MILLER COUNTY? Growing area?

[Poledo]

Instead of chatting about Wally World why don't we try to figure out what type of radio industry exists in Colquitt Georgia? There's one little class A non-comm licensed to the county. What could possibly be done with it that would come close to making that a sucessful station?

This whole thread is confusing. It's obvious there's nothing to be made in Miller county. Why even post the question? The data says it all, no opinion from a local is needed.

Why Colquitt?

Oh yeah, if your thinking about a trip to SW GA, we're experiencing the worst mosquito hatchout that anyone can remember. Can't even mow the freaking grass... Looks like I'll be spending most of this summer down here on Pensacola Beach watching BP dig for oil while the sky is eerily silent due to the Blue Angles being grounded by Obama... sons of bitches spill oil on my beach and stupid politics cancel the biggest tourist attration we have. That's how you shut down mom and pop businesses, it doesn't require a Low-Mart-Depot.

 

[secondchoice]

I hear the stories of truck drivers in particular as well as other employees who have retired as MILLIONAIRES because they took advantage of the 401k and other benefits Walmart was offering and they stayed with the program. And they bought STOCK in the company. My brother never worked for Walmart, but he watched all this and he started investing in the company because he could see where they were headed. He told me recently that besides whatever else he has in pensions, retirements and what have you, he owns over 1,000 shares of Walmart. Look up the current selling price for the stock. Do the math.

I am not a champion for Walmart. But I'll have to say that "they are not quite the dirty bastards" that folklore in our country makes them out to be.

Those employees that "made out" financially were hired when Sam was alive. At last count there were over 10,000 children on Peachcare (GA medicaid) who parents were full time employees of Walmart.


http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=175673

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-118711308.html

dch.georgia.gov/.../121418289Medicaid%20%20the%20Economy%20...

If you are a shareholder of Walmart you can really be pround of this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...care-policy-medicaid-obamacare_n_2220152.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...cks-taxpayers-with-employee-healthcare-costs/

First they support it then when it is time to pay up they balk! They claim high cost increases. May be but you do not get to be the US's #1 retailer without knowing what your costs are going to be long term.


If I was going to do "small town radio" I would look where the oil / natural gas drilling is booming. These are usually small towns (except Midland TX) where there is some room spectrum wise especially the Dakotas.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Those employees that "made out" financially were hired when Sam was alive. At last count there were over 10,000 children on Peachcare (GA medicaid) who parents were full time employees of Walmart.

http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=175673

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-118711308.html

We have herded this conversation about Miller County and broadcasting far, far off the track. JOSH has asked about the status of broadcasting in Miller County NOW and going forward into the future. What do links to two news stories that are now nine years old really do to help Josh sort out peanuts from the gravel?

By the way..... Does Miller County have a Walmart store? That might be helpful info for Josh.

If I was going to do "small town radio" I would look where the oil / natural gas drilling is booming. These are usually small towns (except Midland TX) where there is some room spectrum wise especially the Dakotas.

Several years ago I came across a tip for broadcasters.... particularly in small markets... or stations aimed at targeted communities rather than metro areas. At the time we had been doing some genealogy searches and I was focused on why a family that had moved from North Carolina to Georgia in the mid 1800's would have settled in the particular location we had tracked down. The man we were tracking was the new son-in-law of a man who was a "miller". He had the equipment and skills to turn grain into flour or meal. In that era it was essential to have water power to have an efficient mill, to have a volume mill. (One mule plodding around a turnstile can grind a limited amount of grain.)

The tip about radio was: Ally with a local sign-maker... maybe one of these new franchise shops that makes these quick vinly window signs. Don't find a local sign-maker? Go buy your own franchise and run it along side your radio station. Here was the logic: Someone opening a NEW RETAIL BUSINESS will come to buy signs like: "Grand Opening". Sign maker with cozy relationship to radio whispers in ear of radio salesman: "Prospect, new business... right over there - - - -=>

I molded those two ideas together and said: Self- you need to come up with a list... maybe even an entire book of "Locate near a stream" ideas for radio station operators. And then my brain went dry. What other things can the owner/operator of a radio station do that is the equivalent of homesteading next to a stream when you plan to grind wheat into flour. It has been a long dry spell since that inspirational moment.

