Editing Lumpkin, Georgia (section)

==History==
This area of Georgia was inhabited by succeeding cultures of indigenous [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] for thousands of years before European contact. Historical tribes included the [[Cherokee]], [[Choctaw]] and [[Muscogee (Creek)|Creek]], who encountered European Americans as their settlements moved into traditional territory. During the [[Indian removal]] of 1830, the United States government forced such tribes to move west of the Mississippi River to [[Indian Territory]], to extinguish their claims and make way for more European-American settlement.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Lumpkin was incorporated by European Americans on March 30, 1829. First named the [[county seat]] of [[Randolph County, Georgia|Randolph County]] on December 2, 1830, it became the seat of Stewart County when the latter was split from Randolph three weeks later. The city was named in honor of [[Wilson Lumpkin]], a two-term [[governor of Georgia]] and legislator who supported Indian removal.  [[Lumpkin County|His namesake county]] is at the northern end of the state.<ref name="Matthew M. Moye, Lumpkin">[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2255 Matthew M. Moye, "Lumpkin"], ''New Georgia Encyclopedia'', 17 Dec 2006, accessed 7 Jan 2009</ref>

The town grew as a commercial center served by stagecoach. Its merchants traded with the planters in the area. This was part of the [[Black Belt (geological formation)|Black Belt]], named for the fertile land in the upland South that supported extensive [[cotton]] [[plantations in the American South|plantations]] in the 19th century. In the antebellum years, planters depended on the labor and skills of hundreds of thousands of [[slavery|enslaved]] [[African Americans]] to cultivate and process the cotton for market.<ref name="Matthew M. Moye, Lumpkin"/>

After the war, many [[freedmen]] stayed in the area as [[sharecroppers]] and tenant farmers, and the economy continued to depend on agriculture. With land erosion and depletion, cotton farming gave way to peanut and pine tree cultivation, and labor needs decreased. The population of the county dropped markedly from the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] of blacks to industrial jobs in the [[Northern United States|North]] and [[Midwest]] in the early decades of the 20th century, but the town of Lumpkin remained relatively stable. The county is still quite rural.<ref name="Matthew M. Moye, Lumpkin"/>

Lumpkin was the first small town in Georgia to complete a successful [[historic preservation]] project to encourage what has become known as [[heritage tourism]]. It restored the [[Bedingfield Inn]], built in 1836 and located on the central square. It is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].

On December 5, 1954, a destructive [[Tornado outbreak of December 5, 1954#Howe, Alabama/Lumpkin–Ellaville, Georgia|F2 tornado]] hit the northwest side of town, killing one and injuring 20.<ref name="Lumpkin4">{{cite web |title=Georgia Event Report: F2 Tornado |url=https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/eventdetails.jsp?id=10000301 |website=NCDC |publisher=National Climatic Data Center |access-date=4 July 2020}}</ref><ref name="Grazulis">{{cite book |last1=Grazulis |first1=Thomas P. |author-link1=Thomas P. Grazulis |title=Significant Tornadoes 1680–1991: A Chronology and Analysis of Events |date=July 1993 |publisher=The Tornado Project of Environmental Films |location=[[St. Johnsbury, Vermont]] |isbn=1-879362-03-1 |page=983 }}</ref>

In the 1960s, a group of citizens created a [[living history]] complex known as [[Westville, Georgia|Westville]]. They relocated 30 historic structures to create a grouping of western Georgia architecture as would have been found in an 1850s working village. Some of the buildings were purchased from the collection of [[John Word West]] established in 1928 in [[Jonesboro, Georgia]]. The village, staffed by volunteers to give the sense of daily life, has since moved to [[Columbus, Georgia]].<ref name="Matthew M. Moye, Lumpkin"/>

The nearby private [[Stewart Detention Center]] houses federal detainees for the [[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]]. The facility is owned and run by [[CoreCivic]]. In 2011 Stewart ranked as the largest and busiest such facility in the United States. Stewart County's share of revenue from the federal government, 85 cents per inmate per day, amounted to more than half of the county's entire annual budget.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Redmon|first1=Jeremy|title=Georgia deportation jail largest in nation|url=http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/georgia-deportation-jail-largest-in-nation/nQpkZ/|access-date=1 August 2016|publisher=The Atlanta Journal-Constitution|date=17 Jan 2011}}</ref> It was removed from the 2020 U.S. Census geography for Lumpkin city hence the decline in population.