practice. In the discussion below, the characteristics of the electrical filter order are discussed, followed by a discussion of crossovers having that acoustic slope and their advantages or disadvantages.

Most audio crossovers use first- to fourth-order electrical filters. Higher orders are not generally implemented in passive crossovers for loudspeakers but are sometimes found in electronic equipment under circumstances for which their considerable cost and complexity can be justified.

First order
First-order filters have a 20 dB/decade (or 6 dB/octave) slope. All first-order filters have a Butterworth filter characteristic. First-order filters are considered by many audiophiles to be ideal for crossovers. This is because this filter type is 'transient perfect', meaning that the sum of the low-pass and high-pass outputs passes both amplitude and phase unchanged across the range of interest. It also uses the fewest parts and has the lowest insertion loss (if passive). A first-order crossover allows more signal content consisting of unwanted frequencies to get through in the LPF and HPF sections than do higher-order configurations. While woofers can easily handle this (aside from generating distortion at frequencies above those that they can properly reproduce), smaller high-frequency drivers (especially tweeters) are more likely to be damaged, since they are not capable of handling large power inputs at frequencies below their rated crossover point.

In practice, speaker systems with true first-order acoustic slopes are difficult to design because they require large overlapping driver bandwidth, and the shallow slopes mean that non-coincident drivers interfere over a wide frequency range and cause large response shifts off-axis.

Second order
Second-order filters have a 40 dB/decade (or 12 dB/octave) slope. Second-order filters can have a Bessel, Linkwitz-Riley or Butterworth characteristic depending on design choices and the components that are used. This order is commonly used in passive crossovers as it offers a reasonable balance between complexity, response, and higher-frequency driver protection. When designed with time-aligned physical placement, these crossovers have a symmetrical polar response, as do all even-order crossovers.

It is commonly thought that there will always be a phase difference of 180° between the outputs of a (second-order) low-pass filter and a high-pass filter having the same crossover frequency. And so, in a 2-way system, the high-pass section's output is usually connected to the high-frequency driver 'inverted', to correct for this phase problem. For passive systems, the tweeter is wired with opposite polarity to the woofer; for active crossovers the high-pass filter's output is inverted. In 3-way systems the mid-range driver or filter is inverted. However, this is generally only true when the speakers have a wide response overlap and the acoustic centers are physically aligned.

Third order
Third-order filters have a 60 dB/decade (or 18 dB/octave) slope. These crossovers usually have Butterworth filter characteristics; phase response is very good, the level sum being flat and in phase quadrature, similar to a first-order crossover. The polar response is asymmetric. In the original D'Appolito MTM arrangement, a symmetrical arrangement of drivers is used to create a symmetrical off-axis response when using third-order crossovers. Third-order acoustic crossovers are often built from first- or second-order filter circuits.

Fourth order

Fourth-order filters have an 80 dB/decade (or 24 dB/octave) slope. These filters are relatively complex to design in passive form, because the components interact with each other, but modern computer-aided crossover optimisation design software can produce accurate designs. Steep-slope passive networks are less tolerant of parts value deviations or tolerances, and more sensitive to mis-termination with reactive driver loads (although this is also a problem with lower-order crossovers). A 4th-order crossover with −6 dB crossover point and flat summing is also known as a Linkwitz-Riley crossover (named after its inventors ), and can be constructed in active form by cascading two 2nd-order Butterworth filter sections. The low-frequency and high-frequency output signals of the Linkwitz–Riley crossover type are in phase, thus avoiding partial phase inversion if the crossover band-passes are electrically summed, as they would be within the output stage of a multiband compressor. Crossovers used in loudspeaker design do not require the filter sections to be in phase; smooth output characteristics are often achieved using non-ideal, asymmetric crossover filter characteristics. Bessel, Butterworth, and Chebyshev are among the possible crossover topologies.

Such steep-slope filters have greater problems with overshoot and ringing but there are several key advantages, even in their passive form, such as the potential for a lower crossover point and increased power handling for tweeters, together with less overlap between drivers, dramatically reducing the shifting of the main lobe of a multi-way loudspeaker system's radiation pattern with frequency, or other unwelcome off-axis effects. With less frequency overlap between adjacent drivers, their geometric location relative to each other becomes less critical and allows more latitude in speaker system cosmetics or (in-car audio) practical installation constraints.

Higher order
Passive crossovers giving acoustic slopes higher than fourth-order are not common because of cost and complexity. Filters with slopes of up to 96 dB per octave are available in active crossovers and loudspeaker management systems.

Mixed order
Crossovers can also be constructed with mixed-order filters. For example, a second-order low-pass filter can be combined with a third-order high-pass filter. These are generally passive and are used for several reasons, often when the component values are found by computer program optimization. A higher-order tweeter crossover can sometimes help to compensate for the time offset between the woofer and tweeter, caused by non-aligned acoustic centers.

Parallel
Parallel crossovers are by far the most common. Electrically the filters are in parallel and thus the various filter sections do not interact. This makes two-way crossovers easier to design because, in terms of electrical impedance, the sections can be considered separate and because component tolerance variations will be isolated but like all crossovers, the final design relies on the output of the drivers to be complementary acoustically and this, in turn, requires careful matching in amplitude and phase of the underlying crossover. Parallel crossovers also have the advantage of allowing the speaker drivers to be bi-wired, a feature whose benefits are hotly disputed.

Series
In this topology, the individual filters are connected in series, and a driver or driver combination is connected in parallel with each filter. To understand the signal path in this type of crossover, refer to the "Series Crossover" figure, and consider a high-frequency signal that, during a certain moment, has a positive voltage on the upper Input terminal compared to the lower Input terminal. The low-pass filter presents a high impedance to the signal, and the tweeter presents a low impedance; so the signal passes through the tweeter. The signal continues to the connection point between the woofer and the high-pass filter. There, the HPF presents a low impedance to the signal, so the signal passes through the HPF, and appears at the lower Input terminal. A low-frequency signal with a similar instantaneous voltage characteristic first passes through the LPF, then the woofer, and appears at the lower Input terminal.

Derived
Derived crossovers include active crossovers in which one of the crossover responses is derived from the other through the use of a differential amplifier. For example, the difference between the input signal and the output of the high-pass section is a low-pass response. Thus, when a differential amplifier is used to extract this difference, its output constitutes the low-pass filter section. The main advantage of derived filters is that they produce no phase difference between the high-pass and low-pass sections at any frequency. The disadvantages are either:
 * 1) that the high-pass and low-pass sections often have different levels of attenuation in their stopbands, i.e., their slopes are asymmetrical, or
 * 2) that the response of one or both sections peaks near the crossover frequency,  or both.

In the case of (1), above, the usual situation is that the derived low-pass response attenuates at a much slower rate than the fixed response. This requires the speaker to which it is directed to continue to respond to signals deep into the stopband where its physical characteristics may not be ideal. In the case of (2), above, both speakers are required to operate at higher volume levels as the signal nears the crossover points. This uses more amplifier power and may drive the speaker cones into nonlinearity.

Models and simulation
Professionals and hobbyists have access to a range of computer tools that were not available before. These computer-based measurement and simulation tools allow for the modeling and virtual design of various parts of a speaker system which greatly accelerate the design process and improve the quality of a speaker. These tools range from commercial to free offerings. Their scope also varies. Some may focus on woofer/cabinet design and issues related to cabinet volume and ports (if any), while others may focus on the crossover and frequency response. Some tools, for instance, only simulate the baffle step response.

