Georgia
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. Georgia is bordered on the south by Florida, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina, on the west by Alabama, and on the north by Tennessee and North Carolina.
- ABBREVIATION: GA
- NICKNAME: The Peach State
- POPULATION: 9,992,167 (2013 est.)
- CAPITAL: Atlanta
- STATE BIRD: Brown Thrasher
- STATE FLOWER: Cherokee Rose
- AREA: 59,425 sq. mi.
- TIME ZONE: Eastern
- ENTERED UNION: Jan. 2, 1788
- ALTITUDE: High, 4,784 ft. Brasstown Bald
- CLIMATE: Humid. Hot summers, mild winters. Heavy rainfall in northeast.
In 1732, when King George II chartered the American colony named for him, he ordered each settler to plant mulberry trees so Georgia could furnish England with all the silk she needed. Although silk turned out to be an uneconomical industry for the colony, the settlers very quickly discovered resources far more vital to a maritime empire; tar, pitch and other naval stores from the region’s vast forests of pine. To this day Georgia still produces a large part of the world’s rosin-now used more for plastics, soft drinks, chewing gums and pharmaceuticals than for sealing ships. In the last century the timber itself, supplying the raw materials for pulp and paper mills, lumber, and furniture, became increasingly important.
The newly established state came into its first great prosperity after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. To run its cotton mills, Georgia needed power. Fortunately the shape of the land provided the means. Where the coastal plain met the Piedmont Plateau at the Fall Line, streams dropped rapidly enough to furnish water power for industry. This natural phenomenon accounts for the location of some of the Southeast’s leading manufacturing cities, such as Columbus and Augusta.
With the coming of the railroad, Georgia entered a new phase, for its position on the South Atlantic seaboard made it the logical distribution center for all of the South. As one railroad after another was built, Atlanta, founded in 1836, became a hub of trade and transportation. After many years of steady growth, the city attained a position as the commercial, financial, and manufacturing center for the entire Southeast.
FUN FACTS:
- Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 in Atlanta by Dr. John Pemberton and was first sold at the soda fountain in a local pharmacy. First-year sales averaged nine drinks a day, for a year-end earning of $50.
- The first gold rush in the United States took place in 1828 at Dahlonega.
- Martin Luther King Jr., charismatic African-American civil rights leader and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was born in Atlanta in 1929.
- In 1912, Juliette Gordon, founded the Girl Scouts in Savannah.
- The carvings of Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis on Stone Mountain near Atlanta make up the world’s largest high relief sculpture.
- Delta Airlines started as a company that dusted crops for boll weevils and later developed into one of the country’s leading commercial airlines.