Seeking out a community that is being supercharged by something like a developing oil or gas drilling boom is like the miller looking for land along the flowing stream.

In my mind, we have established that Miller County (as a radio market) is possibly a bit marginal in size. Is there something we are overlooking about the market place? Any new factories announced lately? Is something new about to happen in farming?

Is there a thriving hospital? Or one in planning? When I moved to where I am now, for all practical purposes, there was no hospital. (One existed that needed to be retired... and they did... to clear the market place for a NEW hospital.) Today we have a power-house hospital where about 3,000 people go to work every week. That enterprise alone puts out enough payroll that in turn results in enough retail sales to fund a modest little radio station. BUT, we don't have a radio station!

P.S. About the comment regarding "When Sam was alive..." Ask someone familiar with Walmart what it means when someone discussing Walmart says: "Now that all the boots are gone....." .

 

[Poledo]

A few years back a new Ethanol plant was built in that area. I believe it was in Miller county but it might have been in one of the counties just north of there. Anyway, it was supposed to be the "next big thing" in SW Georgia and our corn crops were going to start bringing a premium price. We were all super excited since we had just lost government subsidies for Peanut production. The Ethanol plant is now in bankruptcy but it was built in a great location and if the ethanol industry rebounds it will surely pump some much needed money my way..... uh, into the area I mean.

No Walmart in Colquitt but folks in Miller county don't mind the 20 mile drive down to Bainbridge.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

In rural America, you don't have to have a Walmart right in your town for your local retailing to be affected. You are right on target: one twenty miles down the road will bring "the pressures" to your main street.

To help Josh and anyone else who is looking at markets that might be ripe for a radio operation or ownership change: There is a drama that plays out across the nation that is an economic tug-of-war. Sometimes the economy is a bit like when you go to the beach and you are enjoying splashing in the surf and suddenly the new waves stop coming in, and all the previous waves that washed up on the short are all headed back out to sea. You have what we call "under-tow".

Here in our part of the world we have been going through "The Water Wars" for what now.... over 15 years? Alabama and Florida have taken Georgia to court in a fight over how much of the water that flows out the North Georgian mountains and hills should be dammed up a kept in North Georgia for domestic use, and how much of that water must be allowed to flow down stream so that good things can happen in Alabama and Florida. Barges can be towed up and down the rivers. Power plants can run their cooling towers. Those fishing lakes can continue to attract the economy of the sportsman. And the fishes and amphibians can continue to breed in the rivers. Those are the visible, observable things to fight over.

The less visible fight is this: The Atlanta area has blossomed in the last 50 years. And people in south Alabama and south GEORGIA are convinced that some of the factories and office buildings that clutter the landscape in Atlanta would be in the rural areas of Alabama and Georgia and Florida if the water were equitably divided up. And that is a discussion for which there is no reliable calculation.

Companies like the one that was going to turn sawgrass into fuel are sometimes attracted to places that are desperate for industry. The companies know that communities can issue bonds to pay for the construction of factory buildings, and they have the legal ability to forgive property taxes for a certain number of years. The stronger, less spectulative companies can go to other communities that offer some advantages. The "wildcatters" of the world chasing shaky dreams like alternative fuels find that the only girl left to dance with at the Senior Prom may be rural places that don't have the best roads, don't offer company management the best schools for their children, but they do have the ability to finance the production facility and forgive property taxes. So time after time we see struggling communities in a shotgun wedding with a struggling company.

Some times it works. Some times it fails.

Owning a radio station in a community that may be in the scenario I described is always a real challenge.

When I was in high school I lived in a community like that. We built a factory building for a company that had been turned down by a number of other communities. Within 18 months the factory was shut down because of a family fight by the owners. They finally got back on speaking terms and the little factory that tied up our ability to borrow industrial funds has smoldered like yesterday's campfire for decades now. When I go home to see family, attend weddings, funerals and class reunions, there is NEVER much in the way of vehicles in the parking lot.

