The story
History
Clarke County was created in 1801 by an act of the Georgia General Assembly on December 5. It was named for Revolutionary War hero Elijah Clarke and included 250 square miles (647.5 km2) that were formerly part of Jackson County. Colonel Clarke played a leading role the 1779 victory at the Battle of Kettle Creek in Wilkes County. The Elijah Clarke Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a monument to him in Broad Street in Athens.
As the population of the county grew in the early 19th century, its agricultural and cotton industries prospered. The adjacent plantation harvests flowed through city mills. Manufacturing and textile production operations were the major industries in Clarke County, especially after the railroad reached Athens in 1841. Athens and Clarke County were second only to Savannah and Chatham County in the amount of capital invested in manufacturing in the 1840s.
Two skirmishes were fought in Clarke County in 1864, during the American Civil War, one near Barber's Creek and the other near Mitchell's Road. Athens was occupied by the Union Army on May 29 and a provost-marshal took charge. Formal military occupation of the county ended by December 1864, though Union troops remained in the county until early 1866.
In 1801, the Clarke County Commission had selected Watkinsville (now in Oconee County) as the county seat. All county offices, including the courts and jail, moved to Athens when the seat was moved on November 24, 1871. County meetings took place in the old Athens town hall, until a new courthouse was constructed in 1876. The present courthouse was built in 1914.
On February 12, 1875, in response to complaints over the relocation of the county seat to Athens, the state legislature created Oconee County from the southwestern portion of Clarke County, making Watkinsville its seat. Clarke County thus lost one-third of its population and three-fifths of its land area.
The position of "commissioner of roads and revenue" was created by the legislature for what are today known as county commissioners. As an extension of the state, the county was to conduct welfare and health programs, build and maintain roads, and hold courts of law.
On March 29, 1973, the Georgia Legislature increased the number of county commissioners from three to five, also adding a county administrator.
In 1990, the residents voted to unify the city and county governments, creating Athens-Clarke County, the second (after Columbus-Muscogee County) unified city-county government in Georgia.
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2020 census
As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 128,671, 51,641 households, and 24,041 families. Of the residents, 17.0% were under 18 and 12.0% were 65 or older; the median age was 28.3 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.0 males, and for every 100 females 18 and over, there were 86.7 males; 94.1% of residents lived in urban areas and 5.9% lived in rural areas.
The racial makeup of the county was 58.2% White, 24.6% Black or African American, 0.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 3.9% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 6.1% from some other race, and 6.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 11.1% of the population.
Of the 51,641 households in the county, 23.0% had children under 18 living with them and 37.2% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 32.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.5% had someone living alone who was 65 or older.
The county had 55,802 housing units, of which 7.5% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 39.3% were owner-occupied and 60.7% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.7% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.4%.
From Wikipedia’s article on Clarke County, Georgia, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4