Donalsonville, Georgia

Donalsonville, Georgia
City
Donalsonville City Hall
Flag Seal
Motto:  The Gateway to Lake Seminole [1]
Location in Seminole County and the state of Georgia
Coordinates: 31°2′27″N84°52′42″W / 31.04083°N 84.87833°W / 31.04083; -84.87833
Country	United States
State	Georgia
County	Seminole
Government
• Type	Council-Manager
•  Mayor	Ronald Johnson
Area [2]
• Total	3.99 sq mi (10.34 km2)
• Land	3.97 sq mi (10.29 km2)
• Water	0.02 sq mi (0.05 km2)
Elevation	148 ft (45 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	2,833
• Density	713.42/sq mi (275.43/km2)
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
ZIP Codes	39845
Area code	229
FIPS code	13-23368 [3]
GNIS feature ID	0331568 [4]
Website	donalsonvillega.org

Donalsonville is a city in and the county seat of Seminole County, Georgia, United States. ^[5] The population was 2,833 in 2020.

Contents

• History
• Geography
• Climate
• Demographics
• Economy
• Education
• Public library
• The Alday murders
• Religion
• Notable people
• References
• External links

History

Donalsonville was originally part of Decatur County. It is named after John Ernest Donalson (1846–1920), also known as Jonathan or John E. Donalson, a prominent businessman of the area. Donalson built the first lumber mill in Donalsonville, Donalson Lumber Company. He also built homes and a commissary for the workers of the mill. The lumber company paved the way for the town's growth.

Donalsonville was first chartered as a town in Georgia on December 8, 1897. ^[6] When Seminole County was formed in January 1920, Donalsonville was named as its county seat. By August 1922, the Town of Donalsonville became known as the City of Donalsonville, with the charter passing on August 19, 1922.

The Seminole County Courthouse was erected in 1922 and is still standing today. The Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Wolfe)

Geography

Donalsonville is located at 31°2′27″N84°52′42″W / 31.04083°N 84.87833°W / 31.04083; -84.87833 . ^[7]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.0 square miles (10 km²), of which 4.0 square miles (10 km²) is land and 0.25% is water. The city is located 20 minutes north of Lake Seminole, 62 miles (100 km) south of Albany, 36 miles (58 km) east of Dothan, Alabama and 107 miles (172 km) west of Valdosta.

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 2,833 people, 872 households, and 542 families residing in the city.

Economy

Donalsonville has about a 63% high school graduate rate with about 52% in the work force. The biggest industries are education, health, and social services. (Georgia.gov) The average median income for households according to the U.S. Census report in 2000 was $20,687 and median family income was $25,679, with the average household size around 2 and family size around 3 people.

According to 2012 data from the Donalsonville Chamber of Commerce, ^[12] the top five employers in the city are as follows:

Education

The Seminole County School District holds pre-school to grade twelve, and consists of one elementary school and one middle-high school. ^[13] The district has 120 full-time teachers and over 1,754 students. ^[14]

• Seminole County Elementary School
• Seminole County Middle/High School

The Alday murders

Donalsonville was the site of the second largest mass murder in Georgia history (the largest being the Woolfolk murders in 1887). On May 14, 1973, Carl Isaacs, his half brother Wayne Coleman, and fellow prisoner George Dungee escaped from the Maryland State Prison. They were later joined by Carl's younger brother, 15-year-old Billy Isaacs. ^[16] While en route to Florida the men came upon the Alday farm in Donalsonville. They stopped at a mobile home owned by Jerry Alday and his wife Mary, to look for gas as there was a gas pump on the property. ^[17]

Alday and his father Ned Alday arrived as the trailer was being ransacked and were ordered inside, then shot to death in separate bedrooms. Jerry's brother Jimmy arrived at the trailer on a tractor and he too was led inside and forced to lay on a couch, then shot. Later, Jerry's 25-year-old wife Mary arrived at the trailer as the men attempted to hide the tractor. She was restrained, while Jerry's brother Chester and uncle Aubrey arrived in a pickup truck. The criminals accosted the pair still in their truck and forced them inside the trailer where they were also shot to death. Mary Alday was raped on her kitchen table before being taken out to a wooded area miles away where she was raped again and then finally murdered. ^[18]

Billy Isaacs cooperated with prosecutors and received a twenty-year sentence for armed robbery. ^[19] Carl Isaacs, Coleman, and Dungee were tried by jury in Seminole County in 1973, convicted, and sentenced to death. All three convictions and sentences were overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in 1985, on the grounds that the pool of local jurors had been tainted by excess pretrial publicity. ^[20] All three defendants were re-tried in 1988 and were again convicted; however, only Carl Isaacs was sentenced to death, Coleman and Dungee receiving life sentences.