To do radio in a community like that... you have to be patient, you have to be able to close your eyes to some of the disappointment and struggling attitudes, and you have to be good at convincing merchants that maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. And that same kind of pressure is present even if you are running the not-for-profit station doing religious programming.

Now... if we could just figure out how to sell advertising to all those mosquitoes....... ;D I did radio in Stuttgart AR many years ago. I understand the mosquito situation LOUD AND CLEAR! We called it "The Grand Prarie". The problem with a grand prarie.... it is surrounded by The Grand Swamps! And then covered by rice farms. Water and mosquitoes and crop dusters as far as the eye can see.

 

[Poledo]

Wow! GRC you know a whole lot more than I would expect anyone on here to know. A couple of your earlier "stories" through me off but once you showed that you knew I couldn't get a permit to drill an irrigation well 10 miles north of the Florida state line because of Atlanta's water issues you showed your hand. You also obviously understand how angry it makes us that the city 5 hours north of us is telling us we can't have water even though we want to tap into completely different aquifers. Atlanta wants to take so much water from the Chattahoochee River that it's threatening the Apalachicola Bay oyster beds. We just aren't capable of accepting that even if it is does benefit the state/region more than anything we are capable of producing in the rural south.

I only know a little bit about everything. Your much more deeply into advertising psychology than I ever expected or wanted to get.

So do you teach this stuff or have you already retired?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Your words are kind... and because this thread at times has been a bit caustic around the edges, your kindness is even more appreciated.

I'm not a teacher in the sense of having a degree in education, or a license to take charge of a classrom in a school system. But all my life I have been the unofficial trainer in whatever task I was doing. And there has been a variety of many tasks!

This struggle over water is profound. And all of us who are affected by it find ourselves being quite sure we are the ones being wronged the most. I don't have a lake front lot but I can step out onto my deck on the back side of the house and about six or seven hundred feet away and 130 feet below me I can see the sun sprakling on the surface of Lake Lanier... during the Winter months. In the Summer, the forest is so thick I can't the back side of my lot 60 feet away. I live in a community where the ONLY city in the county and the county are often at war with each other. Only the city has a permit to withdraw "drinking water" from the lake, and the accusation is that they hold the county hostage when it comes to selling them water for the rural area. This fight was going on before I moved here, and the county will gladly build their own intake and pumping system if the Feds will just sign the withdrawal permit. So you live at one end of the state or over in Florida as the case may be, and you know that the bad hombres in Atlanta are messing up YOUR life. I live up here on the "elevated stage" area of the geography and I know that the bad hombres down where you live are messing up MY life.

You would think there must be some adults who work in the state capital of each of these three states... but apparently not. They just keep fanning the flames. But.... that's what the voters apparently want them to do.

In radio we have a similar struggle. The people own broadcast properties in Atlanta and Birmingham and Orlando and some of the slightly smaller but very viable cities all know exactly how radio should work, and they lobby Congress and the FCC to make sure the rules work well for them. And the folks who operate the little "4 cup percolator" radio stations out in the county seats and small community of the rural area are not able to lobby as effectively, but they fight for law and regulation that makes broadcasting viable in say Moultrie or Perry or Enterprise. Years ago when women's panty-hose became the rage, one company had an advertising scheme that hammered and hammered one little line: "One size fits all!" To which newspaper columnist Erma Bombeck who was not quite the same size as some the "cute little things" populating the earth responded: "One size fits all WHAT?"

One-size-broadcasting-law doesn't serve all types of markets or all WHATS gracefully, and 15 or 20 years of bickering tells us one legal concept does not gracefully distribute the water.

So: what's the water status in Miller County? Do they have a mix of farming and forrestry that can avoid the worst of the pains of the water wars.... or does it cripple the local economy as badly as some of the nearby counties?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Sorry. I wrote an entire train-length response and didn't address one of your two questions at all.

