LANIER COUNTY, GEORGIA
HISTORY

Lanier County, named for poet Sidney Lanier, was created in 1920 with land taken from Berrien, Clinch, and Lowndes Counties. It is comprised of 187 square miles and is home to several lakes, including Banks Lake, Grand Bay Lake, and Lake Irma.

Lee's Mill, built early in the nineteenth century by Joshua Lee, became the center of trade as other mills and businesses developed into a village surrounding it and the area was named Alapaha. Later, Alapaha, took the name Milltown because so many mills had grown up around the village. In 1925 when the town incorporated the name was changed to Lakeland which is the county seat for Lanier County.

The community of Stockton incorporated in 1876, was originally called Registerville.

Things to see and do in Lanier County include fishing and boating on Banks Lake, hiking the Robert Simpson III Nature Trail and visiting the historic sites which include Governor Rivers's house, which was moved from its original spot on Banks Lake to West Main Street in Lakeland in the early 1980s; Union Baptist Church, located near Georgia Highway 135; and Fender Cemetery, located east of Lakeland at the junction of U.S. 221 and Georgia 37 on land that once belonged to David Fender. The site of the cemetery, in which many of the area's first settlers are buried, was chosen so that mourners would not have to ferry their dead across the river for burial. Also, the "Murals of Milltown," which depict community life in the 1920s, grace the exteriors of buildings in downtown Lakeland.


Source: New Georgia Encyclopedia

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