In the period before computer modeling made it affordable and quick to simulate the combined effects of drivers, crossovers and cabinets, a number of issues could go unnoticed by the speaker designer. For instance, simplistic three-way crossovers were designed as a pair of two-way crossovers: the tweeter/mid-range and the other the mid-range/woofer sections. This could create excess gain and a 'haystack' response in the mid-range output, together with a lower than anticipated input impedance. Other issues such as improper phase matching or incomplete modeling of the driver impedance curves could also go unnoticed. These problems were not impossible to solve but required more iterations, time and effort than they do today.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Audio crossover


text:
Toombs County, Georgia

Toombs County is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,030. The county seat is Lyons and the largest city is Vidalia. The county was created on August 18, 1905.

Toombs County is part of the Vidalia micropolitan statistical area.

History
Toombs County was founded as the 144th county in Georgia by the State Legislature on August 18, 1905, and organized on October 9 of that year. The county was originally formed from portions of Tattnall and Montgomery Counties; a small piece of Emanuel County was added in 1907 to give Toombs County its present-day boundaries.

The county is named for Robert Toombs, United States representative and senator. During the Civil War, Toombs also served in the Confederate Provisional Congress, as Secretary of State of the Confederate States, and a brigadier general in the Confederate Army.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 371 sqmi, of which 364 sqmi is land and 7.0 sqmi (1.9%) is water.

The southern half of Toombs County, from south of Vidalia southeast to State Route 147, is located in the Altamaha River sub-basin of the larger river basin by the same name. The northern half of the county, centered on Lyons, is located in the Ohoopee River sub-basin of the Altamaha River basin.

Major highways

 * US 1.svg U.S. Route 1
 * US 280.svg U.S. Route 280
 * Georgia 4.svg State Route 4
 * Georgia 15.svg State Route 15
 * Georgia 29.svg State Route 29
 * Georgia 30.svg State Route 30
 * Georgia 56.svg State Route 56
 * Georgia 86.svg State Route 86
 * Georgia 130.svg State Route 130
 * Georgia 147.svg State Route 147
 * Georgia 152.svg State Route 152
 * Georgia 178.svg State Route 178
 * Georgia 292.svg State Route 292
 * Georgia 297.svg State Route 297
 * Georgia 298.svg State Route 298

Adjacent counties

 * Emanuel County (north)
 * Tattnall County (east)
 * Appling County (south)
 * Jeff Davis County (southwest)
 * Montgomery County (west)
 * Treutlen County (northwest)
 * Candler County (northeast)

Cities

 * Lyons
 * Santa Claus
 * Vidalia

Census-designated place

 * Ohoopee

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 27,030 people, 10,030 households, and 6,537 families residing in the county.

Government
Toombs County is governed by a five-member Board of Commissioners, headed by David Sikes, the chairman. It is also governed by Alvie Kight Jr., who has been Sheriff since 1997.

Notable people

 * Mel Blount (football hall of famer and founder of Mel Blount Youth Home)
 * Nick Eason (former NFL player and current NFL assistant defensive line coach)
 * Craig Campbell (country music singer)
 * Fred Stokes (former pro football player)
 * Travares Tillman (professional football player)
 * Don Collins (former professional baseball player)
 * Paul Claxton (PGA tour professional golfer)
 * Wally Moses (former professional baseball player)
 * Algur H. Meadows (oilman, businessman)
 * Iris Blitch (politician)
 * Carl Simpson (former professional baseball player)
 * Don Harris (journalist killed during Jonestown Massacre)
 * Ben Utt (professional football player)
 * Paul Anderson (strongest man)

title: Toombs County, Georgia


text:
Tift County, Georgia

Tift County is a county located in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 41,344. The county seat is Tifton.

Tift County comprises the Tifton, Georgia micropolitan statistical area.

History
The county was created on August 17, 1905, and is named for Henry Harding Tift, who founded Tifton in 1872. Tift purchased about 65,000 acres of virgin pine timberland there in the Wiregrass Region of South Georgia, and established a sawmill and a village for his workers. Tift eventually expanded into turpentine and barrel-making operations, and turned his barren timberlands into farms for cotton, corn, livestock, fruit, tobacco, pecans and sweet potatoes. When the Georgia Southern and Florida Railway intersected the Brunswick and Western Railroad near Tift's mill in 1888, the settlement was connected to Atlanta and became a boom town. It was incorporated as Tifton by the Georgia Legislature in 1890.

Tift provided employment and financial growth opportunities for his flourishing market center by founding the Tifton Cotton Mill, the Bank of Tifton, and other types of businesses in which he had a leading interest. These included fruit growing, groceries and general merchandise, cottonseed oil, lumber, brick and stone, and several railroads, all essential for the development of a region. Tift also established a model farm north of town and donated a large parcel of acreage for an agricultural experiment station; these enterprises led eventually to the development of Abraham Baldwin College and the Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton.

Tift's civic commitment was most evident in his donation of lands for churches (Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopal) and Fulwood Park, and in his decades of service as a city councilman and mayor. Through a variety of business and civic undertakings, Tift contributed significantly to the economic and social development of south central Georgia. Though a captain of industry, agriculture, and finance, he is best remembered for his civic service and generosity.

Tift County was created on August 17, 1905, by an act of the General Assembly. Because Georgia law in 1905 did not allow a new county to be named after a living person, the legislature voted to name Tift County after Nelson Tift of Albany, Georgia, who was an uncle of Henry Harding Tift.

In 2013, John Edward (Edd) Dorminey a native of Tifton, author and historian drafted resolutions and presented them to the Tifton and Tift County Commissions which were passed unanimously. Soon after with assistance from Representative Jay Roberts the Georgia House of Representatives and the Senate voted to approve the submitted resolution establishing the naming of Tift County after its rightful founder, Henry Harding Tift.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 269 sqmi, of which 259 sqmi is land and 9.9 sqmi (3.7%) is water.

The western portion of Tift County, roughly west of Interstate 75, is located in the Little River sub-basin of the Suwannee River basin. The county's southeastern third, from north of Tifton heading southeast, is located in the Withlacoochee River sub-basin of the same Suwannee River basin. The northeastern portion of the Tift County, east of Chula, is located in the Alapaha River sub-basin of the same larger Suwannee River basin.

Major highways

 * I-75.svg Interstate 75
 * US 41.svg U.S. Route 41
 * US 82.svg U.S. Route 82
 * US 319.svg U.S. Route 319
 * Georgia 7.svg State Route 7
 * Georgia 35.svg State Route 35
 * Georgia 125.svg State Route 125
 * Georgia 401.svg State Route 401 (unsigned designation for I-75)
 * Georgia 520.svg State Route 520

Adjacent counties

 * Irwin County (northeast)
 * Berrien County (southeast)
 * Cook County (south)
 * Colquitt County (southwest)
 * Worth County (west)
 * Turner County (northwest)

Cities

 * Omega
 * Tifton
 * Ty Ty

Census-designated places

 * Phillipsburg
 * Unionville

Unincorporated communities

 * Brookfield
 * Chula

Demographics
At the 2020 United States census, there were 41,344 people, 15,144 households, and 10,703 families residing in the county.

