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==History== Fitzgerald was developed in 1895 by Philander H. Fitzgerald, an [[Indianapolis]] newspaper editor. A former [[drummer boy (military)|drummer boy]] in the [[Union Army]] during the Civil War, he founded it as a community for [[American Civil War|war]] veterans–both from the Union and from the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fitzgerald Facts and Firsts |url=http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/329-fitzgerald-facts-and-firsts-329.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170908145823/http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/329-fitzgerald-facts-and-firsts-329.html |archive-date=2017-09-08 |access-date=2018-07-11 |website=Fitzgeraldga.org}}</ref> The majority of the first citizens (some 2700) were Union veterans.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fitzgerald History |url=http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/332-history-332.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909223133/http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/332-history-332.html |archive-date=2017-09-09 |access-date=2018-07-11 |website=FitzgeraldGA.org}}</ref> It was incorporated on December 2, 1896.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fitzgerald |url=http://georgia.gov/cities-counties/fitzgerald |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018062121/http://georgia.gov/cities-counties/fitzgerald |archive-date=2013-10-18 |access-date=2013-10-14 |website=Georgia.gov}}</ref> The town is located less than {{convert|15|mi}} from the site where Confederate president [[Jefferson Davis]] was captured on May 10, 1865. Fitzgerald was an early planned city. It was laid out as a square, with intersecting streets dividing it into four wards. Each ward was divided into four blocks and each block had sixteen squares.<ref>{{Cite web |title=City Facts |url=http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/329-fitzgerald-facts-and-firsts-329.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170908145823/http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/329-fitzgerald-facts-and-firsts-329.html |archive-date=2017-09-08 |access-date=2018-07-11 |website=FitzgeraldGA.org}}</ref> The first two streets running north–south on the west side of the city were named after Confederate generals Lee and Johnston, whereas the first two on the east side were named after Union generals Grant and Sherman.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fitzgerald Streets |url=http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/330-fitzgerald-s-civil-war-streets-ships-and-generals-330.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909223852/http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/330-fitzgerald-s-civil-war-streets-ships-and-generals-330.html |archive-date=2017-09-09 |access-date=2018-07-11 |website=FitzgeraldGA.org}}</ref> After about a year, the residents planned a Thanksgiving harvest parade. Separate Union and Confederate parades were planned. But when the band struck up to play, the Confederates joined the Union veterans to march as one under the US flag.<ref>{{Cite web |title=History |url=http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/332-history-332.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170909223133/http://fitzgeraldga.org/index.php/tourism-visitors/history/109-history/geneology/332-history-332.html |archive-date=2017-09-09 |access-date=2018-07-11 |website=FitzgeraldGA.org}}</ref> At the time there was increasing reconciliation nationwide between white soldiers of the North and South; historian David Blight notes that outstanding issues of race were pushed aside. In this era southern states had already begun to pass new constitutions that raised barriers to voter registration, following Mississippi's in 1890, and essentially [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] most freedmen and many poor whites. By 1900, Fitzgerald was a [[sundown town]], prohibiting African Americans from living there.<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 28, 1900 |title=How Northern Settlers Solve the Negro Problem |quote=In the colony of Fitzgerald, in Georgia, there are very few negroes, and not one allowed to live in the city of Fitzgerald. The founders of this colony and the builders of this city are all Western people, and many of them old Union soldiers. But they met and solved the race problem by keeping the races separate and drawing, not only the color line, but the land line on the negro. |work=The Lexington Gazette |location=[[Lexington, Virginia]] |page=1 |via=[[Chronicling America]]}}</ref> In recent years the unofficial, and sometimes controversial, [[mascot]] of the city has become the [[red junglefowl]], a wild chicken native to the [[Indian subcontinent]]. In the late 1960s, a small number were released into the woods surrounding the city and they thrive to this day.<ref name="Augusta Chronicle">{{Cite news |last=Minor |first=Elliott |date=June 14, 1998 |title=Town's Wild Jungle Birds: Blessing or Curse? |url=http://old.chronicle.augusta.com/stories/1998/06/14/ent_230856.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103094214/http://old.chronicle.augusta.com/stories/1998/06/14/ent_230856.shtml |archive-date=2013-11-03 |access-date=2013-01-09 |work=[[The Augusta Chronicle]]}}</ref> In 2019, work began on a {{convert|62|ft|m|adj=on}} tall [[Fitzgerald Chicken Topiary|topiary statue of a chicken]].
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