Storm on the Horizon

There’s a political storm brewing in my current home state that I only became aware of because of an attention grabbing headline at the Drudge Report this morning.

White Atlanta suburbs push for secession…

It’s just the sort of thing to make this former New York Yankee now living in the Deep South here in Savannah perk up and take notice of some state politics. So I did a little quick poking around ala Google and here is what I found out.

Background

Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton county although a portion of the city extends over into DeKalb county, which seems to be a curious result of the original sight selection for a railroad terminal. Apparently there was a strong “not in my back yard” mindset in North Georgia in the 1830’s because the residents of Decatur were worried about train noise and insisted the proposed terminal be built well outside of town to the west across the Chattahoochee River. From what I can gather Fulton county was formed from the western half of DeKalb count round about 1853 as the area west of the river grew (due to the railroad terminal, of course).

Then skip ahead to the Great Depression in the early 1930’s. The two poor, rural, scarcely populated counties just to the south (Campbell county) and north (Milton county) of Fulton county were all merged together because the poorer counties were going bankrupt at the time. It created a sprawling elongated Fulton county, with the areas of the two former counties being referred to as North Fulton and South Fulton. It seemed all was well. [Read more…]