Education
Tift County School District operates public schools.

title: Tift County, Georgia


text:
Thomas County, Georgia

Thomas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census the population was 45,798. The county seat is Thomasville. Thomas County comprises the Thomasville, GA micropolitan statistical area.

History
Thomas County was created by an act of the Georgia General Assembly on December 23, 1825, from portions of Decatur and Irwin Counties. Colquitt (1856), Brooks (1858), and Grady (1905) Counties all were formed partially from lands within Thomas County's original borders.

The county is named for Jett Thomas, an officer in the War of 1812 who is also known for overseeing the construction of the first building at the University of Georgia (originally referred to as Franklin College and known today as Old College) as well as the state capital at Milledgeville.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 552 sqmi, of which 545 sqmi is land and 7.6 sqmi (1.4%) is water.

The northwestern half of Thomas County, bordered by U.S. Route 319 southwest of Thomasville, and a line that ends up bisecting the distance between Coolidge and Pavo in the northeast, is located in the Upper Ochlockonee River sub-basin of the larger Ochlockonee River basin. The northeastern edge of the county, from north of Pavo to Boston, is located in the Withlacoochee River sub-basin of the Suwannee River basin. The southeastern portion of Thomas County, running southeast from Thomasville, is located in the Aucilla River sub-basin of the larger Aucilla-Waccasassa basin. Almost all of the southwestern portion of the county is located in the Apalachee Bay-St. Marks sub-basin of the Ochlockonee River basin, with the exception of the tiny southwesternmost corner, which is located in the Lower Ochlockonee River sub-basin of the same Ochlockonee River basin.

The Aucilla River rises in Thomas County. The Red Hills Region is centered on Thomas County.

Major highways
U.S. Route 84 Business
 * US 19.svg U.S. Route 19
 * US 84.svg U.S. Route 84
 * Business plate.svg
 * US 319.svg U.S. Route 319
 * Georgia 3.svg State Route 3
 * Georgia 3 Alternate.svg State Route 3 Alternate
 * Georgia 33.svg State Route 33
 * Georgia 35.svg State Route 35
 * Georgia 35 Connector.svg State Route 35 Connector
 * Georgia 38.svg State Route 38
 * Georgia 38 Business.svg State Route 38 Business
 * Georgia 111.svg State Route 111
 * Georgia 122.svg State Route 122
 * Georgia 188.svg State Route 188
 * Georgia 202.svg State Route 202
 * Georgia 300.svg State Route 300

Adjacent counties

 * Colquitt County - northeast
 * Brooks County - east
 * Jefferson County, Florida - south
 * Leon County, Florida - southwest
 * Grady County - west
 * Mitchell County - northwest

Cities

 * Barwick (partly in Brooks County)
 * Boston
 * Coolidge
 * Meigs (partly in Mitchell County)
 * Pavo (partly in Brooks County)
 * Thomasville

Town

 * Ochlocknee

Unincorporated community

 * Metcalf

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 45,798 people, 17,595 households, and 12,161 families residing in the county.

Education

 * Thomas University
 * Southern Regional Technical College
 * Thomasville City School District
 * Thomas County School District
 * Brookwood School

Politics
Similar to other Georgia counties on the Florida border, the county is very Republican in presidential elections, having last voted for a Democrat in 1980 when the Democrat was native Georgian Jimmy Carter.

title: Thomas County, Georgia


text:
Terrell County, Georgia

Terrell County is a county located in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,185. The county seat is Dawson. Terrell County is included in the Albany, GA metropolitan statistical area.

History
Formed from portions of Randolph and Lee Counties on February 16, 1856, by an act of the Georgia General Assembly, Terrell County is named for Dr. William Terrell (1778–1855) of Sparta, Georgia, who served in the Georgia General Assembly and the United States House of Representatives.

During the American Civil War, after Atlanta's capture by Union forces, a refugee settlement was established in Terrell County for civilians forced to flee the city. The Fosterville settlement, named after Georgia Quartermaster General Ira Roe Foster, was according to author Mary Elizabeth Massey in her 2001 history, the "most ambitious refugee project approved by the Georgia General Assembly" [during that period]. On March 11, 1865, the Georgia General Assembly authorized General Foster to "continue to provide for maintenance of said exiles, or such of them as are unable by their labor to support themselves, or their families for the balance of the present year."

During the civil rights era of the 1960s, the local white minority resisted change, sometimes violently; it subsequently became known as "Terrible Terrell County". In 1958 the county refused to register a group of African-Americans including several teachers with Bachelors and master's degrees on the grounds that they couldn't read, and a college-educated marine who was refused registration on the grounds he could not write intelligibly. The case eventually reached the supreme court, and the county was ordered to allow them to register, but they did not immediately comply. In 1960, testimony showed that Black voters were given more tests, and more difficult tests, than White voters, and that illiterate Whites were allowed to vote, while well-educated Blacks were falsely determined to be illiterate. The county asserted that this was not discriminatory. In September 1962, an African-American church was burned down after it was used for voter registration meetings. (Note: Like other southern states, Georgia had disenfranchised most blacks at the turn of the century by rules raising barriers to voter registration; they were still excluded from the political system.) That month Prathia Hall delivered a speech at the site of the ruins, using the repeated phrase "I have a dream." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. attended her speech; afterward, he also began to use that phrase, including in his noted "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 338 sqmi, of which 335 sqmi is land and 2.3 sqmi (0.7%) is water.

The western and southern two-thirds of Terrell County is located in the Ichawaynochaway Creek sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). The county's northeastern third is located in the Kinchafoonee-Muckalee sub-basin of the same larger ACF River Basin.

Major highways

 * US 82.svg U.S. Route 82
 * Georgia 32.svg State Route 32
 * Georgia 41.svg State Route 41
 * Georgia 45.svg State Route 45
 * Georgia 49.svg State Route 49
 * Georgia 50.svg State Route 50
 * Georgia 55.svg State Route 55
 * Georgia 118.svg State Route 118
 * Georgia 520.svg State Route 520

Adjacent counties

 * Webster County - north
 * Sumter County - northeast
 * Lee County - east
 * Dougherty County - southeast
 * Calhoun County - southwest
 * Randolph County - west

City

 * Dawson

Towns

 * Bronwood
 * Parrott
 * Sasser

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 9,185 people, 3,399 households, and 2,348 families residing in the county.

Politics
Terrell County has consistently been a Democratic county since the 1992 presidential election, though the margins have historically been close. In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt received 100% of all votes cast in Terrell County.

Notable people

 * Benjamin J. Davis Jr., Harvard Law School graduate and elected to New York City Council. Defended Angelo Herndon in Georgia against insurrection charges for organizing a union, resulting in a U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled against Georgia's insurrection law as unconstitutional.
 * Walter Washington, activist and politician, elected as the first black mayor of Washington, D.C. after Congress granted home rule to the city.
 * Otis Redding, rhythm and blues singer; one of the first crossover artists appealing to both young blacks and whites in the post-World War II era.
 * Cole Swindell, is an American country music singer and songwriter who attended Terrell Academy in Dawson, Georgia.

title: Terrell County, Georgia


text:
Telfair County, Georgia

Telfair County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 12,477. The largest city and county seat is McRae-Helena.

