Retiring Guy's Digest: Population loss in Georgia: Terrell County/Dawson

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Population loss in Georgia: Terrell County/Dawson

It all started here.

Population loss as in major -- 50% or more. First post in the series.

Source: Wikipedia (Terrell County, Dawson)

Dawson is the county seat of Terrell County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-90%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

10.8% - Terrell County
29.9% - Georgia
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

19.8% - Terrell County
13.9% - Georgia
16.0% - U.S.

% of population living in poverty:

33.0% - Terrell County
14.3% - Georgia
11.8% - U.S.

The last time Terrell County voted for a GOP presidential candidate was in 1992. Clinton won 54.1% of the vote in 2016. George Wallace won 49.7% of the vote in 1968, a plurality.

Terrell County Public Library, Dawson

Related reading:
Still 'Terrible Terrell'. (The New York Times, 8/14/1977)

DAWSON, Ga. — “Catty‐cornered,” as Southerners say, across the intersection ,from the red‐brick Terrell County Court House here is the TeenClub swimming pool operated by the county youth foundation. This week, with the south Georgia sun blazing down and the thermometer hovering around 90, the pool was closed and silent, its water drained, its usual hordes of young white swimmers nowhere in sight.

In the old courthouse—,built in 1882 on the site of a Confederate gun factory—the pool's operators took the witness stand in a pretrial hearing for the so‐called “Dawson Five.” They swore that, at the height of the summer and with only two weeks of its season remaining, the pool had been closed and drained for repairs. They were responding to the contention of the Dawson Five defense that the Teen‐Club pool had been drained after Mayor James G. Raines had said in earlier testimony that he would not order the arrest of blacks who tried to swim there.