Carl Isaacs was executed on May 6, 2003, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, by lethal injection. ^[21] At the time of his execution, aged 49, he was the longest-serving death row inmate anywhere in the US, having spent 30 years on death row prior to execution. ^{[22] [23]}

Billy Isaacs was released from prison in 1993, ^[24] and died in Florida on May 4, 2009. George Dungee died in prison on April 4, 2006. Only Wayne Coleman remains incarcerated (as of 2023).

The murders were the subject on an award-winning 1977 documentary called Murder One directed by Fleming 'Tex' Fuller. ^[25] Fuller then wrote a screenplay, which was filmed as the 1988 film, Murder One , starring Henry Thomas. ^[26] The 1988 film was widely released in North America, but it wasn't released in southwest Georgia near where the killings took place, so as not to offend people. ^[26]

Janice Daugharty published a fictionalized account of the murders, Going to Jackson (2010, ).

Religion

By the 1900s, the need for churches arose. The first church was erected in Donalsonville in 1850, the Friendship United Methodist Church. In the beginning the Methodist Church served as a meeting place for all Protestant denominations. Later, the First Presbyterian Church of Donalsonville was established in January 1898 with 25 members. On August 4, 1902, 18 people helped to create the First Baptist Church of Donalsonville. The Church of The Nazarene, originally called "The Holiness Church," was established in October 1902. The meetings of the Church of the Nazarene were actually held in a member's house until 1903, when a building was erected. The first black church in Donalsonville was created in 1895, the Live Oak African Methodist Episcopal Church. Eventually, the number totalled thirteen.

Notable people

• John and Clarence Anglin – brothers who escaped from Alcatraz prison in 1962
• Alfred Corn, poet and essayist, born Bainbridge and lived in Donalsonville and Valdosta
• Bacarri Rambo – former Miami Dolphins safety
• Phillip Daniels – former NFL player, current Assistant Defensive Line Coach for the Philadelphia Eagles

Related Research Articles

Seminole County is a county located in the southwestern corner of U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,147. The county seat is Donalsonville.

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DeKalb County is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,382, making it Georgia's fourth-most populous county. Its county seat is Decatur.

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Lee Arrendale State Prison of the Georgia Department of Corrections is a women's prison located in Raoul, unincorporated Habersham County, Georgia, near Alto, and in proximity to Gainesville. It houses the state death row for women.

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Georgia State Prison was the main maximum-security facility in the US state of Georgia for the Georgia Department of Corrections. It was located in unincorporated Tattnall County. First opened in 1938, the prison housed some of the most dangerous inmates in the state's history, and it was the site of Georgia's death row until 1980.

State Route 39 is a 118-mile-long (190 km) state highway that travels south-to-north through portions of Seminole, Miller, Early, Clay, Quitman, and Stewart counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. The route proceeds north from its southern terminus along the shore of Lake Seminole in southern Seminole County to a point just southwest of Omaha, where it travels in an easterly direction until it meets its northern terminus, an intersection with US 27/SR 1 in a rural south of the unincorporated community of Louvale.

Peter Zack Geer was an American lawyer and a Democratic politician from the U.S. state of Georgia.

Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.

The Seminole County School District is a public school district in Seminole County, Georgia, United States, based in Donalsonville. It serves the communities of Donalsonville and Iron City.

Thomas Julian Webb was a member of the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1974. He was also a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals from 1974 to 1979.

Murder One is a 1988 independent biographical crime drama film starring Henry Thomas and James Wilder, based on the 1973 Alday Murders.

References

External links

• Official Website of Donalsonville-Seminole County Chamber of Commerce Includes Donalsonville and Iron City
• Seminole County School System includes Donalsonville, Iron City and Seminole County
• Seminole County Public Library