I don't get up and go to work. But nothing in life ever prepared me for the concept we Americans call "retirement". My father set a tall hurdle for me to match. He ran his cattle until he was 82.

I am currently developing a "voice over" business... but not aimed at broadcasting. Long form stuff. Book narration. E-Learning for corporations, etc.

I build some websites for organizations.

I'm known on the peninsula as "that crazy guy you see out working in his yard... EVERYDAY!

I do a little bit of crude furniture building.

And I just remodeled my recording studio.

There are not enough hours in the day. I finally ended yesterday at 3 A.M. this morning.

The earth will rumble slightly the day I go into Linked In and change my status from semi-retired to RETIRED. ;D

 

[Poledo]

So: what's the water status in Miller County? Do they have a mix of farming and forrestry that can avoid the worst of the pains of the water wars.... or does it cripple the local economy as badly as some of the nearby counties?

I really don't know. My father and grandfathers were the farmers but they all passed away before I was willing to learn the industry. Our land was mainly a cattle farm until my grandparents passed and I stepped up and insisted that my mother keep the farm instead of selling it... It turned out to be one of the best business decisions my mom ever made. I had to reach out to my friends to figure out how to make the land productive enough to cover taxes and maintain it properly but my hands were tied on the easy approach, my mom forbid me from leasing it for hunting. A politician/farmer friend of mine believed he still had enough pull to get a permit to drill a proper well so we could grow tomatoes but it was to late, we couldn't pull off the permit. I know from reading articles in the GA Farm Bureau trade magazines that the Dept. of Ag started a pilot program to pay farmers not to plant on land that drew water from Chattahoochee and Flint River tributaries but I don't know of anyone involved in that program. We rotate corn on "dry land" so selling the corn to the new Ethanol plant about an hour away was great news but after one harvest the plant was shuttered. I don't know the whole story of why the plant was an initial failure but all these new "green energy" projects seem to be failing. I've never heard anything to suggest the water restrictions caused problems for Ethanol production.
In the late '80's we were given an allotment and tax credits to plant 50 acres of pines, I assume this was to take that acreage out of production. I don't know what the state's goals were back then. I didn't want to have anything to do with farming in the 1980's... that was when I was still smart enough to see how hard the work was and that there were much easier ways to earn a living.
So today, with land free and clear of any debt, it is not possible for me to support myself farming "dry land". Taking into consideration all the help I require to keep the farm running I'm really doing well to bring in a minimal profit each year. Therefore I can't retire to the farm and drive around a tractor and enjoy a peaceful life like we used to see on "Green Acres".

See how I brought this thread back around to the initial post of "... is it like Hooterville down there?"

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

We rotate corn on "dry land" so selling the corn to the new Ethanol plant about an hour away was great news but after one harvest the plant was shuttered. I don't know the whole story of why the plant was an initial failure but all these new "green energy" projects seem to be failing. I've never heard anything to suggest the water restrictions caused problems for Ethanol production.

Owning a radio station in a town that is tied to ONE industry is a roll of the dice. Was it earlier in this thread someone suggested acquiring radio in a town where gas or oil exploration is booming? Some petroleum towns prosper for decades because they become operational centers. In others, all the people come to down for a few months, maybe a few years, they drill-drilll-drill, and then they finish and everyone leaves town. Takes very few people to mind and maintain working wells. If royalties are still owned by local families, the local community prospers and a lot of people have available money that retailers can seek. If out of town investors were able to acquire all the mineral rights, those royalties are all flowing to somewhere else. And the local community sees very little economic activity.

One of the problems of the Ethanol industry that detractors claim (it is always hard to tell valid information from political rhetoric) is that it takes so much energy to transform vegetation into fuel, there is very little net gain. Enthusiasm for Ethanol and similar products continued strong in spite of those claims because it was claimed that the net pollution is reduced by substituting Ethanol for petroleum. We don't know what the facts are because the political rhetoric from both sides dominates the information.

What Hooterville everywhere needs is multiple streams of this kind of thing. Get away from the boom and bust economy of being tied to ONE technology, one industry.

