Morgan, GA

Morgan has been Calhoun County's seat since the county was created in 1854, and the city's layout still revolves around that job. The present courthouse on the square was built in 1935 after two earlier courthouses burned, so county government is visible in the center of town rather than tucked away on the edge. Morgan was incorporated in 1856 and sits near the middle of a rural southwest Georgia county, about thirty miles west of Albany and twenty-six miles northeast of Blakely.

ATTRMichael Rivera / CC BY-SA 3.0

That courthouse square also organizes Morgan's road pattern. State routes 37, 45, 234, and 41 come into the center, bringing county business into the same streets as city offices and everyday errands. Morgan briefly lost the county seat to Arlington after a 1923 referendum, then regained it in 1929, a small political detour that still shows why the courthouse matters so much to the town's identity. Morgan is a county-seat city first, with its civic history and road network concentrated around one square.