In 2009, researchers from the Fernbank Museum of Natural History announced having found artifacts they associated with the 1541 Hernando de Soto Expedition at a private site near the Ocmulgee River, the first such find between Tallahassee, Florida and western North Carolina. De Soto's expedition was well recorded, but researchers have had difficulties finding artifacts from sites where he stopped. This site was an indigenous village occupied by the historic Creek people from the early 15th century into the 16th century. It was located further southeast than de Soto's expedition was thought to go in Georgia.

History
Archaeologists associated with Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History have excavated a 2000 acre plot near McRae-Helena and approximately a mile from the Ocmulgee River, beginning in 2005. In 2009 they announced finding evidence of a Spanish settlement dating to the first half of the 16th century. The archaeologists originally believed that the artifacts may have come from a settlement founded by Spanish leader Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón from Hispaniola in 1526 and briefly occupied by hundreds of colonists. The group encountered hard conditions and fewer than 200 survived to return to Hispaniola.

Additional research suggests that the site instead was one visited in 1541 by the de Soto Expedition. Researchers have recovered Murano glass beads, made in Venice, Italy, and brought by the Spanish for trading with Native Americans; pottery fragments, and iron weapons. Some of the beads bear a chevron pattern. Such beads have been identified as a hallmark of the de Soto expedition, due to the limited period of time in which they were produced. Excavations have also produced six metal objects, including three iron tools and a silver pendant.

The site is further west than scholars had earlier believed that the de Soto expedition had traveled, based on documentation from his expedition. This was the first evidence found of his expedition between Tallahassee, Florida, where excavations have revealed artifacts of his expedition, and western North Carolina where another site has been found.

"What we have now is the best-documented collection of Spanish artifacts in Georgia; many are unique, and they are the only examples of certain artifacts ever found outside Florida."

This site is believed to have been a Native American community, occupied from the end of the 15th century through the first decades of the 16th century. At that time, they had neither glass nor metal goods. Blanton presented a paper on his findings on November 5, 2009, at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Mobile, Alabama.

The historic Creek people occupied much of this area of Georgia. Telfair County was established by European Americans on December 10, 1807, as part of Georgia. Development of the county largely took place after Indian Removal in the 1830s of the Creek Confederacy, who had occupied a large territory, including the southern two thirds of present-day Georgia, for thousands of years. They were removed to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River, in today's Oklahoma. The county is named for Edward Telfair, the sixteenth governor of Georgia and a member of the Continental Congress.

Many of the first European-American settlers were Scottish immigrants and Scots-Irish migrants who traveled down the backcountry from Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 444 sqmi, of which 437 sqmi is land and 6.7 sqmi (1.5%) is water. The county contains at least 50 artesian wells.

The southern two-thirds of Telfair County, bordered by a line from Milan east to Lumber City, are located in the Lower Ocmulgee River sub-basin of the Altamaha River basin. The northern portion of the county is located in the Little Ocmulgee River sub-basin of the same Altamaha River basin.

Major highways

 * US 23.svg U.S. Route 23
 * US 280.svg U.S. Route 280
 * US 319.svg U.S. Route 319
 * US 341.svg U.S. Route 341
 * US 441.svg U.S. Route 441
 * Georgia 19.svg State Route 19
 * Georgia 27.svg State Route 27
 * Georgia 30.svg State Route 30
 * Georgia 31.svg State Route 31
 * Georgia 117.svg State Route 117
 * Georgia 132.svg State Route 132
 * Georgia 149.svg State Route 149
 * Georgia 149 Connector.svg State Route 149 Connector
 * Georgia 165.svg State Route 165

Adjacent counties

 * Wheeler County (northeast)
 * Jeff Davis County (southeast)
 * Coffee County (south)
 * Ben Hill County (southwest)
 * Wilcox County (west)
 * Dodge County (northwest)
 * Laurens County (north)

Cities

 * McRae-Helena (county seat)
 * Jacksonville
 * Lumber City
 * Milan
 * Scotland

Unincorporated communities

 * China Hill

 * Towns
 * Workmore

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 12,477 people, 4,668 households, and 3,259 families residing in the county.

Politics
Telfair County had been a reliably Democratic county in its Solid South days, but later became a swing county for the rest of the 20th century. The last Democrat to win the county was Tennessean Al Gore in 2000, and the county has trended towards the GOP in more recent elections.

title: Telfair County, Georgia


text:
Taylor County, Georgia

Taylor County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,816. The county seat and largest city is Butler.

History
Taylor County was created on January 15, 1852, by an act of the Georgia General Assembly from portions of Macon, Marion and Talbot counties. The county is named for Zachary Taylor, twelfth President of the United States.

Taylor County is also widely known for its history of racism and Jim Crow era subjugation of its African-American populace, which continued long into the 20th century. An especially egregious case is the 1946 lynching of Maceo Snipes, a World War II veteran and the first African-American to vote in Taylor County, for which he was murdered by the KKK on his doorstep in the hours following. Although not immediately succumbing to his wounds, Mr. Snipes death was eventually caused by the lack of availability of "black blood", or transfusions from a black person, at a Butler, Georgia hospital to which he was forced to walk three miles with gunshot wounds to his back. The murderers were never tried or otherwise held to account for their crimes, despite the involvement of the FBI. Mr. Snipes' murder was a motivating factor in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s first and only letter to the Atlanta Constitution at age 17, decrying the terrorism experienced by black citizens in the state at that time, which occurred largely at the hands of or with the blessing of the local and state authorities.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 380 sqmi, of which 377 sqmi is land and 3.0 sqmi (0.8%) is water.

Taylor County is dissected by the Fall Line geological formation. The upper half of the county is located in the Piedmont region and consists of gently rolling hills and clay-based soils. The lower half of the county is located in the Upper Atlantic Coastal Plain and is markedly flatter and the soil more sandy. The Flint River marks the entirety of the county's northeastern border.

The county is driven by a largely agricultural economy. Peaches, strawberries, pecans, peanuts, watermelons, and cotton are the most commonly raised crops. Lumbering is also important to the local economy. The county is heavily forested in most areas due in part to the many large plantation pine farms. There are also many desirable hardwood forests, especially along the Flint River basin and tributary streams. The southwestern portion of the county is covered with large sandhills that have given rise to several stable sand mining operations.

The county supports a very healthy population of animals, including white-tailed deer, wild turkey, eastern cottontail, raccoon, coyote, bobcat, nine-banded armadillo, Virginia opossum, red-tailed hawk, and the federally endangered Florida gopher tortoise. Taylor County is home to five of North America's venomous snakes (eastern diamondback rattlesnake, timber rattlesnake, Carolina pygmy rattlesnake, eastern coral snake, water moccasin, and copperhead), representing every North American family of venomous snake.

The dominant tree species are southern red oak, post oak, longleaf pine, loblolly pine, sweetgum, and red maple. Taylor County contains the largest stands of Atlantic white cedar in the state of Georgia. These stands can be found along much of Whitewater and Little Whitewater creeks and are at the heart of a growing movement to conserve these unique plant communities for posterity.

The vast majority of Taylor County is located in the Upper Flint River sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin), with the exception of a tiny corner of the county just north of Georgia, which is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Walter F. George Lake sub-basin of the same ACF River Basin.

