19th century

March 20, 1907

Ellis Arnall

He’s the only person who ever beat Gene Talmadge. Ellis Arnall was born in Newnan in 1907. He earned a degree in Greek from the University of the South, and a law degree from the University of Georgia. He was a young man on the rise: elected to the state legislature at 25 and attorney […]

March 19, 1806

James Jackson

It started as a swindle and ended up as a landmark Supreme Court case. In 1795, Georgia passed the Yazoo Land Act, selling 35 million acres of western land—most of present-day Alabama and Mississippi—to four land companies for $500,000, about 1.5 cents an acre, far below its value. Opponents cried foul: many legislators owned shares […]

March 17, 1869

Corra Harris

Before Margaret Mitchell, before Flannery O’Connor, Georgia produced a female author who was just as famous in her day. Corra Harris was born in Elbert County in 1869. Her writing career began out of economic necessity because of her minister husband’s alcoholism and depression. Harris wrote a letter to a New York magazine defending the […]