Dodge County History

 “Some time ago, I can’t say when,  
It was done by wise and solemn men,
Old generous Laurens gave a nook,
Some from Pulaski we took;
Montgomery had a little to spare,
The rest was furnished by Telfair,
To make the County of Dodge.”
 Mr. H. W. J. Ham
Eastman Times, 1873

 Dodge County was created by an Act of the General Assembly on October 26, 1870. It was named in honor of William E. Dodge (1805-1883), a U.S. Representative from New York, and noted abolitionist.

As virgin pine timber was thought the finest yellow pine in the world, lumberman and capitalists from the north and east began flooding the region, buying timberland and erecting sawmills. Among these capitalists were William E. Dodge and William Pitt Eastman, of New Hampshire.

Dodge formed the Dodge Land Company, which purchased 300,000 acres of virgin pine timberland encompassing most of what is now Dodge, Laurens, Pulaski, Telfair, and Montgomery Counties, and reached from the Oconee to the Ocmulgee River. The purchases sparked a land war, and led to over fifty years of court cases, which questioned the validity of the land deeds.

In 1881, approximately a mile from where modern-day Eastman stands, Amoskeag Lumber built one of the largest and most hotly-contested sawmills ever operated in Georgia.

In 1869, the Macon and Brunswick railroad (currently the Southern Railroad) was built, and towns began springing up along the line. As the railroad expanded, towns became far removed from the Hawkinsville county seat, and it became apparent that a new county and county seat were needed. Initially named Station Number 13, the town of Eastman was born.

At the time of its creation, only 334 voters resided in the new Dodge County, as well as only 490 children between the ages of six and eighteen years of age.

William Pitt Eastman donated the land for the new town and county seat, as well as for the new courthouse. Mr. Dodge, in whose honor the new county was named, expressed his appreciation by erecting a magnificent courthouse and gifting it to the new county’s citizens. Costing approximately twenty-five thousand dollars, the new two-story frame structure was situated in a circle instead of the traditional courthouse square. Crafted of the finest heart pine lumber, Dodge’s courthouse was considered one of the finest in the state, and was the first of three Dodge county courthouses. Used until 1908, the courthouse was torn down and replaced in favor of a more modern and spacious building. The second courthouse burned in 1939, and its replacement is still used today.