Major highways

 * US 19.svg U.S. Route 19
 * US 80.svg U.S. Route 80
 * Georgia 3.svg State Route 3
 * Georgia 22.svg State Route 22
 * Georgia 90.svg State Route 90
 * Georgia 96.svg State Route 96
 * Georgia 127.svg State Route 127
 * Georgia 128.svg State Route 128
 * Georgia 137.svg State Route 137
 * Georgia 208.svg State Route 208
 * Georgia 540.svg State Route 540 (Fall Line Freeway)

Adjacent counties

 * Upson County (north)
 * Crawford County (northeast)
 * Peach County (east)
 * Macon County (southeast)
 * Schley County (south)
 * Marion County (southwest)
 * Talbot County (northwest)

City

 * Butler

Town

 * Reynolds

Census-designated place

 * Howard

Unincorporated communities

 * Mauk
 * Rupert
 * Charing

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 7,816 people, 3,473 households, and 2,208 families residing in the county.

title: Taylor County, Georgia


text:
Taliaferro County, Georgia

Taliaferro County is a county located in East central Piedmont region of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,559, down from the 2010 census when the population was 1,717, making it the least populous county in Georgia and the second least populous county east of the Mississippi River (after Issaquena County, Mississippi). The county seat is Crawfordville.

History
Taliaferro County was formed by an act of the Georgia Legislature meeting in Milledgeville on December 24, 1825. It was formed by taking portions of five other counties: Wilkes, Greene, Hancock, Oglethorpe, and Warren Counties.

The county was named for Colonel Benjamin Taliaferro of Virginia, who was an officer in the American Revolution.

The county is most famous for containing the birthplace and home of Alexander H. Stephens, who served as a U.S. congressman from Georgia in the antebellum South, as vice president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and as governor of Georgia after the war (dying in office). A state park near his home in Crawfordville bears his name.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 195 sqmi, of which 195 sqmi is land and 0.7 sqmi (0.4%) is water. It is drained by tributaries of the Ogeechee and Little rivers.

The northern half of Taliaferro County, north of Crawfordville, is located in the Little River sub-basin of the Savannah River basin. The southern half of the county is located in the Upper Ogeechee River sub-basin of the Ogeechee River basin.

Major highways

 * I-20.svg Interstate 20
 * US 278.svg U.S. Route 278
 * Georgia 12.svg State Route 12
 * Georgia 22.svg State Route 22
 * Georgia 44.svg State Route 44
 * Georgia 47.svg State Route 47
 * Georgia 402.svg State Route 402 (unsigned designation for I-20)

Adjacent counties

 * Wilkes County - Northeast
 * Oglethorpe County - northwest
 * Warren County - southeast
 * Hancock County - south
 * Greene County - west

Cities

 * Crawfordville (county seat)
 * Sharon

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 1,559 people, 593 households, and 399 families residing in the county.

Economy
Taliaferro county's main employer is the government, primarily the Taliaferro County Sheriffs Department, which patrols I-20 and issues many traffic tickets per capita compared to other counties in the state. For instance, Fulton County, the largest county by population in Georgia, gains $16.98 per capita in traffic ticket revenue. By comparison, Taliaferro county gains $1,614.33 per capita, which is around a hundred times more.

In popular culture
Several Hollywood films have been shot in Taliaferro County. Paris Trout (1991), starring Dennis Hopper and based on the novel by the same name by Pete Dexter, was primarily filmed in the county. Sweet Home Alabama (2002), starring Reese Witherspoon, was filmed in the county seat of Crawfordville.

Politics
Taliaferro County is one of the most reliably Democratic counties in Georgia, despite being mostly rural in nature. It has supported the Democrat candidate in every presidential election by wide margins except in 1972, when Richard Nixon won by a landslide.

Notable people

 * Romulus Moore
 * Maude Andrews Ohl (1862–1943), journalist, poet, novelist
 * Alexander H. Stephens

title: Taliaferro County, Georgia


text:
Tattnall County, Georgia

Tattnall County is a county located in the southeast portion of the U.S. state of Georgia, located within the Magnolia Midlands, a part of the Historic South region. As of the 2020 census, the population was 22,842. The county seat is Reidsville. Tattnall County was created on December 5, 1801, from part of Montgomery County, Georgia by the Georgia General Assembly.

The county is named after Josiah Tattnall (1762–1803), a planter, soldier and politician.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 488 sqmi, of which 479 sqmi is land and 8.9 sqmi (1.8%) is water.

Most of the western portion of Tattnall County, defined by a line running from Cobbtown south to Collins, then east to a point halfway to Bellville, and then south and southwest to the middle of the county's southern border, is located in the Ohoopee River sub-basin of the Altamaha River basin. The northeastern portion of the county, from Cobbtown to east of Reidsville, is located in the Canoochee River sub-basin of the Ogeechee River basin. The southeastern and southwestern parts of Tattnall County are located in the Altamaha River sub-basin of the larger river basin by the same name.

Adjacent counties

 * Candler County - north
 * Evans County - northeast
 * Liberty County - east
 * Long County - southeast
 * Wayne County - south
 * Appling County - southwest
 * Toombs County - west
 * Emanuel County - northwest

Cities

 * Cobbtown
 * Collins
 * Glennville (largest city)
 * Manassas
 * Reidsville (county seat)

Census-designated place

 * Mendes

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 22,842 people, 8,241 households, and 5,875 families residing in the county.

Government and infrastructure
The Georgia Department of Corrections operates the Rogers State Prison, and formerly the Georgia State Prison in unincorporated Tattnall County, near Reidsville. As of 2020, according to the Georgia State Prison Fact Sheet, the facility occupies 9,800 acres of land inside Tattnall County and provides 162 staff housing units on the reservation. The prison cemetery has 971 burials which are inmates who died while serving time from 1937 to present.

Another large government parcel of land is the 10,000 acre Big Hammock Wildlife Management Preserve in the southwest section of the county. The entrance is 12 miles south of Glennville on Hwy 144 at the Ohoopee River Bridge. This is controlled by the GA Department of Natural Resources under the Wildlife Resources Division. It has a shooting range and 2 boat ramps along the river which are north of the merger with the Altamaha River which forms the southern border of the county. Permits are issued for seasonal hunting of deer, turkey, and small game. Updates are posted at www.GoHuntGeorgia.com

Another large government land parcel is on the eastern side of Tattnall County along the border with Evans, Liberty, and Long Counties. This 6000+ acres forms the western side of the Fort Stewart Army Reservation which is based in Hinesville, GA. Originally this was farmland purchased by the Army during and after World War II. It has since been turned into forest land with no development. The current Ft. Stewart Land Use Development plan excludes any of this property in their 25-year future planning approved by the Department of Defense. This land mass can be viewed on Google Maps with additional info from the website for the Ft. Stewart Joint Land Use Study. (www.mrrpc.com/Misc_pdfs/Fort_Stewart_JLUS_Final_Report.pdf)

Education
Tattnall County School District serves as the designated K-12 school district, except parts in Fort Stewart. Fort Stewart has the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) as its local school district, for the elementary level. Students at the secondary level on Fort Stewart attend public schools operated by county school districts.

title: Tattnall County, Georgia


text:
Michael Gira

Michael Rolfe Gira (born February 19, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, author and artist. Now based in New Mexico, he founded the band Swans, in which he sings and plays guitar, in New York City in the 1980s at the height of the no wave movement. He is also the founder of Young God Records and previously fronted Angels of Light.

