WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

One of the most common questions which historians ask of themselves is “What might have been?”  What would happened if a war came out differently?  What might have happened if only the bad died young?  What might have happened if they built it and no one ever came or if they didn’t build and many would have come? The history of Laurens County, Georgia is filled with these questions.

In the late 1830s,  Georgia’s leading businessmen were planning a new transportation project, one which they knew would change the history of our state for centuries to come.  In its infancy, the railroads were just coming to America.  The largest at the time was a railroad which would run from Georgia’s main port city of Savannah inland to the new burgeoning towns of Macon and Columbus with an eye to larger towns in northern Georgia.

The farmers of Laurens County were afraid of what might happen to their plantations, farms and livestock if a railroad entered the county from the northwest running in a southeasterly direction just north of Dublin and ending in Savannah.  They looked to one of their own, the iconic George M. Troup, a former congressman, United States senator, and Governor of Georgia, to lead the opposition to the prime, most direct, flattest route.  The people in Laurens County prevailed and the railroad altered its plans to move northward through Gordon, McIntyre, and Toomsboro in Wilkinson County.

Twenty five years later, the veto appeared to have been a wide decision.  When General William Tecumseh’s 60,000-man right wing passed through the area in the autumn of 1864, the destructive hoard would have cut a swath of utter annihilation throughout the countryside and the infrastructure of the inland port of Dublin.  The long term impact of a major railroad intersecting with a major river could have catapulted the city into a major transportation and economic center of the state, possibly the site of the state’s capital before the Civil War.

The U.S. Congress, realizing that war with Germany was inevitable, began preparations by appropriating funds for a vast network of super military highways throughout the country.  One such highway was to run through Central Georgia from Swainsboro through Wrightsville.  From there, it would run to Dublin, Jeffersonville, and Macon. Franklin Roosevelt vetoed the bill.  The Interstate system,  which was proposed in the late 1930s, was designed to be used as a system of military roads if the need arose.  Interstate Highway 16, designed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower,  connects the seaport of Savannah  with Fort Stewart and the air base at Warner Robins and the north-south artery of Interstate 75.

In the years following the end of World War II, the Defense Department initiated a plan to separate the Army Air Corps into a two units, the regular Army and the United States Air Force.  Consequently, a new military academy would be necessary to train new officers, pilots, and ground personnel.  Congressman Carl Vinson, the powerful chairman of the House Armed Forces Naval Committee, cast his strong vote for the location of the new Air Force Academy in the southern end of his congressional district centered around the virtually brand new Laurens County Airport, which was established in 1943 as a Naval airport to serve the staff and patients of the United States Naval Hospital in Dublin. All of the other military academies were in the North, so it was only natural that during a time when the Democratic party was lead by a solid coalition of powerful southern democratic politicians.  As you know, Colorado, not the flattest place in the country, was awarded the site. 

In the summer of 1956, some 65 years ago, Laurens County’s congressman, Carl Vinson of Milledgeville, proposed legislation to establish a B-52 bomber base centered on the Laurens County Airport and some ten thousand acres around.  The economic impact would have changed the course of Laurens County for many centuries to come even with the closing of such bases at the end of the Cold War.

Vinson’s bill was passed.  In a line item veto, President Dwight D. Eisenhower killed the project in favor of a similar base in his adopted home state of Kansas. 

Vinson would not give up.  In the following year of 1957, Vinson proposed a naval fighter base in the Buckeye District of northeastern Laurens and southwestern Johnson counties. Once again, the project, one of great lasting impact, never got off the ground.

In April 1906, a group of Dublin’s most outstanding business leaders filed a

petition to establish a street car franchise in Dublin.  The incorporators, who included J.M. Finn, B.H. Rawls, E.P. Rentz, J.M. Outler, J.M. Page, T.J. Pritchett, J.S. Simons, Jr., J.D. Smith, J.E. Smith, Jr., G.H. Williams, Clark Grier, William Pritchett, Hal M. Stanley, and J.S. Adams, envisioned a street car line running from the river along Jackson Street to the end of Bellevue and another line running along Jefferson Street.  The project apparently never materialized.

Dreamers dream.  And in the spring of 1907, Col. C.P. Goodyear, of Brunswick, Georgia, proposed building a canal from to just north of Dublin where it would flow into the Oconee River down to its junction with the Ocmulgee to form the Altamaha River to the coast ad Darien.  Obviously the project never came to completion. 

In the summer of 1986, Professor Paul Elbert, of Middle Georgia College,  launched a campaign to bring establish a Super Collider in Middle Georgia.  A super collider was designed to collide atoms together at high rates of speed  to produce energy and allow scientists to study other aspects of physics. .  The 4 plus billion project would employ at least 2500 persons in high paying professional jobs.   Elbert estimated that 160 million dollars a year would be pumped into the local economy.  Elbert believed that the local site located in southwestern Laurens and northeastern Dodge counties was ideal because of the area’s relatively flat topography.  

As many as a dozen other states were competing for the massive project.  However, the governor of Georgia, Joe Frank Harris, was so keen on Georgia participating in what have been one of the state’s largest economic projects of the 20th Century.  

In the end, the Super Collider didn’t come to Laurens County, to Georgia, or to any other state or country for that matter.

And finally, in the summer of 1911, the Augusta franchise of the South Atlantic “Sally” League folded.  Immediately Dublin baseball boosters began plans to buy the team.  The move never materialized as the season ended within a few weeks.  Dublin would acquire four minor league teams of the Reds, Pirates, Orioles, and Braves between 1949 and 1962 in the Georgia State and Georgia Florida leagues.