Photo: Dorminy-Massee House, circa 1914, located at 516 West Central Avenue, Fitzgerald, GA. It was designed by Thomas Firth Lockwood, Sr.; listed on the National Register in 2000; photo by wikipedia username: Jud McCranie, 2015, creative commons [cc 3.0], accessed December, 2020.
Neighborhoods
Fitzgerald is one of Georgia's most fascinating cities. It is filled with significant historical architecture which reflects its founding in 1895 by Philander H. Fitzgerald, a Union Veteran's pension lawyer from Indiana who was seeking a warm, receptive area of the country where aging Union veterans and their families could retire in comfort.
The City of Fitzgerald [†], Georgia was conceived by P.H. Fitzgerald, a Union pension attorney and publisher of the American Tribune which circulated to all Union veterans. After several unusually harsh winters and drought stricken summers, the Mid-West found itself at the mercy of relief trains from elsewhere in the country. Georgia, under then Governor Northen, was one of the most generous providers. Fitzgerald dreamt of a planned City in South Georgia where veterans of both sides of the Civil War could find a fresh start. With the purchase of 100,000 acres, his dream became reality. Starting in 1895, well before the 1896 incorporation, some 2,400 families migrated to Fitzgerald, representing every state then in the Union. In short order, the original mile and a quarter square City grid was built out.
Some in Fitzgerald refer to it as The Yank-Reb City Where America Reunited.
† The City of Fitzgerald Redevelopment Program, 2016, www.fitzgeraldga.org, accessed December, 2020.