Early life
Michael Rolfe Gira was born February 19, 1954, in Los Angeles, California to Alice (née Shulte), originally from Iowa, and Robert Pierre Gira. His mother was an alcoholic, and Gira spent much of his early life caring for his younger brother. Gira has commented that his parents were "not around much" during his early childhood.

As an adolescent, Gira was arrested in California several times for petty crimes. Facing the risk of being incarcerated in a juvenile hall, he relocated with his father to Germany following a short stay in South Bend, Indiana. While in Germany, Gira ran away and hitchhiked across Europe, lived in Israel for a year, and spent four and a half months in an adult jail in Jerusalem for selling hashish. He turned 16 while in jail.

Returning to California around age seventeen, Gira worked at a bakery on Redondo Beach Pier, completed his GED, went to community college, and then attended Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. He moved to New York in 1979, where he played in a band called Circus Mort, before forming the band Swans. In Manhattan, Gira found employment as a construction worker, doing demolition, sheetrock installation, and plastering.

Swans
Initially, Swans' focus was raw rhythm and abrasive textures, usually eschewing melody for visceral power, becoming known for their abrasive experimental and post-industrial sound. Their commercial success was limited, but Swans earned critical notice and had a devoted following.

The band's lineup and sound evolved over time, and their music became somewhat more conventional. A marked shift in Swans' music came with inclusion of Gira's partner, Jarboe, who added her ethereal voice and synthesizers to the group in 1985. Gira and Swans spent the next twelve years releasing studio, live, and side-project albums. Gira's frustration with various record labels grew over time, and he disbanded Swans in 1997.

However, in 2010, Gira decided to revive the band, with members new and old. They released a new album titled My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. A second post-revival album, The Seer, was released in 2012. A third, To Be Kind, was released in 2014. All three were met with increasing critical acclaim. The Glowing Man followed and was released in June 2016. Leaving Meaning followed in 2019. Swans' 16th studio album, The Beggar, was released on June 23, 2023.

Solo career and Angels of Light
After dissolving Swans in 1997 Gira released a solo album under his own name and began a new musical direction with Angels of Light, which are a quieter, more acoustic-based group than Swans.

Gira also spent time experimenting with soundscapes, found sound, and loops with The Body Lovers / The Body Haters project. He has also released several albums under his own name including Drainland (1995), a spoken word album called The Somniloquist (2000), and What We Did (2001), a collaboration with Windsor for the Derby's frontman Dan Matz.

Gira founded his own record label, Young God Records, which has released albums from such artists as Devendra Banhart, Mi and L'au, and Akron/Family as well as Swans, The Angels of Light and The Body Lovers' back catalogues.

Akron/Family served as Gira's backing band during the recording of and touring for The Angels of Light's 2005 album, The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People'.

Gira has spoken of his decision to shift his focus from The Angels of Light back to Swans as a move based on impassivity. He has stated, "I had been doing this band Angels of Light for thirteen years, and had reached a kind of impassivity with that, sorta like I had reached an impassivity with Swans when I initially stopped it."

Writings
Gira's first short story collection The Consumer (ISBN 1-880985-26-8) was published in 1995 by Henry Rollins's 2.13.61 publications. It is divided into two parts, the first being "The Consumer", a series of short stories from the early 1990s, the second, "Various Traps, Some Weaknesses", made up mostly of prose-poems and vignettes, all dating from 1983 to 1986. (Many of these earlier stories had previously been published by SST Records as Selfishness, with illustrations by Raymond Pettibon.) In a Spike Magazine review of The Consumer And Other Stories, Jordon Leigh Bortle writes, "the squeamish may wish to armour themselves before entering these pages [...] Here, all taboos are annihilated — incest, alcoholism, obscene torture, rape, cannibalism, and perverse murder have all but become the norm in which these tragic tales occur."

In February 2018, Gira released his second short story collection, The Egg. Limited to 2,500 hand-signed copies, The Egg compiles seventeen stories written over 2016. Included with the release is a disc containing narrations of a handful of stories from The Egg as well as a few from The Consumer.

In May 2022, Gira released a collection of Swans lyrics, stories, and journals titled The Knot, in a collector's edition of 3,000 hand-numbered copies. The Knot is 408 pages long, and additionally contains 101 color images. The Knot contains all of the lyrics from the first Swans EP to Leaving Meaning, as well as lyrics from Angels of Light and World of Skin, among Gira's other projects, and includes archived writings from 1974 to 2022.

Personal life
Gira dated pop singer Madonna before she was famous.

Gira lists his favorite albums as On The Corner by Miles Davis, The Man-Machine by Kraftwerk, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie, 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Throbbing Gristle, the Stooges self-titled debut album, the Doors self-titled debut album and Strange Days, Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention, Pink Moon by Nick Drake, Symphonie No.2 by Henryk Gorecki, Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan, Tabula Rasa by Arvo Part, The Chess Box by Howlin' Wolf, and Ummagumma by Pink Floyd.

Gira has a son named Swan according to Children of God album cover photographer Laura Levine.

Equipment
Michael Gira is known for using a Guild antique burst electro acoustic guitar, and a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus Guitar Amplifier during his solo concerts. With Swans, Gira has used a variety of instruments including Ovation acoustic guitars and a Westbury Track II bass guitar during early performances. During the Soundtracks for the Blind and Swans are Dead era, Gira can be seen with a Gibson Lucille (which has since become his main guitar for the Swans reunion), a Fender Telecaster and a Gibson Les Paul. Recent shows have seen Gira using Orange amplifiers and cabinets, as well as Mesa Boogie cabinets.

Discography

Solo albums
 * Drainland (1995)
 * Solo Recordings at Home (2001)
 * I Am Singing to You from My Room (2004)
 * I Am Not Insane (2010)
 * The Egg: Stories by Michael Gira (2018)

Collaborations
 * Hard Rock (1984) – with Lydia Lunch
 * A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse (1985) – with various artists
 * Offenbarung und Untergang by Georg Trakl (1999) – with Étant Donnés
 * What We Did (2001) – with Dan Matz
 * Gantse Mishpuchah Music in Three Parts (2004) – with David Coulter, Jean-Marie Mathoul & Charlemagne Palestine

Live albums
 * Jarboe Emergency Medical Fund (1999)
 * The Somniloquist (2000)
 * Living '02 (2002)

Compilations
 * Songs for a Dog (1999)
 * The Milk of M. Gira: Selected Solo Home Recordings 2001–2010 (2011)
 * I Am Not This (2016)

With Swans
 * Filth (1983)
 * Cop (1984)
 * Greed (1986)
 * Holy Money (1986)
 * Children of God (1987)
 * The Burning World (1989)
 * White Light from the Mouth of Infinity (1991)
 * Love of Life (1992)
 * The Great Annihilator (1995)
 * Soundtracks for the Blind (1996)
 * My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky (2010)
 * The Seer (2012)
 * To Be Kind (2014)
 * The Glowing Man (2016)
 * Leaving Meaning (2019)
 * The Beggar (2023)

With Angels of Light
 * New Mother (1999)
 * How I Loved You (2001)
 * Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home (2003)
 * The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People' (2005)
 * Akron/Family & Angels of Light (2005) – with Akron/Family
 * We Are Him (2007)

With World of Skin
 * Shame, Humility, Revenge (1988)
 * Ten Songs for Another World (1990)

title: Michael Gira


text:
Talbot County, Georgia

Talbot County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. The 2020 census showed a population of 5,733. The county seat and largest city is Talbotton.

