Welcome to Brooks County

Our Government consists of a five-member Board of Commissioners. Under the guidelines of the Commissioners is a County Administrator, a Sheriff and Tax Commissioner, the Judicial System and other Boards and Authorities.

Brooks County is well known for its robust agricultural footprint as well as its wildlife. Quail, dove, ducks, and deer abound in the fields and forests. Brooks County also offers excellent fishing in its many lakes and streams, which are open to the public.

Brooks County Hospital, a part of Archbold Medical Center, a 25-bed facility was established in 1935 and has 24-hour emergency facilities.

History and Establishment

Brooks County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia, on its southern border with Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 16,243. The county seat is Quitman. In 1818 U.S. president Andrew Jackson made a treaty with the Spanish and the Native Americans and claimed the land that is now Brooks County for the United States. Settlers later came down the Coffee Road from middle Georgia in their covered wagons, ox-drawn carts, and buggies. These early settlers had three things uppermost in their minds: religion, education, and agriculture. Roads were projected to run from the courthouse to each part of the county. Founded on December 11, 1858, Brooks County was created from portions of Lowndes and Thomas counties.

The 494-square-mile county was named for Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina, an extremely popular young legislator known for his intensely southern sentiments and his zealous defense of southern rights. In 1853 Brooks was elected to Congress as a States' Rights Democrat and served until his death four years later, at the age of thirty-eight. A year later the Georgia legislature showed their appreciation of him by naming a county for him. The largest town in Brooks County, Quitman, was named the county seat. Betty Sheffield Camellia Betty Sheffield Camellia The first courthouse, a small, temporary building, opened in 1859. A permanent edifice was begun in the same year, but the Civil War (1861-65) delayed its construction. That courthouse, completed in 1864, is still in use today, although it has undergone remodeling and modernizing.

Quitman is known as the Camellia City because of the plants grown there, and also because Betty Sheffield, developer of the well-known camellia variety of the same name, was a longtime resident. Other small towns in the county include Barney (famous for its peaches), Barwick, Morven, and Pavo.