1887: The year Dublin was reborn

The year was 1887. A century had just elapsed since adventurous settlers first occupied what we call Laurens County today For the previous quarter of a century, the residents of Laurens County endured the fateful, devastating outcome of the Civil War. Seemingly overnight, life in Laurens County took a turn for the better, if not the best, it had ever been.

Dublin, Georgia, was officially founded as a municipality on Dec. 10, 1812. Although there are many towns that were founded before then, Dublin is officially the sixth-oldest city in Georgia. Ahead of Dublin are Louisville, Ga 1786, Savannah, Ga 1789,  Augusta, Ga. 1798, Milledgeville, Ga. 1806, and Sandersville, Ga. Nov. 1812. During the first eight decades of the life of Laurens County, Dublin, the county seat showed very little growth. The bulk of the economic growth took place on the plantations in the northern third of the county. Traveling journalists could find little to praise the fledgling town. As more and more lands were granted in southern, western, and northern Georgia, residents left for new hopes, and settlers simply skipped over Laurens County. 

The catalyst was ignited with the completion of the Dublin & Wrightsville/Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad on September 11, 1886. Almost five years would elapse before a railroad bridge would be completed, joining east and west.   Construction of a temporary depot began in 1887. A wharf to accommodate river freight was quickly erected. The lack of a bridge did not stop dreaming entrepreneurs from establishing a new railroad with Dublin being located at the intersection of more than one dozen railroads. By 1887, five railroads were in the planning stages, including the Savannah & Fort Valley, Florida – Midland Railroad, Augusta, Sandersville, & Gibson Railroad, all of which were never completed.

The first permanent bridge over the Oconee was completed on Dec. 20, 1887. The passage was free for 10 days when the company began to charge a toll.  Some preferred to cross on the ferry rather than to pay a toll.  A strong freshet washed it away in short order. It would take three and one-half years of planning, financing, and permits to restore passenger traffic across the Oconee. The Oconee Bridge Company was incorporated to replace the useless bridge. 

Dublin eventually was home to five railroads: the Wrightsville & Tennille, the Macon, Dublin, and Savannah, the Brewton and Pineora, the Dublin & Southwestern, and the Empire and Dublin, all of which connected with other lines, giving local citizens access to markets around the state and the Southeast. 

Laurens County missed out on the location of the Central of Georgia Railroad and the Macon & Brunswick Railroads, Central Georgia’s largest railroads. Dublin merchants were forced to use river boats to ship to the coast and up to Oconee, Georgia, on the Central to ship and receive their goods.  The location of the railroads allowed Laurens County to become a top cotton producer in Georgia. 

Until 1887, the watchword for Dublin was decadence caused in a major way to the abundance of alcohol in the ubiquitous barrooms on the main streets.  The prohibitionists eventually won the divisive war.  

A key indicator of the explosive growth was a twenty percent increase in the town’s population from 1000 in 1886 and 1200 in 1887.  Joel Coney built ten cottages, which were quickly grabbed up by tenants.  Land, for the meantime, was cheap. Once the explosion took place, land became a highly-valued commodity. A severe shortage of housing negatively impacted the town’s expansion.  

At that time, the city limits were the Oconee River on the East, Marion Street on the South, Church Street on West and Stubbs Mill Creek on the North. A few houses were being erected along the Old Hawkinsville Wagon Road, today known as Bellevue Avenue. 

A second indicator was the large number of river boats plying the Oconee’s muddy waters. Captain R.C. Henry and Col. John M. Stubbs led a financially strong group of riverboat men in establishing Dublin as an inland port of eastern Middle Georgia.  

Boats after barges filled with timber were departing Dublin down the Oconee River to the Ocmulgee and down the Altamaha to Darien, Georgia, an ancient Georgia seaport. Those who could not afford their own boats bound virgin trees together into rafts for the several-day trip to the Atlantic Ocean for shipment around the country and to Europe.

A lucrative spinoff of the forests was the large amounts of turpentine produced in the county. The edge of town and the rest of the county were filled with sawmills.  The clay lands along the river in Dublin were ideal for the profitable production of bricks in the brickyards on either side of East Jackson Street at the river bridges.

Telegraph wires were put up from Tennille, Georgia, and then to Brewton, aka Bruton, and eventually Dublin.  The telegraph allowed Laurens Countians access to the rest of the world for the first time. Dublin had two drug stores, three hotels, sixteen dry goods stores, two barrooms, and a single white church, one shared by the Baptists and Methodists, and First A.B. Church. The Dublin Post, the town’s only newspaper, merged with the New Era to form the Dublin Courier. 

In late May 1889, a horrendous fire struck the first three blocks on the southern margin of West Jackson Street.  Undaunted, the owners began erecting new buildings as the ashes were still smoldering. The loss of the burning of the older wooden buildings was alleviated by their replacement with brick buildings, some of which still stand today.

By the summer of 1891, Dublin’s place as the economic center of East Central Georgia was firmly established.  The erection of a railroad bridge and a passenger bridge accelerated the completion of five railroads. The 1910 Census stated that Dublin was the seventh largest city and Laurens County was the sixth largest county in Georgia. From 1890 to 1918, Dublin’s population grew so fast that city boosters proclaimed their city, “The only town in Georgia that is doublin’ all the time.”