History
Talbot County was created from a portion of Muscogee County by a December 14, 1827, act of the Georgia General Assembly. It was named after the late Georgia governor Matthew Talbot. Taylor County was created from a portion of Talbot County in 1852.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 395 sqmi, of which 391 sqmi is land and 3.4 sqmi (0.9%) is water.

The county straddles the fall line of the Eastern U.S., and thus northern areas of the county are hillier compared to southern areas of the county. The Fall Line Freeway runs across the southern portion of the county, following Georgia State Route 96 from Geneva to Junction City. The far northern portion of the county is part of the Pine Mountain Range, with elevations in this areas exceeding 1,000 ft on the highest peaks of the mountains.

The northeastern three-quarters of Talbot County is located in the Upper Flint River sub-basin of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin. The southwestern quarter, west of Junction City, is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Walter F. George Lake sub-basin, while a narrow sliver of the western border, east of Waverly Hall, is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Lake Harding sub-basin.

Major highways
U.S. Route 27 Alternate
 * Alternate plate.svg
 * US 80.svg U.S. Route 80
 * Georgia 22.svg State Route 22
 * Georgia 36.svg State Route 36
 * Georgia 41.svg State Route 41
 * Georgia 85.svg State Route 85
 * Georgia 85 Alternate.svg State Route 85 Alternate
 * Georgia 96.svg State Route 96
 * Georgia 116.svg State Route 116
 * Georgia 190.svg State Route 190
 * Georgia 208.svg State Route 208
 * Georgia 240.svg State Route 240
 * Georgia 315.svg State Route 315
 * Georgia 540.svg State Route 540 (Fall Line Freeway)

Adjacent counties

 * Upson County - northeast
 * Taylor County - southeast
 * Marion County - south
 * Chattahoochee County - southwest
 * Muscogee County - west-southwest
 * Harris County - west
 * Meriwether County - north

Railroads

 * CSX Fitzgerald Subdivision
 * Norfolk Southern Columbus District

Cities

 * Talbotton (county seat)
 * Woodland
 * Manchester (part)

Towns

 * Geneva
 * Junction City

Unincorporated communities

 * Box Springs
 * Centerville
 * Po Biddy Crossroads
 * Tax Crossroads

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 5,733 people, 2,809 households, and 1,849 families residing in the county.

Education
The Talbot County School District holds pre-school to grade twelve, and consists of one building with 48 full-time teachers and 792 students. The district headquarters is in Talbotton.

Politics
Like most majority-African-American counties in Georgia, Talbot is a reliably Democratic county. Between 1880 and 2020, Talbot County has only voted Republican three times, although it also voted for American Independent segregationist George Wallace in 1968.

title: Talbot County, Georgia


text:
Sumter County, Georgia

Sumter County is a county located in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, its population was 29,616. The county seat is Americus. The county was created on December 26, 1831.

Sumter County is part of the Americus micropolitan statistical area.

Foundation and antebellum years
Sumter County was established by an act of the state legislature on December 26, 1831, four years after the Creek Indians were forced from the region when the state acquired the territory from them in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs. Sumter, the state's 80th county, was created after population increases by a division of Lee County, now situated to its south. The county was named for former General and United States Senator Thomas Sumter (1734–1832) of South Carolina. When the county was organized, Sumter was 97 years old and the last surviving general of the American Revolution (1775–1783).

Shortly thereafter, a committee chose a central site for the county seat, and laid out what became the town of Americus. Many of the county's earliest white residents acquired their land through an 1827 state land lottery. Like many other white settlers, they quickly developed their property for cotton cultivation. Since the invention of the cotton gin at the end of the 18th century, short-staple cotton was the crop of choice throughout the Black Belt of the South.

The rich, black soil, combined with ready market access via the Flint River (bordering the county on the east) or the Chattahoochee River (farther west), put Sumter among the state's most prosperous Black Belt counties by the 1840s and 1850s. Cotton agriculture was economically dependent on enslaved African Americans. By the 1850 census, the demographic makeup of the county had become 6,469 whites, 3,835 enslaved African Americans, and 18 free people of color. By the 1860 census, the county had 4,536 whites, 4,890 enslaved African Americans and two free people of color.

Civil War years
During the American Civil War (1861–65), the small village named Andersonville, 9 mi north of Americus on the county's northern edge, was selected by Confederate authorities as the site for a prisoner-of-war camp. The Andersonville prison was built in neighboring Macon County, and became the largest such prison in the South. During the camp's 14 months of operations, some 45,000 Union prisoners suffered some of the worst conditions and highest casualties of any of the camps. Today, the Andersonville National Historic Site serves as a memorial to all American prisoners of war throughout the nation's history. The 495 acre park lies in both Macon and Sumter Counties and consists of the historic prison site and the National Cemetery, which originally was reserved for the Union dead.

Into modernity
Other areas of the county have attracted national attention in the 20th century for very different reasons. In 1942, two Baptist ministers chose a farm in the western part of the county as the location for a Christian commune named Koinonia, where Black and White workers lived and worked together for nearly 50 years, generating some hostility among local residents during its early years.

Sumter County counts a U.S. president among its native sons. Jimmy Carter was born and raised on a peanut farm in Plains, a small community on the county's western edge. His election to the presidency in 1976 brought the small town considerable attention from journalists and tourists, which it continues to receive as the former president and much of his and his late wife's family, still make Plains their home. Carter's birthplace and childhood home has been designated a National Historic Site, and is open for tours.

The headquarters of Habitat for Humanity International, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to eliminate homelessness, is located in Americus, the home of its founder, Millard Fuller. In addition to Habitat's socially impactful activities, Koinonia Partners publishes a bimonthly newsletter for the Prison and Jail Project promoting prisoner reform and education. Americus is also home to two colleges. Georgia Southwestern State University, a public four-year institution established in 1906, is part of the University System of Georgia. South Georgia Technical College, which stands near Souther Field, was a training base for American and British aviators during World War I (1917–18). Charles Lindbergh learned to fly here and assembled a military surplus "Jenny" aircraft with the help of mechanics at Souther Field. Downtown Americus boasts two prominent examples of historic restoration: the Windsor Hotel, built in 1892, and the Rylander Theatre, which originally opened in 1921.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 493 sqmi, of which 483 sqmi are land and 10 sqmi (2.0%) are covered by water.

Muckalee Creek flows through Sumter County, which also contains Lake Blackshear and Kinchafoonee Creek.

The western two-thirds of Sumter County, from northeast of Americus to southwest of Leslie, is located in the Kinchafoonee-Muckalee subbasin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). The eastern third of the county is located in the Middle Flint River subbasin of the same ACF River Basin.

