Editing Bibb County, Georgia (section)

===Civil War to present===
{{Main|Macon, Georgia#History|l1 = Macon, Georgia - History}}
During the Civil War, an estimated 10% of the white males in the county lost their lives while serving in the [[Confederate Army|Confederate States Army]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5vKMMkmNPSgC&pg=PA123 |title=Cotton, Fire, and Dreams|isbn=9780865545984 |last1=Davis |first1=Robert Scott |year=1998 |publisher=Mercer University Press }}</ref> The war gained the emancipation of slaves across the South. Georgia had been a battleground, and Atlanta and many other areas were left in ruins.

Well into the 20th century, the county depended on cotton and other agriculture as its economic base. It was subject to related vagaries of weather, financial markets, and the devastation of the invasive [[boll weevil]] in the early 20th century, which destroyed cotton crops across the South.

After the Civil War and during the 20th century, the county seat of Macon continued to serve as the county's principal population center, site of the most significant landmarks, and the location of major historical events.

On July 31, 2012, voters in the City of Macon (57.8% approval) and Bibb County (56.7% approval) passed a referendum to merge the governments of the city and the county, based on the authorization of House Bill 1171 passed by the [[Georgia General Assembly]] earlier in the year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/sum/hb1171.htm|title=HB 1171 - Macon-Bibb County; create and incorporate new political body corporate|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030001652/http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/sum/hb1171.htm|archive-date=October 30, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> Four previous consolidation attempts (in 1933, 1960, 1972, and 1976) had failed.<ref name="City-County Consolidation Proposals, 1921 - Present">[http://www.naco.org/Counties/Documents/City%20County%20Consolidations.01.01.2011.pdf City-County Consolidation Proposals, 1921 - Present] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120719083354/http://www.naco.org/Counties/Documents/City%20County%20Consolidations.01.01.2011.pdf|date=July 19, 2012}}, ''National Association of Counties''. Retrieved February 11, 2011.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ai.org/legislative/interim/committee/2005/committees/prelim/MCCC02.pdf |title=The Effects on City-County Consolidation |access-date=August 28, 2012 |archive-date=July 21, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140721082018/http://www.ai.org/legislative/interim/committee/2005/committees/prelim/MCCC02.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="autogenerated3">Consolidation pass for Macon and Bibb county in the 2012 vote.[http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04152005-170723/unrestricted/05_lsj_CHAPTER_4_b.pdf CONSOLIDATION OF CITY AND COUNTY GOVERNMENTS: ATTEMPTS IN FIVE CITIES] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130120034927/http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04152005-170723/unrestricted/05_lsj_CHAPTER_4_b.pdf|date=January 20, 2013}}. Retrieved September 14, 2010.</ref> The consolidation took effect on January 1, 2014, along with the [[Municipal deannexation in the United States|deannexation]] from the city of a small portion of land in Jones County.

In addition to Macon, Bibb County contained one other municipality, [[Payne, Georgia|Payne City]] (or Payne), an [[Enclave and exclave|enclave]] of around 200 people that was surrounded entirely by the preconsolidation City of Macon. In the 2012 referendum, Payne City voters rejected consolidation by a vote of 9 to 7, so it was not merged into the consolidated government. In early 2015, at the request of the small city's government, the Georgia General Assembly passed a bill dissolving Payne City, merging it with the rest of Macon-Bibb County.<ref name=":0" />