LOCAL RADIO and LOCAL NEWSPAPER and people running these new LOCAL INTERNET NEWS-BLOGS should be all over this diversification concept. My hometown got caught up for a few years in a pickle fad. My brothers holds a grudge to this day because I left home the year my Dad started growing cucumbers for the pickle factory. Brother got stuck with being a "pickle picker" for 3 or 4 years. But that was a fleeting fad. Then someone put in a charcoal factory. It lasted longer... but now it too is gone. A radio station dream would be to have a community with 12 to 15 of these specialty industries. Lose one. Go find a new one.

In the late '80's we were given an allotment and tax credits to plant 50 acres of pines, I assume this was to take that acreage out of production. I don't know what the state's goals were back then. I didn't want to have anything to do with farming in the 1980's... that was when I was still smart enough to see how hard the work was and that there were much easier ways to earn a living.
So today, with land free and clear of any debt, it is not possible for me to support myself farming "dry land". Taking into consideration all the help I require to keep the farm running I'm really doing well to bring in a minimal profit each year.

The old regional FARM RADIO stations that had at least a part time and maybe a full time Farm Director to look after these things and help the locals stay on top of trends were priceless. When rock-n-roll came along and one by one what we used to (boy am I dating myself now!) call traditional programming switched over, it was often the station with a Farm Director who kept the old style station alive. They helped farmers understand all these government programs and evaluate which ones were worth messing with.

My brother-in-law was farming rice 40 years ago in a part of the Ozarks where you don't normally find rice. a GOVERNMENT PROGRAM assisted him in removing trees from the bottom land and "precision leveling" the fields for irrigation. (That was a new term to me at the time, and I was a farm boy.) Ten years ago a new government plant assisted him in paying the cost to go plant trees in those same fields since we apparently have more rice acres than we need.

Hooterville needs media that can see these trends coming and keep the locals advised. Unfortunately, the economics of media (not just broadcasting... but print as well) make it almost impossible to budget enough to journalism to be that kind of influence in your local community.

A person like yourself always has to ponder once in a while as you sip some sweet tea on a Thursday afternoon: What else could I being doing with a part of my land that I don't know about? When I was young... someone on the radio would tell us. Today.... not so much.

 

[ngriffin]

I don't think I can add much more than GRC and Poldo have offered (enjoyed reading the posts!). All I can say, is that there is no way I'd run a station in Colquitt to make a living. There just aren't enough listeners, advertisers, or underwriters/donors to make it work. If I lived there, had a full-time job, some friends who wanted to play radio for a hobby, and some rich friends to help underwrite it, I'd consider applying for an LPFM.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

A few years ago the Federal Aviation Administration realized there were people who would like to fly small airplanes now and then. Just go out for the afternoon... in good weather.... and play tag with the big white puffy clouds. (On second thought, don't get quite that close even to clouds that look friendly and look like they are smiling.)

Maintaining even a non-commercial Private Pilots licnese is tedious, and getting it in the first place is expensive and tedious. So the created a RECREATIONAL class of pilots license. No going to the doctor for the finger you-know-where medical exam, etc. If your state considers you healthy enough to drive a car (just present your drivers license) we assume you are healthy enough for some "stroll in the park" flying.

Why not something between the LPFM and traditional radio stations. Call it something comparable to RECREATIONAL BROADCASTING LICENSE. Allow commercials. Owners cannot be owners or partners in multiple stations. There probably should be a provision for the primary owner to actually live somewhere else. Someone who is financially substantial and lives in Dallas or Chicago or Boston wants to stabilize communications back in his/her hometown.

There are some Colquitts in this land that either have no station, or have one that is about dead but not yet buried. It isn't going to damage the existing broadcasting industry to allow places like Paoli IN or Woodbury TN or Mineral Point WI or Dateland AZ to have a station that can be thriving (at it's intended level) and surviving.