Major highways

 * US 19.svg U.S. Route 19
 * US 280.svg U.S. Route 280
 * Georgia 3.svg State Route 3
 * Georgia 27.svg State Route 27
 * Georgia 30.svg State Route 30
 * Georgia 45.svg State Route 45
 * Georgia 49.svg State Route 49
 * Georgia 118.svg State Route 118
 * Georgia 153.svg State Route 153
 * Georgia 195.svg State Route 195
 * Georgia 228.svg State Route 228
 * Georgia 271.svg State Route 271
 * Georgia 308.svg State Route 308
 * Georgia 377.svg State Route 377

Adjacent counties

 * Macon County (northeast)
 * Dooly County (east)
 * Crisp County (southeast)
 * Lee County (south)
 * Terrell County (southwest)
 * Webster County (west)
 * Marion County (northwest)
 * Schley County (north)

National protected areas

 * Andersonville National Historic Site (part)
 * Jimmy Carter National Historic Site

Cities

 * Americus (county seat)
 * Andersonville
 * De Soto
 * Leslie
 * Plains

Unincorporated community

 * Cobb

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 29,616 people, 11,510 households, and 7,256 families residing in the county.

Economy
Sumter remains largely a rural county. According to USDA/Georgia Agricultural Statistics Service 2001 figures, cotton remains its major crop, with up to 35000 acre under cultivation, followed by wheat, peanuts, and corn, which when combined, roughly equal the county's acreage in cotton.

Its major employers include Cooper Lighting, Georgia Southwestern State University, Magnolia Manor, Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, and Walmart.

Politics
Sumter County is a swing county in presidential elections. Since 1960, it has voted Democratic eight times, including in 1976, when Sumter County native Jimmy Carter was elected, Republican six times, and for a third-party candidate (George Wallace) once. The last candidate to carry the county by more than 10 points was Bill Clinton in 1996.

The county voted for the winner of the presidential election each year from 1984 to 2012, sticking with the Democrats (Carter's party) in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won a plurality of the vote.

Education
Sumter County School District operates public schools.

Southland Academy is a private school in Americus.

title: Sumter County, Georgia


text:
Stewart County, Georgia

Stewart County is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,314. The county seat is Lumpkin. The county was created on December 23, 1830.

History
The area was inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years in the Pre-Columbian period. Roods Landing site on the Chattahoochee River is a significant archaeological site located south of Omaha. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it includes major earthwork mounds built about 1100–1350 CE by peoples of the sophisticated Mississippian culture. Another Mississippian site is the Singer Moye Mounds, located in the southern part of the county.

The first Europeans to encounter the Native Americans were Spanish explorers in the mid-16th century. At that time the historical Creek tribe inhabited the southern two thirds of what is now defined as Georgia, west of the Low Country. they are believed to be the descendants of the Mississippian culture.

They maintained their territory until after European American settlers arrived in increasing number in the early decades of the 19th century. The ensuing conflicts ultimately resulted in most of the Creek people's being driven out of the region. In the 1830s under Indian removal, the US federal government forced most Creek to relocate west of the Mississippi River, to Indian Territory in what became present-day Oklahoma.

Stewart County was created by an act of the Georgia General Assembly on December 23, 1830, from land that had been part of Randolph County, Georgia. The county is named for Daniel Stewart, a Revolutionary War veteran, and fighter against American Indians. He was one of the four great-grandfathers of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.

Settlers developed the area as large cotton plantations, part of the "Black Belt" of Georgia and the Deep South. Before the American Civil War, planters depended on enslaved labor of thousands of African Americans to cultivate and process the cotton for market. Mostly born in the United States, the slaves were transported from the Upper South, with many families broken up when some members were purchased through sales in the domestic slave trade.

In 1850, the county reached its peak in wealth as one of the largest cotton producers in the state. It had the tenth-largest population of any county in the state, with 16,027 people. African-American slaves numbered 7,373, or 46% of the population.

By 1860, the county population was 13,422. The apparent drop was due to the counties of Kinchafoonee (later Webster County) and Quitman being created from Stewart County territory in 1853 and 1858, respectively. There were 5,534 slaves in the redefined Stewart County, constituting more than one-third of the population.

After the war and emancipation, cotton continued as the major commodity crop and additional territory was developed by planters for cultivation. Many freedmen became sharecroppers and tenant farmers in the area, which was agricultural for decades, but in decline. Stewart County lost its premier position when it was bypassed by developing railroads, which went to the north and south. It did not have railroad access until 1885.

Inappropriate farming practices and over-cultivation of cotton from before the Civil War led to extensive land erosion by the early 20th century. Together with mechanization of agriculture and damage due to infestation by the boll weevil, there were losses in this part of the economy. Population declined. Up to the mid century, many blacks left the area in two waves of the Great Migration, seeking escape from Jim Crow conditions, and jobs and better lives in northern and midwestern industrial cities. Farmers shifted to cultivating peanuts and later pine trees to reclaim and restore the land. Population losses continued throughout the 20th century, as the forest and lumber industry did not require as many laborers.

In 1965, some of the towns in the county began to redevelop their historic properties to attract tourists and expand the economy. Lumpkin, Omaha and Louvale all had relatively intact historic properties and commercial districts. Green Grove is an historic African-American community established by freedmen after the Civil War. Stewart was the first rural county in the state to use historic preservation and Main Street redevelopment to support heritage tourism.

Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 464 sqmi, of which 459 sqmi is land and 4.9 sqmi (1.1%) is water. The county is mainly located in the upper Gulf coastal plain region of the state, with a few hills due to its close proximity to the fall line.

The vast majority of Stewart County is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Walter F. George Lake sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). Just the very eastern edge of the county, bordered by a north-to-south line running through Richland, is located in the Kinchafoonee-Muckalee sub-basin of the same ACF Basin, with the very southeastern corner located in the Ichawaynochaway Creek sub-basin of the larger ACF River Basin.

Major highways

 * US 27.svg U.S. Route 27
 * US 280.svg U.S. Route 280
 * Georgia 1.svg State Route 1
 * Georgia 1 Connector.svg State Route 1 Connector
 * Georgia 27.svg State Route 27
 * Georgia 39.svg State Route 39
 * Georgia 39 Connector.svg State Route 39 Connector
 * Georgia 39 Spur.svg State Route 39 Spur
 * Georgia 520.svg State Route 520

Adjacent counties

 * Chattahoochee County (north)
 * Webster County (east)
 * Randolph County (south)
 * Quitman County (southwest)
 * Barbour County, Alabama (west/CST Border)
 * Russell County, Alabama (northwest/CST Border except for Phenix City as the city is jointed by the Columbus Metropolitan Area)

National protected area

 * Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge (part)

Cities

 * Lumpkin
 * Richland

Unincorporated communities

 * Louvale
 * Omaha
 * Florence
 * Sanford

Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 5,314 people, 1,816 households, and 1,138 families residing in the county.

Parks and recreation
Florence Marina State Park and Providence Canyon State Park are located in Stewart County.

About 800 acre of the Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge are located along the Chattahoochee River's eastern shores in Stewart County. In addition, the Hannahatchee Wildlife Management Area is a 5600 acre hunting preserve.

Politics
Sheriff Larry Jones is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for this county.

Stewart County is reliably Democratic. In US presidential elections between 1880 and 2020 Stewart County has only voted Republican twice.

title: Stewart County, Georgia