Augusta, Georgia
Augusta Georgia is a great place to do a lot of things. Not only does it have one of the best mottos in the country, "We feel good!" It's also a great place to check out all kinds of sporting events, find plenty of work to do, and take a long stroll along both its river walk and Broad Street. All of these pursuits are what make Augusta one of the better places in the south to either visit or put down some roots. While there was a time when it seemed like businesses and the public were abandoning the downtown area, that era is history for this city today.
In this day and age, Augusta is once again a thriving southern belle where a person can find all kinds of work, either in an administrative context or in a warehouse setting. With so much work to do, it might even be easy to forget that this is also a great place to check out golf, disc golf, the local roller derby or a minor league baseball game. On top of it all, Augusta has Broad Street, which is the second largest broad street in the entire country. With well over 200 years of history, Augusta is has a lot to offer.
Augusta is a great place to live in. It has something to appeal to everyone's senses. People of any age or any profession will surely find the city exciting and vivacious to their own liking.
Augusta History
Augusta Georgia is a location with significant history and culture. The native people used the area as a place to cross the Savannah River for thousands of years because of the nearby water fall and the fall line's accessibility. However, white people began to move in during the early days of Georgia's British colony days. The official founding year of Augusta Georgia was 1735 by a group of soldiers led by Noble Jones. The earliest reason was for a first line of defense against possible attacks by groups of French and Spanish soldiers. The name of Augusta comes from Princess Augusta, who was the wife of Frederick, the Prince of Wales.
The town was established and knew peace with the local Native American people such as the Cherokee and the Creek peoples. In 1739, the European settlers began to build a road which would connect Augusta to the city of Savannah. This road proved to be extremely convenient because it allowed people to reach the newer town by horse instead of just by boat. In the year 1750, the people built Saint Paul's church, the first in the new city.
During the American Revolutionary War, Augusta fell into the hands of the British several times. When the Americans held it, the city was the capital of Georgia. Between the Revolution and the Civil War, a canal was established that allowed more trade to take place. The city began to work in textiles, gunpowder and paper production. In 1828, the Medical Academy of Georgia was formed, and physicians began to be trained in a few rooms borrowed from the local hospital. However, this did not formally become a part of the University of Georgia until 1873.
In 1845, a railroad came about, which allowed easy transportation to Atlanta. The railroad even allowed easy access to the Mississippi River. Also in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention formed in Augusta, as southern baptists separated from northern baptists over the practice of slavery. When the Civil War came about, Augusta was not touched until 1863, when panic gripped the streets as General Sherman's army marched nearby and refugees crowded the city to its bursting point.
After the war, life was prosperous in Augusta, and it became among the top markets for cotton in the world. Shortly before World War II began, the US Army constructed Camp Gordon within Augusta. A few years after that war ended, the Civil Rights Movement began to pick up steam. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, the local government battled to bring businesses back into the main city. In recent years, this is finally happening successfully.
About Augusta, Georgia
Augusta was built on the Savannah River on what's called the fall line. Near a water fall on the side closest to the valuable shipping opportunities of the ocean, it was originally intended as having a lot of functions. Trade was obviously an important function, and water falls can provide a lot of power for mills of various kinds. Later on, the Clarks Hill Dam made generating electricity from the water relatively inexpensive, environmentally friendly and easy. Back in the 1700s, the area was also under the very real threat of invasion by the French and the Spanish. The location on the Savannah is excellent, but it's made even better by being fairly close to the border between Georgia and South Carolina.
Being close to both states means that the locals can take advantage off job opportunities that will inevitably present themselves in either state, not that Augusta needs much in the way of employment. The University Hospital and Medical District employ tens of thousands of people and contribute nearly $2 billion to the local economy. The U.S. Army Signal Center at Ford Gordon also employs a reasonable number of people. In addition to that, there are a lot of headquarters and distribution centers, including T-Mobile, Solo Cup Company, John Deere, Procter & Gamble, NutraSweet, Teleperformance, as well as a large number of others.
Of course, there's more to life than just working, and the folks in Augusta are well aware of that. It is the kind of place where sports are taken very seriously. It's a great place to find exciting sporting events to watch. The Augusta Greenjackets are the minor league team under the San Francisco Giants, and Cal Ripken, Jr. owns the club. There's a professional hockey team based in Augusta called the Riverhawks, and there's even a skater owned roller derby team known as the Soul City Sirens. With so many fun things to watch, not counting all the parks to go explore, Augusta is a pretty happening place.
About Augusta-Richmond County, Georgia
Augusta Georgia and Richmond County have merged their operations. Whereas Augusta used to just be the seat of Richmond County, now the two conduct their operations as a single entity, consolidated and simplified. However, before this consolidation occurred, Richmond County was one of the original counties that was commissioned when Georgia first began. The county establishment goes all the way back to February of 1777. Now the area goes by the name Augusta-Richmond County, or just Augusta. When referencing past information such as the 2000 Census, however, this article will refer to the area by its prior name of Richmond County.
Richmond County was named in honor of a man named Charles Lennox, who was the 3rd Duke of Richmond. He was a politician in Great Britain, and was sympathetic to the American colonies' desire to run themselves. For his assistance in freeing Georgia during the American Revolution, the county was named in Mr. Lennox's honor. Originally, the land composing this county came out of the Church of England's Parish of St. Paul.
Just slightly over 324 square miles of the former Richmond County is land, with just over 4 square miles being composed of water. For all this land, the population density was measured as being 616 people per square mile as of the 2000 Census report.
The 2000 Census proclaimed that there were just shy of 200,000 people living in a total of nearly 74,000 households living in Richmond County. Of all these people, there were just under 50,000 families, out of which just over 41% were married couples living together. The area is made up rather equally of African American and caucasian people, with a small number of Asians and other races rounding out the total mix of people.
The mixture of men to women was fairly kind in Richmond County. Going by the 2000 Census, there were a total of roughly 93 males for every 100 females. However, in the over 18 age bracket, there were just under 90 men for every hundred women. Men made an average of about $30,000 per year, while women took in roughly $23,500.