Editing Valdosta, Georgia (section)

===First half of the 20th century===
[[File:ValdostaGA1900.jpg|thumb|Downtown Valdosta {{Circa|1900|lk=no}}|left]]

A new courthouse was planned in 1900 to replace the smaller courthouse. Construction began in 1904 for around $75,000. The old courthouse was torn down in March 1904. The new courthouse was completed in 1904, and on April 14, 1905, the first session of court took place in the new courthouse.<ref>{{cite web |title=Lowndes County Courthouse |url=http://valdostamuseum.com/exhibitions/online-exhibits-2/places/lowndes-county-courthouse/ |access-date=13 April 2017 |website=Lowndes County Historical Society Museum}}</ref>

In November 1902, the Harris Nickel-Plate Circus' prize elephant, Gypsy, went on a rampage and killed her trainer James O'Rourke. After terrorizing the town for a couple of hours, she ran off to Cherry Creek, north of Valdosta. Gypsy was chased by Police Chief Calvin Dampier and a posse. Gypsy was [[Elephant execution in the United States|shot and killed]] and buried on site. James O'Rourke was buried in Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Multimedia.jsp?id=m-2467|title=Gypsy|access-date=December 31, 2007 |encyclopedia=The New Georgia Encyclopedia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/11/24/117983485.pdf|title=Elephant Kills Keeper |date=1902-11-24 |work=The New York Times |access-date=January 13, 2014}}</ref>

On July 28, 1907, Valdosta voted to become a [[Dry county|dry city]]; a record $10,000 worth of whiskey was sold on the last day. The city had been wet since its founding.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title= Valdosta's Bars Are Now Closed|newspaper= Atlanta Constitution|location= Atlanta, Georgia|date= 29 July 1907}}</ref>

In 1910, cotton was still important to the economy, and [[Fortune (magazine)|''Fortune'']] magazine ranked Valdosta as the richest city in America by per capita income.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.georgiaretire.com/main1/staticpages/index.php?page=20040406113914704 |title=Triple Crown Hometowns|access-date=January 8, 2008  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071021071002/http://www.georgiaretire.com/main1/staticpages/index.php?page=20040406113914704 |archive-date = 2007-10-21}}</ref> Soon after that, the [[boll weevil]] invaded the South, moving east through the states and killing much of the cotton crop in this area in 1917. Agriculture in this area turned to [[tobacco]] and [[pine]] [[timber]]. In January 1913, the South Georgia State Normal College opened in Valdosta on the edge of town. Over the course of the following century, it evolved into [[Valdosta State University]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=History |url=https://www.valdosta.edu/about/facts/history.php |access-date=2024-01-30 |website=Valdosta State University}}</ref>

[[File:ValdostaStreetcar1912.jpg|thumb|right|Valdosta streetcar in 1912]]

On May 16, 1918, a white planter named Hampton Smith was shot and killed at his house near [[Morven, Georgia]], by a black farm worker named Sidney Johnson who was routinely mistreated by Smith. Johnson also shot Smith's wife but she later recovered. Johnson hid for several days in Valdosta without discovery.<ref name="meyers2006killing">{{cite journal| author=Meyers, Christopher C.| title='Killing Them by the Wholesale': A Lynching Rampage in South Georgia| journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly| year=2006| volume=90| number=2| pages=214–235| publisher=JSTOR| url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_q6VhhkczIYU2hSTHJtbHFmWGc/view?usp=sharing |access-date=14 May 2013}}</ref> [[Lynching|Lynch mobs]] formed in Valdosta ransacking Lowndes and Brooks counties for a week looking for Johnson and his alleged accomplices. These mobs lynched at least 13 African Americans, among them [[Mary Turner (lynching victim)|Mary Turner]] and her unborn eight-month-old baby who was cut from her body and murdered. Mary Turner's husband [[Hazel Turner]] was also lynched the day before.<ref name="meyers2006killing"/>

Sidney Johnson was turned in by an acquaintance, and on May 22 Police Chief Calvin Dampier led a shootout at the Valdosta house where he was hiding. Following his death, a crowd of more than 700 castrated Johnson's body, then dragged it behind a vehicle down Patterson Street and all the way to Morven, Georgia, near the site of Smith's murder. There the body of Johnson was hanged and burned on a tree. That afternoon, Governor [[Hugh Dorsey]] ordered the state militia to be dispatched to Valdosta to halt the lynch mobs, but they arrived too late for many victims. Dorsey later denounced the lynchings, but none of the participants were ever prosecuted.<ref name="meyers2006killing"/>

Following the violence, more than 500 African Americans fled from Lowndes and Brooks counties to escape such oppressive conditions and violence. From 1880 to 1930, Brooks County had the highest number of lynchings in the state of Georgia.<ref name="meyers2006killing"/> By 1922 local chapters of the [[Ku Klux Klan]], which had been revived starting in 1915, were holding rallies openly in Valdosta.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.maryturner.org/ |title=Remembering Mary Turner |publisher=Maryturner.org |date=1918-07-10 |access-date=2016-07-13}}</ref>