Albany is located in a region which was long inhabited by the
Creek Indians, who called it
Thronateeska after their word for "
flint", the valuable mineral found in beds near the Flint River. They used it for making arrowheads and other tools. In 1830,
U.S. Congress passed the
Indian Removal Act, and the United States made treaties to extinguish Creek and other Native American land claims in the Southeast. The U.S. Army forcibly removed most of the native peoples to
Indian Territory, lands west of the
Mississippi River.
Nelson Tift European-American settlement began with
Nelson Tift of
Groton, Connecticut, who took land along the
Flint River in October 1836 after
Indian removal. Tift and his colleagues named the new town Albany after
the capital of New York; noting that New York's Albany was a commercial center located at the headwaters of the
Hudson River, they hoped that their town near the headwaters of the Flint would prove to be just as successful. It proved to be nowhere near as prosperous. Alexander Shotwell laid out the town in 1836, and it was incorporated as a city by an act of the General Assembly of Georgia on December 27, 1838. Tift was the city's leading entrepreneur for decades. An ardent booster, he promoted education, business, and railroad construction. During the Civil War he provided naval supplies and helped build two ships. He opposed
Radical Reconstruction inside the state and in Congress, and was scornful of the
Yankee carpetbaggers who came in. Historian John Fair concludes that Tift became "more Southern than many natives." This area was developed for cotton cultivation by planters, who used numerous enslaved African Americans to clear lands and process the cotton. As a result of the planters' acquisition of slave workers, by 1840 Dougherty County's majority population was black, composed overwhelmingly of slaves. The market center for cotton
plantations, Albany was in a prime location for shipping cotton to other markets by
steamboats. In 1858, Tift hired
Horace King, a native of the Deep South and a former slaveand a well-respected bridge builder and engineerto construct a
toll bridge over the Flint River. King's bridge toll house still stands. Already important as a shipping port, Albany later became an important railroad hub in southwestern Georgia. Seven lines were constructed to the town. An exhibit on trains is located at the Thronateeska Heritage Center in the former
railroad station.
Carey Wentworth Styles After the war,
Carey Wentworth Styles moved to Albany and founded the newspaper
Albany News. In the early years following the war, Styles, like Tift, took great exception to the
Radical Reconstruction program then in force, and advocated for a more moderate response based on his interpretation of Georgia's rights under the
Constitution. Styles backed "constitutional reconstruction" advanced by
Benjamin H. Hill and sought support for the idea from the national
Democratic party. While on a trip to
Atlanta in May 1868, to meet with Democratic party leaders, Styles took measure of the contemporary Atlanta newspapers, and found them lacking. Styles believed them to be little more than organs for the
Radical Republican reconstruction agenda. He resolved to bring a paper aligned with the Democratic party viewpoint to the Atlanta market, one supporting his constitutional reconstruction ideals. On June 16, 1868, the
new Democratic daily (as he described it) printed its first edition, under the name
The Constitution. After his legislative service, Styles sold the Albany newspaper in 1876 and returned to Atlanta.
20th century to present While integral to the economic life of the town, the Flint River has flooded regularly. It caused extensive property damage in 1841 and 1925. The city has also been subject to
tornadoes. On February 10, 1940, a severe tornado hit Albany, killing eighteen people and causing large-scale damage.
1940 tornado gallery Georgia - Albany - NARA - 23936971 (cropped).jpg Georgia - Albany - NARA - 23936969 (cropped).jpg Georgia - Albany - NARA - 23936967 (cropped).jpg Georgia - Albany - NARA - 23936965 (cropped).jpg Georgia - Albany - NARA - 23936961 (cropped).jpg Georgia - Albany - NARA - 23936959 (cropped).jpg Georgia - Albany - NARA - 23936957 (cropped).jpg On April 11, 1906, the
Carnegie Library, created by matching funds from the philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie, was opened downtown. Originally a
segregated facility under
Jim Crow laws, it was not open to African Americans until after the passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. It functioned as a library through 1985. In 1992, after renovation, the building was reopened as the headquarters of the Albany Area Arts Council. In 1912, the downtown U.S. Post Office and courthouse building opened. Other federal projects have been important to the city and region. In 1937, Chehaw Park was constructed as a part of a
New Deal program under the administration of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt during the
Great Depression. Major changes came with the expansion of military facilities in the city, secured by the powerful
Southern Block in Congress. A
U.S. Army Air Corps training base was built near Albany on land owned by the city and leased to the Air Corps for $1 a year. Construction of the base and airfield by the
Army Corps of Engineers began on March 25, 1941. After being used during World War II, the airfield was temporarily deactivated between August 15, 1946, and September 1, 1947. After the beginning of the
Cold War and the founding of the
U.S. Air Force in late 1947, the airfield was reactivated and upgraded with runways for a U.S. Air Force base. It was named
Turner Air Force Base. The Air Force used this base for heavy bomber jets, such as the
B-52 Stratofortress. A number of other Air Force units were also housed at this base. and refueling and maintenance functions. In 1951, the
U.S. Marine Corps established a logistics base on the eastern outskirts of Albany. During the 1950s and 1960s, so many white servicemen and associated workers arrived that the city briefly became majority white for the first time since 1870. In 1960, the population of Albany reached 50,000 people. During 1961–1962, African Americans in Albany played a prominent role in the
Civil Rights Movement (see the
Albany Movement). They led protests and non-violent demonstrations to end segregation of public facilities, gain the right to vote, and advance social justice. Assisted by activists from
SCLC,
CORE,
SNCC, and the
NAACP, African Americans and supporters took a stand to fight segregation through nonviolence. The city repealed its
Jim Crow laws in 1963, but African Americans did not recover the ability to exercise their voting rights until Congress passed enforcement authority with the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1967, the Air Force closed all its operations at the base, which was transferred to the
U.S. Navy and renamed Naval Air Station Albany. NAS Albany was used as the shore base of nearly all the Navy's
RA-5C Vigilante twin-jet, carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft. In 1974, the base was closed and the property was returned to the city. In 1979, the Miller Brewing Company purchased part of the old naval base's property to build a new brewery. On October 10, 2018
Hurricane Michael, the first major hurricane (Category 3+) to directly impact Georgia since the 1890s, plowed through South Georgia leaving widespread devastation in its path. ==Geography==