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Athens, Georgia

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A city and the county-seat of Clarke county, Georgia, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, about 73 m. E. by N. of Atlanta. Pop. (1890) 8639; (1900) 10,245, of whom 5190 were negroes and only 114 were foreign-born; (1906, estimate) 11,211. It is served by the Georgia, the Central of Georgia, the Southern, the Seaboard Air Line and the Gainesville Midland railways. Athens is an important educational centre. It was founded in 1801 as the seat of the university of Georgia, which had been chartered in 1785. Franklin College, the academic department of the university, was opened in 1801, and afterwards the State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (the School of Science, 1872), the State Normal School (co-educational, 1891), the School of Pharmacy (1903), the University Summer School (1903), the School of Forestry (1906), and the Georgia State College of Agriculture (1906), also branches of the university, were established at Athens, and what had been the Lumpkin Law School (incorporated in 1859) became the law department of the university in 1867. Branches of the university not in Athens are: the North Georgia Agricultural College (established in 1871; became a part of the university in 1872), at Dahlonega; the medical department, at Augusta (1873; founded as the Georgia Medical College in 1829); the Georgia School of Technology (1885), at Atlanta; the Georgia Normal and Industrial College for Girls (1889), at Milledgeville; and the Georgia Industrial College for Colored Youth (1890), near Savannah. At Athens also are several secondary schools, and the Lucy Cobb Institute (for girls), opened in 1858 and named in honour of a daughter of its founder, Gen. T. R. R. Cobb (1823-1862). The city has various manufactures, the most important being fertilizers, cotton goods, and cotton-seed oil and cake; the value of the total factory product in 1905 was $1,158,205, an increase of 70.9% in five years. Athens was chartered as a city in 1872.