Statesboro, GA

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Statesboro

Statesboro is the largest city and county seat of Bulloch County, Georgia, United States,^[5] located in Southeast Georgia. A college town, Statesboro is best known as the home of Georgia Southern University, a Carnegie Doctoral-Research University.

As of 2015, the Statesboro Micropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of Bulloch County, had an estimated population of 72,651.^[6] The City itself had a population of 28,422 in the 2010 census.^[7] The City had an estimated 2015 population of 30,721.^[8]

The city was chartered in 1803, starting as a small trading community providing the basic essentials for surrounding cotton plantations. This drove the economy through the 19th century, both before and after the American Civil War.

In 1906, Statesboro and area leaders joined together to bid for and win the First District A&M School, a land grant college that eventually developed as Georgia Southern University in 1990. In 1908, Statesboro sold more cotton bales than did Savannah, Georgia, but the boll weevil infestation of the 1930s required a shift to tobacco as a crop. Statesboro inspired the blues song “Statesboro Blues“, written by Blind Willie McTell in the 1920s, and covered in a well-known version by The Allman Brothers Band.^[9]

In 1801, George Sibbald of Augusta donated a 9,301-acre (37.64 km²) tract for a centrally located county seat for the growing agricultural community of Bulloch County. The area was developed by white planters largely for cotton plantations, worked by slave labor. In December 1803, the Georgia legislature created the town of Statesborough. In 1866 the state legislature granted a permanent charter to the city, changing the spelling of its name to the present “Statesboro.”

During the Civil War and General William T. Sherman’s famous March to the Sea through Georgia, a Union officer asked a saloon proprietor for directions to Statesboro. The proprietor replied, “You are standing in the middle of town,” indicating its small size. The soldiers destroyed the courthouse, a crude log structure that doubled as a barn when court was not in session. After the Civil War, the small town began to grow, and Statesboro has developed as a major town in southeastern Georgia. Many freedmen stayed in the area, working on plantations as sharecroppers and tenant farmers.