Fort Gaines, GA

Fort Gaines is the Clay County seat in southwest Georgia, with 995 residents in the 2020 census. The town sits on a 130-foot bluff above the Chattahoochee River, which forms the Georgia-Alabama line. It began around an 1816 frontier fort during U.S. expansion into Muscogee (Creek) homelands, then grew through riverboat trade. Today, Walter F. George Lake and the George Lock and Dam shape the water landscape north of town. The river view still gives the city a clear relationship with Alabama across the water.

ATTRMichael Rivera / CC BY-SA 3.0

Fort Gaines carries that history in several layers. The former fort, historic homes, the Clay County Courthouse, and the site of the Chattahoochee Female College keep the nineteenth-century town legible, while the county seat and Clay County schools keep government and education close by. The Fort Gaines Museum adds another stop for local stories and artifacts. Fort Gaines is a southwest Georgia city where a river boundary, a frontier fort, county government, and lake country meet.