Albany is a medium-sized city located in Dougherty County in the southwestern section of the state of Georgia. Located on the Flint River, the city serves as the administrative center of Dougherty County and the heart of the Albany, Georgia metro area. As of 2018, the population of Albany was estimated to be around 75,000 residents.
History has it that the current location of Albany city was originally part of the Muscogee territory in Georgia. The area was referred to as Thronateeska, a native term which translates to “flint”. In 1830, a law was passed by the Congress, ordering the removal of all Native American tribes from the Southeast. This included all or most of the tribes occupying the Albany area and most of the lands to the west of the Mississippi River.
When the Indian Removal Act was enacted in the early 1830s, European-American settlers started to move in into the area, led by Nelson Tift. Tift settled on a strip of land along the Flint River in 1836. In the same year, he hired Alexander Shotwell to map-out a town on his land. Tift and his colleague named the new town after Albany, the state capital of New York, due to the similarities between the two towns or rather, their locations. It was also his hope that in the course of its development, his new town would be as successful as its counterpart in New York, an assumption that could not have been any further from the truth. Albany was officially incorporated in 1838.
Located in the heart of cotton farms and plantations in Georgia, Albany slowly developed into a shipping center, taking advantage of the easily navigable Flint River to transport cotton from the farms to the market. The economic capabilities of the city were boosted even further by the construction of a toll bridge over the Flint River in 1858. The bridge also facilitated the expansion of Albany city.
For many years, Tift was Albany’s most prominent entrepreneurs and an ardent promoter of local businesses, education, and infrastructural development. An outspoken supporter of slavery before and after the civil war, Tift funded the construction of two ships and provided the Confederate forces with naval supplies.
Today, Albany is a mixed-use city boasting of a thriving industrial base, a well-established education sector, world-class infrastructure, and dozens of family-friendly neighborhoods. The city is also a low-key tourist destination that is particularly popular among the southerners.
