Clay County, Georgia: History
This area was historically occupied by the Creek Indians until Indian Removal in the 1830s. European Americans pushed them out and developed the land for cotton, bringing in thousands of African slaves to work the land.
The county is named in honor of Henry Clay, famous American statesman, member of the United States Senate from Kentucky and United States Secretary of State in the 19th century. Part of the Black Belt geological formation of Georgia, prior to the American Civil War the county's chief commodity crop was cotton, cultivated and processed by farmers and African-American slaves. After the war, the economy continued to be agricultural, but timber was also harvested.
Clay was created by a February 16, 1854, act of the Georgia General Assembly, and organized from portions of Early and Randolph counties.
Clay County's population is one-third of what it was in 1910.