One of my favorite writers on RadioDiscussions has suggested that some people who want to do LPFM should probably just rent or buy a building and start a bookstore/coffee shop similar to folks who start a model railroad club or a skeet shooting club. When he wrote that... I just giggled and said: That's it... a coffee club, a not-for-profit version of Starbucks with a small transmitter rather than a juke box.

Works for me. ;D

 

[fortt3]

I have immensely enjoyed this discussion. Thanks!

 

[joshzz]

Is there anything in particular that is preventing Miller County from growing into a thriving market with lots of business? From photos I've seen it looks like a nice area with clean air and lots of area to develop in a positive way. It doesn't appear to be near a flood plain and there don't seem to be any environmental conditions that would prevent growth. Your thoughts.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Josh- I guess some of the stuff we "Southern Boys" are talking about just doesn't register with you.

There are parts of the rural South, parts of Nebraska and the Dakotas that you can't grit your teeth hard enough to bring about growth if your life depends on it.

I dreamed for a number of years that I would go back to my home county in Arkansas and somehow just by being there, (and by gritting my teeth) I could somehow generate growth.... economic growth..... population growth... and life would be wonderful and they would have a joyous event when it came time to bury me because I showed them how to GROW.

Grab the census figures for some of these counties starting with 1940. Get the number for every ten years right up through 2010. Look how many shrink a little bit every 10 years. Check with the First Baptist Church in some of these towns. Ask for their Sunday School attendance figures over the last 70 years. In county after county, that number goes down and down and down.

When you get into this spiral, even when companies are on the hunt for a place to locate a new small factory, they find your downward-spiral town doesn't have the water supply or water processing system to give your factory the water you need.

You can't become a "bedroom community" because there is no urban center close enough to commute to.

There are two kinds of places that are the seedbed for the politics we associate with The Tea Party today. The suburban Conservatives have good jobs and they mainly want to keep their money from the tax man. But the rural folks are sure that somehow the city folks are purposely squeezing them, and because of the non-complicated life-style of little rural towns, this whole thing of losing what is precious to them.... a church with conservative theology, or their guns.... (or both) and they are politically hostile.

If you are serious about figuring out how to do radio in a place like Miller County, and you want to understand what you face, you need to take a road trip. Start around Brunswick, GA. Wander across southern Georgia, across southern Alabama starting to veer a bit to the north, across Mississippi and on into Arkansas going through Pine Bluff and on into Little Rock. Stop and visit pastors, chamber of commerce folks, stop in a lot of coffee shops and strike up some conversation.

I suspect you don't have a clue as to what makes these folks so angry about the Yankees who are squeezing the blood out of their turnips. They have no other explanation as to why they can't grow their economy. Don't get me wrong. You will run into some truly affluent people, some just plain rich folks as you make such a trip. But their number is few. And their attitude on life may surprise you.

These are great places to live... maybe great places to raise your children.... just bring your own economy with you. There are typically no spigots left for newcomers and outsiders to plug into the existing economy.

 

[Poledo]

GRC said it all.

Miller county won't grow for the next decade because it's just a little too far north of Tallahassee and too far east of Dothan. Once property becomes too expensive in Decatur and Seminole counties folks will venture into Miller county. That might take 10 or 20 years.... It will eventually happen, just not soon.

People from Albany tend to migrate north toward Columbus, so I doubt Albany will become a factor in Colquitt's growth.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

Goat Rodeo Cowboy, you've made some excellent observations on small market radio and rural Georgia radio and living.

I've a friend who owns an AM/FM operation in a slightly bigger but equally rural county and if it wasn't for the folks from the adjacent counties who buy air time, he'd never make it. The few merchants who operate in the county just don't buy enough air time to keep the operation sustainable.

 

[Poledo]

Miller county just might be the smallest county in the state of Georgia... and Georgia doesn't have any large counties... Maybe Fulton could be considered large but it was formed by combining two counties into one. I can't remember what led to the creation of the modern Fulton county.

