South Georgia Spotlight: HAZLEHURST, Georgia
Hazlehurst exists because of a railroad, and it still carries that origin with quiet pride. In 1870, workers laying the Macon and Brunswick Railroad from both ends met almost exactly in the middle of southeast Georgia. At that meeting point, a depot sprang up, a community formed, and the town was named for Colonel George Hall Hazlehurst, the railroad engineer who directed the line southward from Macon. When Jeff Davis County was carved out of parts of Appling and Coffee Counties in 1905, Hazlehurst was the natural choice for its seat.
The railroad shaped the city’s identity, and so did what came after it. After World War II, community leaders formed Balance Agriculture with Industry, a local campaign that brought manufacturing jobs to complement the agricultural economy that had defined the area. The effort earned Hazlehurst the designation of the “Industrial City” of Georgia.
Downtown Hazlehurst still carries the bones of that history. The Jeff Davis County Courthouse, built in the early 1900s in the neoclassical revival style, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The Pace House, built in 1900 by one of the city’s original aldermen, was added to the National Register in 2003 and now houses the Hazlehurst-Jeff Davis County Historical Museum. The original Hazlehurst Depot is still in use by Norfolk Southern Railroad crews, a working reminder of how it all started.
Hazlehurst sits in what locals call the Three Rivers region of southeast Georgia, where the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers converge to form the Altamaha nearby. The Bullard Creek Wildlife Management Area, nearly 14,000 acres of forested river floodplain and swampland, draws hunters, anglers, hikers, and birdwatchers. Towns Bluff Park along the Altamaha offers camping, picnic shelters, boating, and kayaking in one of the most scenic river settings in the region.
On the calendar, Hazlehurst is home to one of the most beloved annual events in southeast Georgia. Each spring, Hazlehurst is a major stop on Peaches to the Beaches, a 200-mile yard sale along Highway 341 from Barnesville to Brunswick that draws bargain hunters from across the country. The Jeff Davis County Fair rounds out the fall in October, and the annual Christmas Parade brings the community together each December. In recent years, American Idol Season 22 runner-up Will Moseley, a Hazlehurst native, has brought national attention to the city, with the Three Rivers Arts Festival in May 2025 headlined by Moseley drawing crowds to celebrate local arts and music.
Hazlehurst is a small city with a lot of layers, and the Three Rivers region it sits in is worth exploring.