Adjacent to Miller County is Decatur County. Decatur county has a nice industrial park built on an old Military base with plenty of vacant space. Decatur county also has multiple large parcels of land recently decided into 100-500 acre plots for farm/hunting land. Both of these factors will just help slow the growth of Miller County.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Miller county just might be the smallest county in the state of Georgia... and Georgia doesn't have any large counties... Maybe Fulton could be considered large but it was formed by combining two counties into one.

The "folklore" on why counties are small, and why county seats tend to be in the middle of the county, is tied to the history of Georgia being a state VERY VERY early in the history of the nation. So much of the county structure was put in place early. I don't know if people are quoting me a law, or just a "gentleman's agreement" policy, but during the formative years, it was a policy that no part of the county can be more than one day's travel to (and from?) the county seat. The counties that were formed BEFORE we had any kind of sophistication in road systems, meant "one day's PRIMITIVE TRAIL travel. Apparently a county that is up against a river that is a state line may have had a significant town already on the river but in some cases it is possible they had to go out in the woods and set up a county seat in the middle of no-where to meet the one day travel concept. I have no example, no proof of any county where that happened, but I have lived in counties in other states where la village of 600 people was the county seat just a few miles from a town of 13,000 which WAS NOT the county seat. That is uncommon.

When you look at a map of Fulton County GA it looks like a strange chess piece or something. And at the north end the geography includes this little ball, this chess-piece head or something. That appendage used to be MILTON county which was sparse and poor. During the great depression it is reported that the county was so poor and sparse that they could not afford to operate so they begged to be annexed into Fulton County. It hasn't been that many years since downtown Alpharetta had some gravel streets.... so I am told. Today all the newly formed towns at the north end of Fulton County want to become MILTON County again. Alpharetta, for example, (numbers may be a little off) has a night-time population of 60,000. (People with a home address.) Alpharetta has a day-time population of 160,000. Some of the 60,000 commute to other places to work so that means 100,000 people commute INTO Alpharetta every day plus as many more people commute in to make up for those who live there and commute out each morning to work in Atlanta or Marietta or Decatur or who knows where.

When you live in a place like that, you have a hard time even beginning to comprehend what the challenges are for Miller County. (And I guess it works the other way around too!) When you live in a rural, small population county, there is a tendency to be a bit neighborly, to maybe tolerate people who have different politics or expectations or religion than you do.

If you come and visit a place like Alpharetta, you will possibly stand in awe at the parade of BMWs, Lexus'es, and other automobiles of significant price tag. Most people don't get the place of being able to outfit a 3 or 4 car garage with a fleet of high-dollar cars without being a strong personality person. If you come from a place like Miller County and you move to a place like Alpharetta, GA or Carmel and Fishers IN, it takes a while to get used to the "king of the road" mentality that is not hidden away out of politeness the way it often is in rural areas. There are nice people, polite people there, but they are king of the road underneath the nice.

Don't get me wrong. It's a short trip to Alpharetta for me and I am there often for worship or socializing, but for an old country boy like me, going there is a little bit like a trip to Disney World.... without the E-ticket rides.

FOOTNOTE: Being a political centrist on a number of topics, this desire to recreate MILTON county by surgically removing it from Fulton County is going to be one contentious, nasty ball game. In a sense that move just plain KILLS Fulton County. Financially. Politically. Fulton County says: we need to keep the taxes from the rich northern suburbs. The Rich suburbs fight among themselves over this topic, but they say: fine. Turn your Atlanta MARTA system and your world's busiest airport over to the state and then we will talk. STALEMATE!

 

[Poledo]

To be a little more specific with the Georgia county layout, the county seats are laid out where anyone within the county lines could travel by mule, round trip, to the county seat in a day or less.

I believe Miller county was carved out of Decatur county (and maybe parts of adjacent counties) much later than most other Georgia counties were created. I don't believe the "Mule Rule" applied or had anything to do with the creation of Miller county.

Looking at a map you may think the Flint river was a barrier but the Woodruff dam at Lake Seminole isn't all that old. People are still alive that remember more bridges and multiple ferries that used to cross the Flint river... but today with that dam it can easily cause a person to take 90 minutes to drive to a bridge to get around the river to a neighbor you can holler across the river to.